What Personality Is
The subject of Personality is confessedly difficult, partly because the several meanings of the word are often confused, but mainly because in the last analysis personality is itself inscrutable. In this lesson, however, we shall confine our use of the word to those characteristics which are in a peculiar sense the property of the individual, and which have the effect of arousing the emotional interest or antagonism of other people. (The Oxford Dictionary defines Personality as “that quality, or assemblage of qualities, which makes a person what he is as distinct from other persons.”)
In this sense everybody has personality. A useful illustration is found in handwriting. We all use the same script and the same words, nevertheless, each person manages somehow to individualize his penmanship in such a way that he can pick it out from among thousands of other specimens; and we might achieve the same result if we studied his handwriting long enough to master its differences from the work of other pens. Now it is these differences in their number and significance that are of most account. A man’s handwriting may be dissimilar from that of every other man, and yet it may be weak and ill-formed, or it may be full of character. In like manner, a man’s personality may be different from that of his fellows, and yet it may be quite insignificant or, on the other hand, profoundly impressive.
Personal Magnetism
Nobody seems to know what personal magnetism really is in itself, but we have all experienced it. Some people attract us and interest us deeply, just as others unfailingly repel us. The repellent people generally carry with them qualities which explain our aversion, and in some eases this is true of attractive people; they have characteristics which we call pleasing. But the influence itself is elusive; it is all around them, vague and invisible, like an atmosphere.
Some theorists assert that men and women whose mental vibrations are of the same pitch of intensity are mutually attracted, and that aversions are explainable by pronounced differences in this respect. It is an interesting guess, but without’ proved scientific basis. Certainly attraction and repulsion between particles suggest likeness and unlikeness, and it is not impossible that our preferences and aversions depend on unconscious similarities and divergencies.
Positive vs. Negative People
As a rule, people with strongly marked personalities are positive, not negative; they are far more ready to affirm than to deny; they are more keen on Yes than No. The effect of this attitude on the whole of their activity is progressive; like life itself, they are all for movement and expression; and the effect on other men an women is exhilarating. We see it in every sphere of society, for even in circles where one does not look for educated intelligence one can find pronounced character. It is seen in a factory girls’ national outing, where a popular member of the company is invited to enter every frolics, because “she knows how to ‘kid’ every man who looks at us.” It can be seen in the influence of great men, Emerson for instance, of whom an intimate friend said that no one who met him was ever the same again.” (Woodbury’s Talks with Emerson, p. 75.)
