This paper was presented at
Psychology: The Indian Contribution
National Conference on
Indian Psychology, Yoga and Consciousness
organised by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research
at the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education
Pondicherry, India, 10-13 December 2004
(click to enlarge)
Personality types: Indian and western
Savita Deo & Nirmala Kulkarni — Pune University,
Pune.
Traits, motives, and cognition are the units of personality
which can serve three major functions – to summarize, to predict,
and to explain a person’s
conduct. In western trait psychology, personality types are described by using
three factors, five factors, and sixteen factors mainly. Indian psychology
describes personality in terms of the guna theory - sattva, rajas, and
tamas - where tamas
is at the lower end of guna theory. In Ayurveda, personality is described in
terms of tridoshas or the three humors – vata, pitta, and kapha, the most
fundamental and characteristic principle of Ayurveda. Hence, in the present
paper an attempt is made to compare and contrast the description of personality
types
given in Indian and Western trait psychology. For the Indian description of
personality we delimited ourselves to Samkhya and Yoga theories, and the Ayurveda
system.
An attempt is made to find out whether and to what extent Indian typology regarding
personality closely resembles Western trait psychology.
Email the author: "Dr. Ms. Savita Deo" <savita@unipune.ernet.in>