A SURVEY TO DECIPHER THE PERSONALITY TRAIT OF ERSTWHILE PRESIDENT MILLS AND INCUMBENT PRESIDENT NANA ADDO DANQUAH AKUFFO ADDO

Personality traits are the structures and propensities inside a person that explains his or her characteristic patterns of thought, emotion and behavior. There are a number of theories on personality traits such as Hippocrates (460-370 BC) Four Temperaments, Cattell’s 16PF test, Eysenck (1916-1997) etc. The Greek physician Hippocrates, described the four temperaments as part of the ancient medical concept of humorism (i.e. Chemical systems regulating human behaviour).He believed that certain human moods, emotions, and behaviors were caused by an excess or lack of body fluids (called "humors"), which he classified as blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm (McLeod, 2017). Galen later outlined four temperamental categories; sanguine, melancholic, choleric and phlegmatic after the four bodily humors. Each was the result of an excess of one of the humors which produced the imbalance in paired qualities (Wikipedia, 2019). The diagram below highlights the four temperament theory or personality types.

 

The four main temperament or personality types are broken down into two categories; extroverts and introverts. Jung (1976) divided personality into two parts; Introvert and Extrovert. With the four main temperaments, the sanguine and Choleric are extroverts whereas the phlegmatic and melancholic are introverts. For the purposes of this survey, personality will be discussed in two broad terms; introversion and extroversion. The chart below helps expound the difference between extroverts and introverts.

EXTROVERTS	INTROVERTS
Recharge by socializing	Recharge by spending time alone
Make decisions quickly	Reflect before making decisions
Love to speak or talk more	Love to listen more
They are easily distracted	They are self-aware
They are action-oriented	They think before acting
They enjoy being the center of attention	They don't enjoy being the center of attention
They like to dominate	They don;t seek to dominate
They are stiff and inflexible in thinking which makes it difficult for them to accept corrections from people	They are flexible in thinking
They are egoistic and mostly prefer a dictatorial style in solving problems	They are not egoistic and mostly prefer a democratic style in solving problems

Source : Houston(2019), Sharp(1987) & Jung(1946)

 

The survey seeks to find out the personality type of erstwhile president John Atta Mills and current president Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo. With the two leaders under review, Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo has been described as; forward looking, optimistic, confident, universal, strong leader, high on energy, purpose driven, speaks warmly, exhibits friendship and builds a sense of rapport with those around him including the opposition (GhanaWeb, 2019) . On the other hand, Mills has been described as; a peacemaker which won him the name “asomdweehene” meaning, ‘King of Peace’ in Akan language (GhanaWeb, 2019) , calm, thoughtful, not arrogant, tolerant and humble (Graphic Online, 2015)

Dear respondent,

I am undertaking this survey to decipher the personalities (extrovert/ introvert) of erstwhile President John Atta Mills and incumbent President Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo. This survey is solely for Academic purposes and thus carried out with no party influence whatsoever. You are assured of confidentiality of the information you provide. Thank you.

Eysenck, H.J. & Eysenck, M.W. (1958). Personality and Individual Differences. Plenum Publishing.

Houston, E. (2019). Introvert vs Extrovert: A Look at the Spectrum and Psychology. https://positivepsychology.com/introversion-extroversion-spectrum/ Retrieved 21/12/2019.

Jung, C. G. (1946). Psychological Types or the Psychological of Individuation. London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner & Co., Ltd

McLeod, S. (2017). Theories of Personality. https://www.simplypsychology.org/personality theories.html Retrieved 14/12/2019.

Sharp, D. (1987). Personality Types: Jung’s Model of Typology. Canada: Thistle Printing Company Ltd.

Thompson, E. R. (2008). "Development and Validation of an International English Big-Five Mini-Markers". Personality and Individual Differences. 45 (6): 542–8. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.06.013

Wikipedia (2019). Four Temperaments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_temperaments Retrieved 15/12/2019.

GhanaWeb (2019). The Leadership Qualities of Nana Akufo-Addo. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/The-Leadership-Qualities-of-Nana-Akufo-Addo-131648 Retrieved 23/12/2019.

GhanaWeb (2019). Atta Mills was a Modest Leader - Dr. Chambas. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Atta-Mills-was-a-modest-leader-Dr-Chambas-319089 Retrieved 23/12/2019.

Graphic Online (2015). President J.A. Mills and his Legacy of Ethical Leadership. https://www.graphic.com.gh/features/features/president-j-a-mills-and-his-legacy-of-ethical-leadership.html Retrieved 23/12/2019.