ABSTRACT
In everyday language people often refer to another person by saying ‘He has no personality’, or that ‘she has a strong personality’. Most theorists accept that the major, if not the only, way to study personality is by observing what people actually do or say that they do; either directly by watching someone behave, and tallying what he does, or indirectly by counting up his responses to questionnaire items. One function of scientific theories is to organize accumulated knowledge in a given area into a form which renders it usable and communicable to other people. Theories are useful ways of fitting facts together, permitting one to generate hypotheses and to apply the organized knowledge to new circumstances and problems as they arise. A well-constructed theory should enable logical deductions to be made, and empirical answers to be found. Accordingly, the theory should not be such that contrary hypotheses about the same phenomena are derivable from it.
