PERSONALITY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF DEVELOPING THE CONCEPT OF PERSONAL EFFICIENCY

Abstract

Personality is difficult to define, because both in the common language and in the scientific study of psychology are involved several meanings of this term. We start from the history of the term personality which designated, at the introduction of the word in English in the fourteenth century, the quality of being a person, different from inanimate objects or animals. Personality includes general attributes such as consciousness and rational thinking - which were considered to give people a special place in creation. So this sense referred to humanity in general. Over time, the meaning of the term changes, from a general attribute to a quality that differentiates human individuals, which gave them individuality. In this sense, personality meant focusing on the individual human being: the person. The term person comes from the Latin "persona" which defined  the mask worn by an actor to play a certain role. As a result, a person's individuality referred to the roles they assumed. The term personality therefore meant individuality and, in time, it comes to designate the charisma of a person. We commonly say that a certain person "has  personality" if he is an exceptional, charismatic individual, with special abilities compared to most people.