Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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PERSONALITY

In scholastic theology that perfection which makes an intellectual nature to be uncommunicated or unshared by another being, its individuality. In modern psychology "the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his [or her] characteristic behavior and thought" (Allport). Others define personality in terms of their own vocabulary, e.g., for freud it is the integration of an individual's id, ego, and superego; for Adler it is an individual's style of life or characteristic way of thinking and acting. In popular language personality is the sum total of the distinctive abilities and achievements of an individual.