"The most hopeless thing in the world is to try to define a person's character accurately. Every personality is a tangle of contradictions, and even more so a gifted personality," T. Dreiser "The Financier."
Psychologist Inna Kovalenko told how to determine a person’s character.
What is character?
Each person has an innate temperament and an individual set of genes. Temperament manifests itself in emotional reactions and behavior and does not change throughout life.
A set of genes, or genotype, determines the characteristics of a person's body: eye color, character traits, and health. A person's temperament and genotype remain unchanged throughout life and are the basis for the formation and development of character, influencing its development.
Character is not inherited and is formed throughout a person's life, starting from early childhood under the influence of social (upbringing, family, school, team, culture) and personal (self-development and self-education) factors. This is how a person's personality is formed.
Character, translated from Greek, means a distinctive feature, sign, seal, a set of persistent and individual personality traits (there are more than five hundred in total) that are manifested in behavior and in the form of relationships between the individual and the people around him.
Not every human characteristic can be a stable character trait. Understanding and assessing the character of a certain person is not an easy task.
Understanding a person's character makes it possible to predict his behavior in various situations, to assume his possible emotional reactions and to understand the motives of his actions.
How to determine a person's character
To determine a person's character, psychology uses various test methods. For express assessment, careful observation is necessary.
You can understand a person's character by assessing his appearance and by his actions and behavior.
1. Appearance.
There is a lot of information embedded in our face, figure, structure and movements.
Physiognomy experts claim that sometimes two minutes are enough to “scan” a person and understand what his character is like.
Thus, facial folds that form a single vertical line indicate a person’s analytical and inventive abilities; a small mouth indicates caution and modesty; large front teeth indicate stubbornness, sensuality and the need for recognition by others; protruding ears indicate freedom and independence.
The psychology of facial expressions and gestures also makes it possible to "read" individual character traits of a person. Open hands - sociability and trust; waving hands - heightened emotionality; throwing the head back - arrogance; scratching the neck and a weak handshake - uncertainty and indecision.
A person who lies or fantasizes often looks away during a conversation or, on the contrary, does not take his eyes off you and stares straight at you. Correct speech, a deep, low, sonorous voice with clear pronunciation of all words – we have a confident, optimistic and cheerful person in front of us.
People with an anxious and insecure personality type often speak with a trembling voice.
Body type
Plump people of average height are sociable, emotional and easily adapt to new conditions. Tall, broad-shouldered and with developed muscles are imperious, restrained in the expression of emotions and not inclined to change.
Thin people with elongated limbs are often withdrawn, serious and stubborn.
Handwriting
Experienced graphologists confirm the uniqueness of each person's handwriting. Handwriting is a reflection of our individuality on paper. Very small letters demonstrate restraint and high self-control, unwillingness to stand out and loneliness.
Very large letters – activity, creativity and openness. Weak pressure indicates insecurity and avoidance of conflicts. The lines of the letter tend upwards – emotional upsurge, joy and optimism. Untidy and generally sloppy text – disorganization, carelessness, disrespect.
2. Actions and behavior are especially clearly manifested in activities and interpersonal behavior. By listening to what and how a person speaks, you can understand whether he is toxic or capable of showing sympathy and empathy.
Disrespectful communication with people who are lower in status demonstrates his low self-esteem. Blaming other people is an inability to admit one's guilt and unreliability in relationships. Inability to rejoice in the success of others is envy and malice.
Manner of speech and ability to express thoughts
A person who speaks louder, faster and more abstractly is an extrovert with an open, sociable character. Such people are more often sociable, friendly and emotional.
At the same time, they are prone to risk, spontaneous and more self-confident. "Let's go have dinner," an extrovert will say, and "Maybe it's time for us to have dinner?" an introvert will ask. Introverts are somewhat withdrawn, cold and calculating, more balanced, anxious, good listeners and better at resolving conflicts.
Details
If a person looks both ways before crossing the road, this characterizes his caution and balanced decisions. If he chooses the same dish for breakfast more often, he is a potentially reliable partner and faithful husband, but it will be difficult to convince him to move or make risky investments.
Communication by phone
A person who is used to holding a phone with both hands and typing with both thumbs is most likely an impressionable and vulnerable person.
If a person holds a phone in one hand and enters text with a finger of the other hand, this is evidence of his calm and quiet nature, responsiveness and humanity. A multitasking person, capable of quickly solving problems, more often holds a phone with one hand and enters information using the thumb.
Correspondence
Large and long texts characterize a certain type of narcissism. Voice messages are often sent by people who need live communication.
An impersonal form of messages, where instead of “I didn’t do the task,” the interlocutor writes “the task is not done,” may signal that the author is not inclined to take responsibility.
Numerous emoticons indicate emotionality, text in large letters indicates "raising the tone", and periodic ellipses at the end of sentences indicate understatement and a thoughtful philosophical mood.
There are many ways to determine a person's character, but you should not give in to the temptation to understand a person "in five minutes". Each character trait has the ability to manifest itself in both a positive and negative pole.
A rather reserved, serious and taciturn interlocutor may be prone to schizophrenia, and a bright, emotional and extremely sociable type may have a predisposition to manic-depressive psychosis.
Fraudsters and manipulators can cleverly get used to the role of that very "one of our guys" who made an incredibly favorable impression on you and whom you seemed to have known all your life. Each person's character is unique and has its own peculiarity of containing both a number of stable and changing properties.
In order not to make a mistake in a person and not to make hasty conclusions, carefully observe his habits, communication, attitude to himself, to work, to his business, to his and other people's things, to the people around him and to the world in general. "A person's character creates his destiny. A person's life is his character," Johann Goethe.
