THE BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL INTERACTION - PERSONALITY

 Personality is often defined as a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person's behaviour. 

There are a number of ways in which we describe personality. And, often when we assess it for an individual, the effectiveness with which he elicit positive reactions under different circumstances are being considered. Or, the other most popular way of ascribing an individual with a personality is by observing the most outstanding or salient impression which he forms on others.

So, personality has often been defined from two separate viewpoints, one is the 'biosocial' perspective, where a close correspondence with the popular use of the term as it equates personality to the "social stimulus value" of the individual is made. Here, the reaction of other individuals is considered to determine the type of personality.

The other is the 'biophysical' perspective which generates from the characteristics or qualities of an individual. This perspective claims for an organic side of personality which is linked to the specific qualities of the individual which are susceptible to generalized description and measurement.

The construction of an individual's personality is the result of the reciprocal interaction of the three vital determinants - Biological factors, Psychological factors and Social factors.

The Biological or Physical determinants plays a vital role in the formation of personality. It has been sub-grouped into heredity and physical features. Heredity contributes towards the sex, physical structure, composition of muscles, facial features, which are reflected through our personality. And, physical features are the external appearance which also plays a key role in the formation of self-conception.

The next is the Psychological factors which involves the cognitive aspect of an individual. The behavioural patterns, thinking and problem solving skills, decision making capabilities - all contributes towards the formation of personality.

The third in the row is the Social factors. Personality and social behaviours result from a blending of heredity and social environmental influences. The Sociobiologists feel that environmental factors have the greatest influences. Heredity, birth order,parents and cultural environment are among the principal factors which influences an individual's personality and behaviour.

These three factors are in a continuous interactive relationship and influences one another from the time of an individual's pre-natal stage. The synthesis of these factors determines an individual's personality.

MEASURING ATTITUDE

Attitude has often been defined by psychologists as people's evaluation of almost any aspect of the world.

We often posses either positive or negative responses or actions towards different social stimulus, some of them are quite flexible and can be altered, while some are resistant to alternations; as we hold some attitudes with certainty, while uncertainty prevails towards other social aspects.

Social psychologists have reportedly distinguished two types of attitudes - 

1) Explicit Attitudes - They are the conscious or report able forms. The beliefs which we are aware about and can be easily measured.

2) Implicit Attitudes - These type of beliefs are less controllable and not at all conscious or easily accessible to us.

The measurement of explicit attitude are done following varied scaling techniques or tests. The belief or disbelief, favourable or unfavourable form of attitudes are measured with the help of scales, constructed by experts having short statements dealing with several social aspects like - climate change, sexual abuse, pollution, globalization and many more social constructs.

The scales or tests are constructed following a continuum, where the scale ranges from absolute unfavourable to absolute favourable acceptance of belief. Each statement will portray a specific degree of acceptance or rejection of a belief.

The 2 most popular scales for measuring attitudes are:

1) Thurstone's method of equal appearing intervals - The Thurstone's Scale is a quantitative form of measurement of people's attitude, using 'agree - disagree' format. These statements are assigned with potential numerical values, which helps the researcher to determine the strength of the belief which one holds toward  the specific social aspect.

This is mainly applied when the researcher wants to know the attitude of individuals about a specific topic and wants to compare it with others. It is also a possible technique of collecting data in a group situation.

2) Likert's method of summated ratings - This technique of measuring attitude is much simpler than that of Thurstone, yet follows a long and elaborate steps for analyzing and elemination of weak items.

The Likert scale follows a 5 - point method, having the range from: strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree to strongly disagree. This method of scaling attitude is much objective in nature and indicates the intensity of the opinion, also in accordance with the direction.

This is also a quantitative technique of measuring attitude, where the response ranges from being agreed upon to disagreement, also having an option of having no belief at all. The responses hold their own values but the interval values are not equal, with the limitation, that individuals can give false responses due to social desirability.

Another technique for measuring attitude is Bogardus Social Distance Scale - following the degrees of social intimacy. This scale was formed keeping in mind the social forms of discrimination which regulates our relationship formation with any stranger.

This scale has been defined, which measures the degree of closeness towards people of other social, religious, ethnic or racial groups.

The characteristics of Bogardus Social Distance Scale are : it is cumulative in nature, a 7 point scale and lastly, it measures social distance.