Personality Psychology
People vary hugely in their outlook on life, their likes and dislikes, and their behaviour. Traits that persist throughout your life are known as your personality. There is much we still don’t know about why one person’s personality can be so different from another’s. There is definitely a genetic component, as anyone who has seen themselves slowly turning into their parents knows! However, this doesn’t explain everything, as identical twins, who are genetically exactly the same, can have very different personalities. This is true even when they have grown up together, so while environment is important it cannot be the only other factor involved. There have been many theories of personality over the years, which aim to describe people based on a fixed number of personality traits, but personality psychology aims not just to describe but to understand how and why people differ.
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