Character, Personality, and Identity: On Historical Aspects of Human Subjectivity

Abstract

From a hermeneutic viewpoint, human beings are self-interpreting creatures. History involves a development of the interpretive resources that humans have available for understanding themselves. Building on Charles Taylor's interpretive approach to human subjectivity, this article attempts to outline some significant changes in such interpretive resources. It is argued that different forms of subjectivity go hand in hand with changing modes of self-interpretation: From a premodern notion of character, through a modern notion of personality, to a postmodern idea of identity. In a culture of character, people primarily interpret themselves according to a moral and religious perspective; in a culture of personality, a psychological (scientific as well as romantic) perspective becomes prominent, stressing individual personality and its development; and, in a contemporary culture of identity, more fluid self-interpretations centred on a consumerist perspective gain in importance.

Health identity, participation and knowledge: A qualitative study of a computer game for health education among adolescents in Denmark

“…1 The coherent focus on identity, participation and knowledge as an integrated and circular process provides health promotion research with a theory that can describe each of the three parts separately and together at the same time, as the analysis displays how each of the parts are closely related to the other parts. Existing research on either of these theories 6,7,11,12 does not include this interrelatedness and therefore fails to benefit from the circularity. A focus on either of these concepts naturally entails a focus on the two other concepts and thus a more in-depth understanding of the mechanisms is possible.…”

“…9 Further development of this definition is an underlying objective of this study that generally views identity from a sociological and philosophical point of view and aspires to define identity as something neither strictly personal nor strictly social. 10,11,12 These theories about identity, knowledge and participation have not previously been described as a unified theoretical approach in the way that this paper proposes and consequently they have not been used to analyse health-related issues or issues relating to the use of videogames in health promotion. The concept of health identity is a new way of combining health and identity and needs both theoretical development and practical foundation, especially in the context of how the concept can be used to analyse the transition from adolescence into adulthood.…”

On the concepts of character and personality: Correctly interpreting the statistical evidence putatively relevant to the disposition–situation debate

“…Quoting a work by Svend Brinkmann (2010), Banicki stated that, historically, a major impetus to the concept of “personality” within scientific psychology was “modernism,” which, in alliance with ascendant notions of science, entailed the “ambition of knowing, measuring and possibly improving the properties of individuals [emphasis added]” (as quoted in Banicki, 2017, p. 56). Less than one page further along, Banicki stated that “both ‘character’ and ‘personality’ can be regarded as constructs belonging to the discourse of individual differences ” (p. 56).…”

The character–personality distinction: An historical, conceptual, and functional investigation

“…And it is the history of the process that led to this state of affairs, of the shift "from a language of 'character' to a language of 'personality'" (Nicholson, 1998, p. 52) that can be very revealing in the present context. Two particularly helpful accounts have been provided by Danziger (1990Danziger ( , 1997 and Brinkmann (2010). 3 Danziger begins his account with an important remark that initially the notion of personality carried the meanings which were not psychological, but were theological, legal, or ethical ones.…”

“…And it is the history of the process that led to this state of affairs, of the shift “from a language of ‘character’ to a language of ‘personality’” (Nicholson, 1998, p. 52) that can be very revealing in the present context. Two particularly helpful accounts have been provided by Danziger (1990, 1997) and Brinkmann (2010). 3…”