Defining Personality

Generating explanations for human behavior has been a pastime since the beginning of time. Theoretical systems evolve as people try to account for individual differences in behavior. Why do people behave the way they do? Why is there a wide variety of behavioral differences? Attempting to answer these questions has kept social and behavioral science busy, but clearly no definitive conclusion has been forthcoming. Each investigator offers a different perspective. Examining some of these different orientations, however, and analyzing how each has contributed to the complexity of this discipline provides a starting point for defining personality and for guiding an investigation of it