Lack Of Personality – What It Means
By
PsychReel
This article will take a look at what a lack of personality basically means and what exactly is personality. Furthermore, the article will take a look at different personality systems that have their own way of determining what different personality types there are.
Lack Of Personality – What Does It Mean?
A lack of personality may refer to the following:
- Someone Who Is Boring
- An Ill Mannered Person
- Having No Opinions
- To Not Care
- No Sophistication
Let us take a look at each of these one by one! However, we will first take a look at what personality means and what different systems exist to define or categorize it.
What is Personality?
Personality is a term used to describe the traits a person expresses in most situations. It is made up of their thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Every person has a distinct set of characteristics or traits that makes them a unique individual and helps give them a personality. So technically, according to this definition everyone has a personality.
However, in some cases, certain people may have a more expressive or appealing personality than others. Such a personality would make them more likeable and obvious to others compared to someone who is not likeable or too quiet to be noticed.
“Personality is the entire mental organization of a human being at any stage of his development. It embraces every phase of human character: intellect, temperament, skill, morality, and every attitude that has been built up in the course of one’s life.” (Warren & Carmichael, 1930, p. 333)
“Personality is the essence of a human being.” (Hall & Lindzey, 1957, p. 9, characterizing statements by Gordon Allport)
“An individual’s pattern of psychological processes arising from motives, feelings, thoughts, and other major areas of psychological function. Personality is expressed through its influences on the body, in conscious mental life, and through the individual’s social behavior.” (Mayer, 2005)
The Characteristics Of Personality
Here are the important characteristics of personality!
Personality Is Stable
Your personality does not change everyday although you may notice there are variations in your behaviour depending on what situation you face. Nevertheless, it is important that personality is relatively stable over a number of situations regardless of time. It does not change drastically everyday.
Personality Is Ever Present
Just because you don’t feel like yourself today does not mean you have changed your personality. You always have your personality with you even if you don’t use your traits all the time.
Personality Is Made Up Of Properties & Mechanisms
Personality can be divided into different components and characteristics. Over time, many different classifications have been made in personality characteristics. Literally hundreds!
Different Personality Systems
In this section we will take a look at different personality systems that exist!
What is the Myer Briggs Type Indicator?
Are you familiar with an INTJ or an ETSP? Do you have any idea what they mean or who they could possibly describe? These are not some secret codes but terms that are used to describe the personality types of people who have taken the Myer Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
The Myer Briggs Type Indicator is a self-report questionnaire based on Carl Jung’s theory that individuals experience the world using four psychological functions namely sensation, intuition, feeling and thinking with either one of these being the dominant factor. The personality test determines which of these functions best describes a person hence detailing their personality, strengths and attitudes; it assigns one of the 16 personality types (just like INTJ or ETSP) to the individual taking the test.
According to the Myer Briggs Company, more than 1 million people take the MBTI online every year and an estimated 80% of fortune 500 companies use it in their human resource practices. Not to mention that the test is so popular that it is actively used on dating sites, university campuses and numerous websites where people are just trying to make sense of who they are.
What Are Enneagrams?
The enneagram is a typology system which describes human behaviour as a set of interrelated parts with each part having unique characteristics and behaviours or a set of defining traits that distinguish it from other parts in the system. This typology has a total of 9 parts of enneagrams that have different personalities and hence titles. For example, there is the enneagram type 1 which is also known as the Reformer and they have unique traits such as strong moral values, strive for integrity and may at times be judgemental.
At the same time, this personality system assumes and believes that no one person is of a single type – that is they cannot be a type 1 or type 9 purely but will be influenced by other adjacent types that are also known as wings. These wings influence but do not change the overall personality type.
Not much is known about its history and it is rumoured to pull its roots from a number of traditions. A philosopher as well as mystic known by the name of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff has been identified and given recognition for bringing the Enneagram figure to the attention of the world, although he did not use it to categorize personality types. Oscar Ichazo, the founder of a school for human potential and self-development, assigned different personality types to each of the nine positions in the Enneagram diagram.
The Enneagram Types – What Are They?
In total, there are 9 enneagram types that have been listed below:
- Type 1 – Reformer
- Type 2 – Helper
- Type 3 – Achiever
- Type 4 – Individualist
- Type 5 – Investigator
- Type 6 – Loyalist
- Type 7 – Enthusiast
- Type 8 – Challenger
- Type 9 – Peacemaker
Lack Of Personality – What Does It Mean?
In this section of the article, we will take a look at what it means to have a ‘lack of personality’!
Someone Who Is Boring
Oftentimes, people may refer to someone as having a lack of personality if they find them boring! This is because people are interesting not because of how they look but mostly because of their likes and dislikes, choices, preferences and of course their behaviour!
However, just because someone does not interest you doesn’t mean they do not have a personality! Nor does it mean they are boring – they are simply different. Take it this way; if someone has a personality that is quiet and non confrontational instead of one that is loud, talkative and sporty, it does not mean they have a lack of personality. They are just interested in different things such as deep meaningful talks or reading or watching movies.
An Ill Mannered Person
Another reason why someone may say a certain person has a lack of personality is because they are ill mannered or rude! Although mannerisms often sprout from the culture one lives in, there is a basic sense of being courteous in people because of the fact that they are human and indeed have a personality.
However, if one’s personality is such that they are rude and don’t really believe in being mannered especially for the comfort of others, they could be termed as someone who has a lack of personality.
This basically means they lack important components or traits in their personality that teaches them how to behave properly with others.
Having No Opinions
At times some people choose not to speak up not because they may not have an opinion but because they prefer to avoid a debate. Also, they may not know much about a topic to actually have an opinion.
In such a case, people who are enthusiastic about a certain topic may become a bit angry or frustrated that the other person is not taking much interest in a topic thus they will go on to say that this person does not have a personality when they actually mean to say that they have no opinions or likes and dislikes with regards to this.
To Not Care
Being a caring person or having an affectionate behavior towards another person is a big part of one’s personality. Some people possess more of these traits whereas others possess less of it.
Thus, if a person thinks another person is not caring then they may term them as someone who has a lack of personality.
No Sophistication
In many instances you may be termed as someone who has no personality because you are not sophisticated enough! You may have no dressing sense nor the manners to eat properly at a table.
Conclusion
This article took a look at what it means to have a lack of personality. Furthermore, it defined a number of personality systems that may be used to determine different types of personality.
References
