GRAPHOLOGY
PERSONALITY VERSUS BEHAVIOUR
A common question we all ask from time to time is “What is the difference between Behaviour and Personality?”
“Personality is what you are, behaviour is what you do!” That was rather to the point, to give it more consideration we should delve deeper and look at both word in isolation:
Personality
‘Personality is a stable, consistent pattern of thoughts, motivations and emotions’
Unknown
‘The traits and characteristics of individuals that make up their individual persona’
John Herbert
‘The enduring characteristics of the person that are significant for interpersonal behaviour’
Goodstein and Lanyon
Behaviour
‘Behaviour in the human context is more easily defined as: The manner of behaving or conducting ones self’
‘Behaviour is an expression of that person or personality in a situation, it is how a person reacts or behaves in certain situations or circumstances’
All very interesting but how does this help us understand each other. Well in the first place how do we establish the real persona. One of the challenges is that ‘learned behaviour’ can very effectively mask a person’s real personality. Does this matter? Yes, because if we don’t understand who we are interviewing or managing because of their behavioural mask, we will make mistakes.
Work with somebody for long enough and we begin to be able to separate their personality from their behaviour. In the work place we do not have this luxury, to recruit the right person or to move them to the right place within our organisation we need.
The most reliable method of establishing personality and projected behaviour is to use validated profiling tools such as PPI™. Today these tools are quick and easy to use and provide valuable data in recruitment, but more important they help in the effective management and motivation of people and teams.
February 2011
PDF of White Paper
PERSONALITY VERSUS BEHAVIOUR
A common question we all ask from time to time is “What is the difference between Behaviour and Personality?”
“Personality is what you are, behaviour is what you do!” That was rather to the point, to give it more consideration we should delve deeper and look at both word in isolation:
Personality
‘Personality is a stable, consistent pattern of thoughts, motivations and emotions’
Unknown
‘The traits and characteristics of individuals that make up their individual persona’
John Herbert
‘The enduring characteristics of the person that are significant for interpersonal behaviour’
Goodstein and Lanyon
Behaviour
‘Behaviour in the human context is more easily defined as: The manner of behaving or conducting ones self’
‘Behaviour is an expression of that person or personality in a situation, it is how a person reacts or behaves in certain situations or circumstances’
All very interesting but how does this help us understand each other. Well in the first place how do we establish the real persona. One of the challenges is that ‘learned behaviour’ can very effectively mask a person’s real personality. Does this matter? Yes, because if we don’t understand who we are interviewing or managing because of their behavioural mask, we will make mistakes.
Work with somebody for long enough and we begin to be able to separate their personality from their behaviour. In the work place we do not have this luxury, to recruit the right person or to move them to the right place within our organisation we need.
The most reliable method of establishing personality and projected behaviour is to use validated profiling tools such as PPI™. Today these tools are quick and easy to use and provide valuable data in recruitment, but more important they help in the effective management and motivation of people and teams.
February 2011
PDF of White Paper