Short Personality Analysis
There are billions of people in the world, but one surprising thing is that every person has several unique traits that no other person has. These traits act like psychological fingerprints, and together they form a person’s personality. Personality, therefore, can be said to be a collection of traits which are unique to a person. Personality can be used to predict the manner in which someone is likely to act. The specific aspects of an individual’s personality are referred to as traits, and the traits are responsible for the type of personality which other people around will perceive an individual to possess (O’Hagan, 2003).
Personalities can be compared to looks in one way or the other. When it comes to interacting with other people, there are people whom an individual does not get along with simply because of their looks while it is exceptionally easy for him/her to interact with others. Similarly, there are personalities one likes and gets on with while disliking the others. In general, the feeling of whether a person has the quality to be liked or not is mainly based on your perception of that person’s physique. Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist, developed one of the famous type-trait theory of personality.
He suggested that there were two main types of personalities which he referred to as the introvert and the extrovert. This paper tries to make a brief explanation of the theory showing how it relates to real life. Jung referred to people who like spending most of their time by themselves as introverts. These types of people do not like spending most of their time being in the company of large groups of people. It is, however, not right to conclude that such people are not social; it is regarded as the condition where one prefers being in the company of few people but not the anti- social behavior.
People will always judge based on the things they see and the way how a person behaves and conducts himself. There are people who enjoy being in the midst of others. These kinds of people find themselves sad whenever they are alone. This personality is a complete opposite of introvert and is referred to as extrovert. Extroverts will always like to be the center of attraction (Olsen, 2002). These are people who are good team players and will always prefer working things out as a group rather than at a personal level.
These traits are displayed remarkably well in real life. Each and every individual has a role and duty to play in the society. Everyone also occupies a certain position in the social system. The way how people relate in the different social positions makes up a social structure. From this, it can be deduced that the social structure that exists in a given setting is significantly influenced by the form of personalities possessed by its members.
If most people are introverts, it is likely that there exist less social ties within that society as most people would prefer doing things on their own other than in unity. On the other hand, a society where most people are extroverts is likely to be highly integrated; people would prefer to come together and handle things in unity. In the latter society, people take others’ issues as their own as opposed to a “mind your own business” social setup (Kinkead, 1992). Having a certain personality sometimes is a result of things beyond personal control. A person may at one point hate another’s personality, but, on the other hand, one is not able to change it. One ought to know and accept his form of personality to have peace within oneself.
The desire to change one’s personality and adapt that of a friend, schoolmate or even family member can be a real cause of identity crises (Meltzer and Morales, 2005).In every setting, one may find people who cannot be classified as introverts or extroverts. These are people who relate with everyone at ease. Such groups of people will display different multiple traits in the same setting and the same circumstance. People who display extrovert traits and, at the same time, introvert traits are referred to as ambiverts. Describing your own personality sometimes can be a tricky thing to do.
I may call myself an ambient. Looking at my life in school and at home, I am tempted to say that my mood controls my behaviors and the way I act. When I am in complete jovial moods, one will always find me in the middle of crowd. These are times when I fill at my best. During my dear moods, I always like being the one in control. It is always my pleasure to see things getting done my way and at one point or another may even not appreciate when someone else takes the lead.
Is this my personality? At the moments when I feel at my best, I sometimes do things which I regret later and wonder how I could lose control over small manageable things (Meltzer and Morales, 2005). It is not at all times that I display extroverted traits. At one point or the other, I find myself acting in an introveerted manner. At such times, I prefer being alone, not even being in the company of my best friends. It is not surprising that even at home one will find me not interested in dining with my family members. These are times when I prefer staying in my room behind a closed door.
When I have issues within myself especially things that I feel are not worth sharing or other things I feel might taint my image, I always prefer handling such things from a more personal level rather than as a group (Olsen, 2002). From my personal experience, the theory of Carl Jung is of broad application in my real life. People perceive me as I am according to the way I behave. It is these traits that have influenced the decisions I make in life. Most decisions we make in life are based on how we think others perceive us.
In the morning, for example, when one is deciding how to dress, the way one thinks others will view his or her dress code plays the biggest role in the decision one makes. According to the theory by Jung, self ego or what is referred to as the self-conscious faculty has four inseparable ways of viewing, interpreting, and perceiving reality, that is: thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation. The weakness with these functions is that we tend to favor the function that is the most developed making it dominant. The dominant function may then deceive the rest making us develop poor personalities. The theory of psychological types credit people’s choices wholly to affective disposition, as though people are entirely pegged by a label, and consciousness is seen as just an expedient illusion. In fact, when people behave based on immediate needs outside the conscious control, they do not identify their actions with authenticity or preference.
Rather, they feel as though they are out of control. Therefore, Jung focused so much on the issue of the attitude that is making the judgment, the “I” that results from making freewill decisions, the choices, and positions that make us feel like “ourselves” and under look other factors which may not be even connected to his assumptions. In conclusion, personality makes us who we are and also determines the relationship with others. It is particularly crucial to understand and respect other people’s personalities. This will help us live together in harmony and appreciate each other.
