Predominant and repeatedly performed actions which are individual specific may be defined as Character. (Psychological Definition)
This does not mean the individual shall behave exactly in tune with his character at all times, is correct, as he is torn between what his character or predominant inclination tells him to do and the exigencies of the situation.
One who has principles or will shall do what is ethically right and that is what differentiates man from animals.
Character, like traits, can not be quantified. That is the reason for this dichotomy of views.
Human beings are not machines to perform within specified parameters.
Well, to describe Character to a Psychologist is,-as William McKenzie observed on ‘Goodness’-‘you can not describe what yellow is to a man who is born blind”
Certain things in life are felt; can not be analyzed.
Time that psychologists first define, Feelings, Emotions, Will, Traits, Personality, I; then they can start doing experiments and studies. These concepts, at best are described by them, not defined.
Story:
In Homer’s poetry, every hero has a trait. Achilles is angry. Odysseus is cunning. And so was born one picture of character and conduct.
In this view, what you might call the philosopher’s view, each of us has certain ingrained character traits. An honest person will be honest most of the time. A compassionate person will be compassionate.
These traits, as they say, go all the way down. They shape who we are, what we choose to do and whom we befriend. Our job is to find out what traits of character we need to become virtuous.
But, as Kwame Anthony Appiah, a Princeton philosopher, notes in his book “Experiments in Ethics,” this philosopher’s view of morality is now being challenged by a psychologist’s view. According to the psychologist’s view, individuals don’t have one thing called character.
The psychologists say this because a century’s worth of experiments suggests that people’s actual behavior is not driven by permanent traits that apply from one context to another. Students who are routinely dishonest at home are not routinely dishonest at school. People who are courageous at work can be cowardly at church. People who behave kindly on a sunny day may behave callously the next day when it is cloudy and they are feeling glum. Behavior does not exhibit what the psychologists call “cross-situational stability.”
The psychologists thus tend to gravitate toward a different view of conduct. In this view, people don’t have one permanent thing called character.
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