ТHE IMPACT OF PERSONALITY ON INTERPESONAL RELATIONSHIPS AND SUPPORT

Abstract

Personality can influence to whom individuals are attracted and how often they interact in social situations. Personality even influences how successful people are at getting along with other people. Indeed, social behaviour is often shaped by the dispositions of the individuals involved in the interactions (Ozer and Benet-Martínez 2006). Conversely, social relationships can also have a profound effect on personality. First, we will begin by examining the direct effect of personality on social relations across a range of interpersonal relationships that occur during the lifespan. Secondly, we will focus on how personality not only influences social relations, but how social relations also can shape personality. We will conclude by discussing newer methodologies that allow researchers to study both personality and social relationship effects simultaneously. The personality dimensions presented are not meant to be exhaustive but instead are offered as examples when considering the association between personality and social relations across the lifetime. We should also note that we will use the terms temperament and personality somewhat interchangeably. Personality, on the other hand, has been defined as ‘an individual’s characteristic pattern of thought, emotion, and behaviour’. Given that both definitions focus on characteristic patterns of responding, there is considerable overlap in these two constructs when attempting to understand how these differences influence social relations across the lifespan.