Personality Theories in Psychology

To the layperson, the term personality is a generic descriptor for an individual's traits. However, personality has a more specific meaning to psychologists. According to Dan McAdams, "Personality psychology is the scientific study of the whole person" (McAdams, 2006, p.12, para.1). While different psychologists and their theories have become well-known enough to be referenced in casual conversation, there is still some confusion among laypeople about personality theory and whether all personality theories are basically the same. That confusion is understandable, because there are different approaches to the study of personality, buy they all purport to give functioning descriptions of the individual. "Personality psychologists develop and validate ways of measuring individual differences, necessitating a quantitative and focused inquiry into single dimensions of human variation together into illuminating personological portraits of the individual case" (McAdams, 2006, p.12, para.1). Therefore, while personality theories should be comprehensive enough to describe...
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