By nature he tries to establish a harmony between his...

By nature he tries to establish a harmony between his personality and the objects to which he is attached, in order to become attuned to them. His behaviour and conduct are tuned to and in harmony with what he considers to be of greatest worth and value in life. The different hierarchies of values represent different ways of thinking and differences of ethos. Here we have a way of judging the intrinsic worth of every person and a criterion for measuring his personality.

Those who base their success and happiness on materialistic values-both in respect of quality and quantity-directing their endeavours throughout life to the attainment of materialistic objectives, and totally neglect and reject the real values basic to the achievement of true happiness, they in fact shatter their human personality.

There are many people who spend all their lives in unceasing pursuit of materialistic values, but are not ready to devote a moment of their time to discovering the invaluable treasure represented by spiritual merits and virtues. Scholars have different views about the extent to which the problems of personality are related to social psychology. Some of them regard personality to be a product of hereditary and physiological factors.

Some others consider personality to be totally a product of social factors. The truth lies somewhere between these two extreme positions. Family, school and social environment constitute the three most potent factors in laying the foundations of personality and determining the character of a person. Modern psychology gives much importance to the little-understood phenomenon of personality-something that did not receive much attention in the old psychology.

Without doubt, social factors play an important direct role in the constitution of personality and many of a man's qualities are those which have been formed by external environment. Few are those who can resist the power and influence of their environment and swim against the current. Munn, in his work on psychology, says: We would possess a very different personality if we had been brought up by the Eskimos, the Sioux, the Balinese, or by some other cultural group.

Not only would we dress differently, live in a different kind of dwelling, eat different food, use different implements and weapons, speak a different language, and have different social customs, but we would also have a very different conception of the world and of our own place within it.