What are the factors for the determination of one's character - or personality.?

Question

How can one improve one's personality or behaviour in day to day life?

Answer 1

Before trying to improve our personality and character we should know few basic postulates related to these terms and their nature. In my answer to that question I will not refer to the western stereotype of explanation of matters of psychology and behavior since I find them lacking in depth and insight. I would rather state what is found in the timeless Vedic wisdom, which comes to us carefully preserved through the millennia and is free from the speculative human interventions.  

Personality has different dimensions which are explained very lucidly by the sages of ancient India. The word which is used to indicate the self is “atma”. Atma in Sanskrit language could have three different meanings, namely: body, mind and soul. We can say that our personality is a combination of these three – body, mind and soul. The relationship between these three can be shown with the example of a person who is wearing clothes and underwear. The real person is the soul, but it is covered by subtle mind and gross physical body. The body is compared to the upper garments and the mind is compared to the underwear.

In the ultimate issue everyone of us is a pure spiritual personality, part and parcel of God’s nature, completely beyond the material atmosphere of the dualities of happiness and distress. But since we have been conditioned since ancient times we are forced to accept the gross and subtle bodies made of matter and interact with them within this material world. Therefore they have become “a part” of our personality.

Everything in this material world acts according to the modes of nature (tri-guna). There are three basic qualities of nature, namely: sattva (goodness), rajas (passion) and tamas (ignorance). When these three combine in variety of combinations and permutations we get innumerable types of species, bodies and characters each with its specific and unique nature.  The animals and plants are totally under the influence of the modes of passion and ignorance. The demigods, sages and other higher beings are primarily in the mode of goodness. Human beings are basically in the mode of passion, but they have the capacity to develop the mode of goodness, which is conducive for auspicious life (dharma, artha, kama) and liberation from the dualities of conditioned life (moksha). So, to improve one’s personality for a human being means to cultivate and come to the mode of goodness. From that platform one can aim at transcendence or spiritual perfection, which is the ultimate goal of our existence (prema pumartho mahan).

One’s character and personality is determined according to the qualities (guna) and work (karma) of that particular person. This is explained very elaborately by Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, where He points out the symptoms of the persons in each one of the three modes (sattva, rajas and tamas) in terms of their behaviour, work, social position, speech, diet, faith, determination, austerities, etc. There are basically four types of personalities according to their qualities and work under the influence of the modes of nature. These are:

1. Brahmanas (intellectual class of people like teachers, poets, writers, philosophers, sages) which are primarily situated in goodness.

2. Kshatriyas (administrative class of people like kings, ministers, warriors, managers, etc.) who are primarily in the mode of passion.

3. Vaishiyas (mercantile community of traders, farmers and shopkeepers), who are in the mixed modes of passion and ignorance.

4. Shudras (labour class) mostly in ignorance.

All these manifest different qualities and occupation and can be classified accordingly, but everyone in a human form of life is being urged to cultivate the qualities of goodness which are conducive for the elevation of the soul.

Answer 2

The only way you can understand a persons character or personality is by behavioral observation...

Answer 3

Firstly: "Personality" is the totality of who one is within...that is, inside, known to the person privately.

Secondly: "Character" is the public or social display of one's personality. You see who I am inside by what I display to you outside. That's my "character."

This comes from the Individual Psychology of Dr. Alfred Adler, the first psychiatrist to join Freud, the first to leave him, the first to create a competing psychology, and the first psychiatrist to take into account the important influences of social forces on personality and character. Adler and George Herbert Mead have to be the two most influential men of the 20th century on psychology and sociology. http://www.lifecourseinstitute.com