CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY

We should not confuse personality with character. By looking at the words associated with the two, as in the table below, we can get a general idea of how they differ.

Personality falls within the field of empirical psychology. Psychologists have been studying personality sincelong.Philosophers havebeenstudyingcharacterin a theoretical manner. Sincethetimes of the ancient Greeks, philosophers focused on features of a person’sinnerlife that increase or reduce his/ her moral worth. Many features people attribute to character are virtues or vices. We praise people who have many virtues, and we criticize people who lack these virtues or possess the opposite vices.

Personality depends on the psychological “hardware” with which the individual is born. Some people have pleasant and agreeable relations with other people. Such relations depend on the manner in which their emotional systems are organized. Character depends on the moral abilities of individuals such as the ability to keep a promise, tell the truth, or stand resolute in the face of threats. Character also depends on how individuals look upon themselves and tailor their actions to fit their expectations; personality has to do with reactive features of our psychological systems.