Each person has a unique set of qualities that define his personality. I wonder what character traits there are, what types of qualities there are and how they influence a person’s character?

What are the character traits?

Why bother understanding what character traits exist? In order to be able to determine the type of character of the interlocutor. And knowing what type of character a person has, it is easier to predict his actions, and this will help to avoid various unpleasant situations.

Even without being familiar with the topic, you can name many character traits, but how can you understand which of them are defining for a particular person? In psychology, there are concepts of leading and secondary character traits. That is, not every trait will manifest itself with equal force in a person’s behavior. For example, a truth-loving and fearful person will constantly endure ridicule from others, privately reasoning with himself how wrong they are if his fearfulness is the leading one. But if the love of truth prevails, then he will tell everyone who they really are, deep down fearing the consequences.

Therefore, character traits are classified in relation to different aspects of life.

1. Attitude towards other people: rudeness, truthfulness, tactfulness, deceit, isolation, sociability, friendliness.
2. Attitude to work: conscientiousness, responsibility, hard work, laziness.
3. Attitude towards oneself: narcissism, self-criticism, modesty, pride, self-confidence.
4. Attitudes towards property: greed, frugality, generosity, wastefulness, sloppiness, neatness.

The main group is the attitude towards other people, because it is in society that the main character traits are formed; without assessing behavior with other people, a person’s character cannot be understood. If a person has overly developed certain character traits, then this is called accentuation.

What kind of character does a person have with accentuation?

The most well-known division is into introverts and extroverts, reserved and sociable people, respectively. But there is also such a classification of the types of human character with accentuation.

4 types of character

Figuring out what kind of character a person has is not easy, because there are many classifications. From school we know the concepts of choleric, sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic - these are types of temperament, but they are often confused with types of human character. Temperament really has a huge impact on character. Therefore, in order to understand what types of character there are, it is imperative to take into account a person’s temperament.

Character traits

Character is an inextricable whole. But it is impossible to study and understand such a complex whole as character without identifying individual aspects or typical manifestations (character traits) in it. General character traits are manifested in the individual’s relationship to social responsibilities and duty, to people, and to himself. The attitude towards social responsibilities and duty is primarily manifested in the individual’s attitude towards social work. In this regard, such character traits as hard work, conscientiousness, perseverance, frugality, and their opposites - laziness, negligence, passivity, wastefulness are revealed. A person’s attitude towards work has a decisive influence on the formation of his other personal qualities. D.I. Pisarev wrote: “Character is tempered by work, and whoever has never earned his daily living by his own labor, for the most part remains forever a weak, lethargic and spineless person.” Attitude towards people is clearly reflected in such character traits as sociability, politeness, goodwill, etc. The antipodes of these traits are isolation, tactlessness, and hostility. As V. Hugo argued, “every person has three characters: the one that is attributed to him; the one that he ascribes to himself; and, finally, the one that actually exists.” In order to find out the essence of his character, it is useful for a person to know the opinion of the team in which he works and spends a significant part of his life. And first of all, how orderly his relationships with people are, how much people need him, how authoritative he is among them. Attitude towards oneself is manifested in self-assessment of one’s actions. Sober self-esteem is one of the conditions for personal improvement, helping to develop such character traits as modesty, integrity, and self-discipline. Negative character traits are increased conceit, arrogance and boasting. A person possessing these traits is usually difficult to get along with in a team and unwittingly creates pre-conflict and conflict situations in it. The other extreme in a person’s character is also undesirable: underestimation of one’s merits, timidity in expressing one’s positions, in defending one’s views. Modesty and self-criticism must be combined with a heightened sense of self-esteem, based on the awareness of the real significance of one’s personality, on the presence of certain successes in work for the common benefit. Integrity is one of the valuable personal qualities that gives character an active orientation. Strong-willed character traits. Will is understood as a complex mental process that causes human activity and awakens him to act in a directed manner. Will is a person’s ability to overcome obstacles and achieve a goal. Specifically, it appears in such character traits as determination, determination, perseverance, and courage. These character traits can contribute to the achievement of both socially useful and antisocial goals. To do this, it is important to determine what the motive for a person’s volitional behavior is. “A brave act, the motive of which is to enslave another person, to seize someone else’s goods, to advance in one’s career, and a brave act, the motive of which is to help the common cause, have, of course, completely different psychological qualities.” Based on their volitional activity, characters are divided into strong and weak. People of strong character have stable goals, are proactive, boldly make decisions and implement them, have great endurance, are courageous and courageous. People in whom these qualities are weakly expressed or some of them are absent are classified as weak-willed. They tend to passively demonstrate their business and personal qualities. Often such people, having the best intentions, do not achieve significant results in work or study. Many of them sincerely worry about their inability to act independently, persistently and decisively.

Volitional qualities can be cultivated in a person. I.P. Pavlov emphasized that man is the only system capable of regulating itself within wide limits, that is, it can improve itself. Weak-willed people, with thoughtful pedagogical work with them, can become actively active. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the individual characteristics of a person, for example his temperament. Thus, it is easier for a choleric person to develop activity and determination than for a melancholic person. A person himself must train his will from a young age, develop qualities such as self-control, activity, and courage.

The most objective and irrefutable data about a person’s character is provided not by his passport data, not by his external appearance, not by his involuntary actions, but by his conscious behavior. It is by the choice of possible actions that a person chooses in a given situation that his character is assessed. Human character is quite multifaceted. This can be seen already in the process of activity: one does everything quickly, the other slowly and thoroughly, thinks carefully, acting for sure, and the third immediately grabs onto the work without thinking, and only after a certain period of time, without solving the problem at once, looks around and coordinates its actions taking into account the circumstances. These features identified in human behavior are called traits, or aspects, of character. Any trait is some stable stereotype of behavior.

However, character traits cannot be taken out of the typical situations in which they appear; in some situations, even a polite person can be rude. Therefore any A character trait is a stable form of behavior in connection with specific situations typical for a given type of behavior.

According to Yu.M. Orlova, along with situations in which a certain human trait is revealed, its essential characteristic is the probability that this type of behavior will take place in a given situation. A trait can be spoken of as a stable characteristic of a person if the probability of its manifestation in a certain situation is quite high. However, probability means that this trait does not always appear, otherwise it would simply be a matter of mechanical behavior. This understanding of character traits is very similar to the manifestation of a person’s habit: under certain conditions, to act in a certain way. A character trait includes a certain way of thinking and understanding. When committing a characteristic act, volitional mechanisms are activated and feelings are involved. By conditioning a person’s behavior, a character trait in behavior is formed. The formation of character traits cannot be separated from the formation of behavioral motives. Motives of behavior, realized in action, consolidated in it, are fixed in character. Each effective motive that acquires stability, according to S.L. Rubinstein, is potentially a future character trait in its origin and development; in motives, character traits appear for the first time in the form of tendencies, action then leads them to stable properties. The path to the formation of character traits therefore lies through the formation of appropriate motives of behavior and the organization of actions aimed at consolidating them.

The most common character properties are located along the axes: strength - weakness; hardness - softness; integrity - inconsistency; breadth - narrowness. If strength of character is understood as the energy with which a person pursues his goals, his ability to become passionately carried away and develop great tension when encountering difficulties, the ability to overcome them, then weakness of character is associated with the manifestation of cowardice, indecision, “asthenicity” in achieving goals, instability of views, etc. Strength of character means strict consistency, perseverance in achieving goals, defending views, etc., while softness of character is manifested in flexible adaptation to changing conditions, achieving goals through some concessions, and finding reasonable compromises. The integrity or inconsistency of character is determined by the degree of combination of leading and secondary character traits. If the leading and secondary ones are in harmony, if there are no contradictions in aspirations and interests, then such a character is called integral, but if they sharply contrast, then it is contradictory.

At the same time, the unity and versatility of character does not exclude the fact that in different situations the same person exhibits different and even opposing properties. A person can be at the same time very gentle and very demanding, soft, compliant and at the same time firm to the point of inflexibility. And the unity of his character can not only be preserved, despite this, but it is precisely in this that it is manifested.

The relationship between intellectual personality traits is of great importance for characterological manifestations. Depth and sharpness of thought, unusual formulation of the question and its solution. Intellectual initiative, confidence and independent thinking - all this constitutes originality of mind as one of the aspects of character. However, how a person uses his mental abilities will depend significantly on character. It is not uncommon to encounter people who have highly intellectual abilities, but who do not provide anything valuable precisely because of their characterological characteristics.

A person’s real achievements depend not on abstract mental capabilities alone, but on a specific combination of his characteristics and characterological properties.

However, most of the individual manifestations that make up a person’s character are complex and practically cannot be classified into individual properties and states (for example, rancor, suspicion, generosity, etc.). At the same time, individual qualities of the volitional (decisiveness, independence, etc.) and intellectual (depth of mind, criticality, etc.) spheres can be considered as components of a person’s character traits and used for its analysis. All character traits have a natural relationship with each other.

In the most general form, character traits can be divided into basic, leading, setting the general direction for the development of the entire complex of its manifestations, and secondary, determined by the main ones.

Knowledge of the leading traits allows you to reflect the basic essence of character and show its main manifestations.

Although every character trait reflects one of the manifestations of a person’s attitude to reality, this does not mean that every attitude will be a character trait. Only some attitudes, depending on the conditions, become character traits.

From the entire set of relationships of a person to the surrounding reality, it is necessary to highlight the character-forming forms of relationships - the decisive, primary and general vital significance of those objects to which a person belongs. These relationships simultaneously serve as the basis for the classification of the most important character traits. A person’s character is manifested in a system of relationships:

1. In relation to other people (in this case, one can highlight such character traits as sociability - isolation, truthfulness - deceit, tactfulness - rudeness, etc.)

2. In relation to business (responsibility - dishonesty, hard work - laziness, etc.).

3. In relation to oneself (modesty - narcissism, self-criticism - self-confidence, etc.)

4. In relation to property (generosity - greed, frugality - wastefulness, neatness - sloppiness, etc.). It should be noted that this classification is somewhat conventional and there is a close relationship and interpenetration of these aspects of the relationship.

5. Despite the fact that these relationships are the most important from the point of view of character formation, they do not simultaneously and immediately become character traits. There is a certain sequence in the transition of these relationships into character properties, and in this sense it is impossible to put, for example, the attitude towards other people and the attitude towards property on the same level, because their very content plays a different role in the real existence of a person. A person’s attitude towards society and people plays a decisive role in the formation of character. The character of a person cannot be revealed and understood outside the team, without taking into account his attachments in the form of camaraderie, friendship, love, etc.

A person’s relationships with other people are decisive in relation to activity, generating increased activity, tension, rationalization or, on the contrary, complacency and lack of initiative. The attitude towards other people and towards activity, in turn, determines the person’s attitude towards his own personality, towards himself. A correct, evaluative attitude towards another person is the main condition for self-esteem.

The attitude towards other people is not only an important part of character, but also forms the basis for the formation of the individual’s consciousness, necessarily including the attitude towards oneself as an actor, which depends primarily on the very form of activity. When an activity changes, not only the subject, methods and operations of this activity change, but at the same time a restructuring of the attitude towards oneself as an actor occurs.

A painful condition accompanied by motivational deficiency syndrome, hypochondria, and periodically occurring acute worries about one’s laziness. A character trait that reflects the ease of generating emotions of anger, which often turn into verbal and other types of aggression. Particularly brutal methods of committing crimes, to indicate certain properties of the nature of the crime. Cruelty can be intentional and involuntary, realized in certain actions, verbal behavior (inflicting torture with words) or in the imagination - fantasizing, operating with images of torture, torment of people or animals.

Personal qualities of a person– these are complex, biologically and socially determined components of personality. By bringing together all the personal qualities of a person, you can get his complete psychological portrait.

Personality qualities are usually divided intopositive and negative. What are these qualities and can a personality consist of only positive qualities?

Personality qualitiesexpressfeatures of mental processes, states and properties of an individual, his character traits, temperamental features, specific behavior, interactions with other people, the environment, himself, that is, all the individual psychological characteristics of the individual. In addition, a person's personal qualitiesincludehis knowledge, skills and abilities.

There are many classifications of personality traits and even more personality typologies based on these classifications. Psychologists have always been interested in the mystery of the human personality and they tried to sort it out “on the shelves.”

But why does an ordinary person (not a professional psychologist) need to know about what personal qualities there are? The fact is that knowledge generates self-awareness, increasesawareness. A person who knows what personality traits exist canidentify them for yourself, and then indicate the paths and directionswork on yourself.

Also, knowing about personality traits, you can understand more aboutpeople around, learn how to properly build and maintain relationships.

The first stage of a relationship of any kind involves getting to know each other, which is essentially a clarification of personal qualities. When two people first meet (be it a job interview or a man and a woman's first date), there is alwaysneed to knowwhat kind of person is in front of you? It is not for nothing that a resume requires you to indicate not only your work experience and basic data, but also list personal qualities, knowledge, skills and abilities.

So, if you need to know your personal qualities in order to understand how to further develop your personality, then knowledge of the personal characteristics of another person is important insofar as it allows you to determine compatibility with him and suggest what kind of relationship may develop.

Positive personality traits are usually supported, reinforced and developed, while negative people try to correct, change or eradicate.

But the division of personality traits into positive and negativeconditional! It is based on generally accepted rules and norms of morality and ethics. You need to understand that such a subtle matter as a person’s personality, in fact, cannot be decomposed into “black” and “white”.

Personality qualities that are usually called negative are not absolute, butrelativelynegative, just like positive qualities. For example, in a situation where you need to stand up for yourself, aggressiveness (which is considered a negative trait) becomes necessary and simply necessary.

A person's personal qualities can be:congenital, so acquired. Certain personality qualities are developed either under the influence of the environment and society (upbringing) or are a consequenceself-education.

A person can develop many qualities, traits, behavioral characteristics, abilities, skills,work out, so and eradicate.

Of course, there are personality traits that are practically impossible to change, but you still shouldn’t hang “labels” (either on yourself or on others)!

A person can always, if not change radically, then at least learn to compensate for some of his qualities by developing others.

Negative human qualities, which are undesirable and require correction, all together would form not just a large, but a huge list. Therefore, only a few of them are listed below:

All these personality traits give rise to a correspondingbehaviorThus, a deceitful person lies to everyone all the time, a lazy and careless person is in no hurry to do his work, and an irresponsible person constantly lets himself and others down.

The presence of one or another negative quality spoils the life of the person himself and/or other people, but in any case, itnot a sentence. By working on yourself, you can improve the quality of your life, relationships with others, and become happier.

Positive human qualities

The list of positive qualities of a person is as endless as the list of negative traits. Perhaps most of all, such people are revered and welcomedpositive traits, How:

These positive qualities give rise to correspondingskills and abilities: the ability to make friends, love, learn, create, work, and so on.

In the article “” you will find another informative list of positive personality traits.

As you can see, both the list of a person’s negative qualities and the list of positive ones includes not only those qualities that express the individual’s attitude towards other people and society, but also towards himself, work, things, and the world as a whole. This is because a person’s personal qualitiesmanifest themselves in everything: from who he works to what colors in clothes he prefers.

It is rare to meet a person whose personality contains only positive human qualities. But there are many people whose personality structureprevail such qualities.

Any person always has conditionally negative personality traits, those that are worth working on, but their presence should not be a problem, but a stimulus for development and growth.

Make sure that there is less negativity and positive personality traits predominate,every person can do it!

In what direction do you most often have to work on yourself?

Character is something single, holistic. How does it affect a person's life? Globally! The fact is that all our actions are justified in some way. We act as our mind and heart tell us. There is also another factor influencing our lives. Everyone has something like an internal core that has a direct impact on his behavior. It's about character. This core consists of certain ones that have been consolidated in the process of everyday activities.

The list of which will be discussed in this article is different. Some of them make us better, others worse. The list of character traits is extensive. All of them influence our lives in one way or another. Is it possible to change your character? Yes, you can. It's hard to do, but sometimes you just can't do without it. We are not always to blame for who we have become. Wrong upbringing, bad company, inappropriate education - all this can have a bad effect on a person’s character. A person is instilled with bad qualities, and he begins to think that they are the norm. Timely awareness of the problem will help solve it.

The character traits, the list of which we will consider, also influence how we communicate with others. Do you have few friends? Perhaps the problem is not with people, but with the fact that you need to change your inner self.

Character Traits: List

An important positive character trait is hard work. Any person who is ready to work will achieve a lot. This is not about the ability to unload wagons, but about labor in general: both physical and intellectual. Those with such a character trait as hard work do not stand still, but are constantly looking for more and more new types of activities in which they could realize themselves. The opposite of this character trait will be laziness. Of course, she spoils her because she becomes difficult to rise to, inert, and unable to achieve her goals.

Character traits, the list of which is wide, include kindness. Kind people are open to the world and are always ready to help those in need. They renounce evil because they understand that bad deeds will not lead to anything good. The opposite character trait would be anger.

What can be said about cowardice? People who have this character trait are constantly in the back rows. Life often passes them by. They do not find the strength and courage to undertake something new, something that would change not only themselves, but also the world around them.

The character traits listed here are varied. These also include sociability. It helps us establish contacts with other people, make new acquaintances, maintain old ones, and so on. Man is a social being. This means that, living in society, you need to be able to communicate with your own kind. Unsociability is a negative character trait. Being single is good, but not always. It is worth thinking about what lies ahead. Sooner or later, you still want to see people next to you who you can really rely on.

Here is a list of positive human qualities:

Goodwill;

Openness;

Philanthropy;

Perseverance;

Openness to new things;

Seriousness;

Good nature;

Restraint;

Tact;

Cheerfulness;

Determination;

Here is a list of people:

Inertia;

Envy;

Aggressiveness;

Idleness;

Closedness;

Malice;

In Altai there is a saying: “A man without character is like bread without salt.” The word “character” itself, translated from Greek, means “seal”, “imprint”, but if we take the figurative meaning, then we are talking about the typicality and peculiarity of a person’s behavioral qualities. What is the origin of the concept, and what character traits exist?

The science of psychology best describes the concept of character. It fully reveals all the nuances and defines it as a set of personality traits and properties that not only give a person individuality, but also explain his actions in a given situation.

The main characteristic features are conventionally divided into several groups:

• emotions;
• will;
• intelligence.

Emotional traits - aggressiveness, good nature, melancholy, artistry, etc. begin to form from early childhood, when the child’s mental qualities undergo a gradual development. And this happens under the influence of various factors.

A person acquires strong-willed character traits (pedantry, masculinity, devotion, etc.) throughout his life. Qualities associated with intelligence - intelligence, independence, prudence, etc. - depend on innate predisposition, which is influenced by heredity and temperament.

An important factor in the development of a person’s character is his environment. It can lead to the acquisition of both positive and negative character traits by the child. The process continues throughout life, and the list of acquired personal characteristics is constantly increasing. If initially this happens unconsciously at the level of reflexes, then as people grow older they begin to choose those characteristics that are closer to them.

Experts have found that the basic character traits of a child are laid down from infancy; the child’s strong-willed traits begin to appear already in the second year of life, and at three or four he already has business qualities.

Communication signs are most noticeable at 4-5 years old, when children are interested in and actively participate in role-playing games with peers. If we take these data into account, we can say for sure that a five-year-old child has his own, unique character.

What underlies personal qualities?

If we structure knowledge about personal qualities, we can distinguish 4 character traits, or rather a block of characteristics:

• express their attitude towards other people (compassion, sociability, caring, etc.);
• traits that show how a person treats himself (selfishness, modesty, self-criticism, narcissism, etc.);
• attitude towards work (laziness, responsibility, etc.);
• traits indicating a person’s attitude towards objects (thrift, accuracy, greed, etc.).

Today there are hundreds of definitions of personal qualities, but science still identifies the main character traits.

In the business sphere this is:

In the field of communications, these are emotional qualities:

• aggression or benevolence;
• irritability;
• modesty;
• rancor.

Volitional qualities are associated with a person’s integrity; they are formed against the background of a struggle of motives and the assimilation of moral norms. In this case, the positive character traits are confidence, perseverance, and determination. They contribute to a person's personal growth. Negative personality traits include lack of will, lack of consistency, and compliance.

How does nationality affect personal characteristics?

There are many stereotypes associated with nationality, for example, if you are slow, then you must be an Estonian, tight-fisted - a Jew, temperamental - a Georgian, reserved - an Englishman...

Scientists have quite accurately proven that there really are national character traits. And they are associated with various factors - culture, religion, upbringing and even climate. Of course, we are talking about those qualities that have been identified in the majority of representatives of the nation to one degree or another.

And what features of the Russian character can be identified? Many philosophers and psychologists have tried to evaluate the Russian people in terms of their characteristic qualities.

Professor of Russian philosophy Lossky identified six main features:

Doctor of Psychological Sciences Lebedeva N.M., based on Lossky’s research, identified two, at first glance, opposite groups of properties of a Russian person:

1. Spiritual and emotional qualities of Russian people- include exceptionally good characteristics - humility with one's own lot, dedication and self-sacrifice, deep faith, calm acceptance of the thought of impending death, a cool attitude towards wealth, the ability to empathize and share essentials, contentment with existing benefits.
2. Passivity, inaction– historically it has happened that ordinary people have been kept away from political and social life for centuries; and although modern people show interest in this area, more often we are talking about a verbal expression of will, not supported by action. This leads to the following negative character traits of the Russian person - some alienation from the affairs taking place in the country, the expectation of a “miracle”, the desire for anarchism, rebellion, denial of discipline, various kinds of temptations.

Physique and character

There is a rather interesting theory by the German psychologist Ernst Kretschmer that personal qualities directly depend on a person’s constitution. Moreover, most of the theoretical aspects have received practical confirmation. According to Kretschmer's idea, there are three characteristic types:

1. Asthenic people (“weak”) are thin, with elongated parts of the body - limbs, face, flat chest and poorly developed muscles. They correspond to the personality traits of “schizotomy” - isolation, seriousness, stubbornness; people do not adapt well to new conditions. In case of mental disorders, we can talk about schizophrenia.
2. Athletics (athletics translated as “athletic, skillful”) are people of impressive height, broad chests, strong bones and powerful muscles. This is usually how heroic personalities from epics are described, however, the character traits of the “hero” are not so clear. They were called iskotimiks - having a calm character, lack of special impressionability, a tendency towards practicality and restraint in facial expressions and gestures, they also have 3 character traits that are far from heroism - authority, a negative attitude towards change and poor adaptability to new conditions. With nervous disorders there is a risk of developing epilepsy.
3. Picnics - (dense, fat) representatives of this group are short, plump or have a tendency to gain excess weight, have a large head on a short neck, a wide face, and small facial features. These are cyclothymics - the main character trait of a person in this case is sociability, he makes good contact, reacts emotionally to any event, and quickly gets used to new conditions. Such people have a tendency to develop manic-depressive psychoses in mental disorders.

No matter how many characteristics of human traits and qualities there are, there is no identical personality. Of course, there is generalized data, and some points may even coincide with existing temperamental characteristics. However, each person is a unique creation, a tangle of innate and acquired properties, characteristics, charisma and contradictions. It is only important to remember that everyone forges their own qualities and it is important not to forget about personal growth.