ABSTRACT
One of the most basic questions faced by psychology is, ‘Why are we all different?’ Of course, in some ways, we are all much the same, as in the structure of our brains and the mechanisms of perception and memory. However, there are huge differences among us in the ways we think, feel and behave in response to particular situations. The psychology of personality is concerned with these individual differences. Pervin (1993) has offered a simple working definition of personality: ‘Personality represents those characteristics of the person that account for consistent patterns of behaviour’. Broadly, four factors influence how we respond in any given situation: our genetic make-up, our past experience, the nature of the situation in which we
find ourselves and our free will. Each of these factors is emphasised by one or more theories of personality.
