Personality Development

Behavioral individuality in newborns is defined as temperament. A number of competing models of temperament have been proposed, but most generally view temperament as a construct that represents the early emerging, constitutionally based, behavioral individuality that is consistent over both time and situations. Conceptually, psychologists have differentiated infant temperament from childhood and adolescent personality by noting that temperament represents the more biologically based basic emotions, while personality represents the consistent behavioral repertoire developed by an individual out of her interactions with the social environment.

The course of personality development from temperamental beginnings has been described by some as a transition from temperament to personality or as an elaboration from basic dimensions of temperament to more complex dimensions of personality. By late childhood and adolescence, this behavioral transition or elaboration is apparent as behavior has become more purposefully directed and increasingly incorporates concepts like self-understanding.

A number of theories have been developed that outline different interactional processes of personality development, but most of the theories can be grouped into two categories: those that emphasize certain developmental environments in shaping an individual's personality and those that emphasize the individual's biology. A theoretical orientation that emphasizes either the environment or biology generally does not completely discount the position of the other, but rather stresses one factor over the other with respect to relative importance.