Analyzing Personality: A Close Look at Sarah

Personality is universal; we all have at least one. However, personality is also unique to each of us, just like our fingerprints, representing our patterns of thought, behaviors and beliefs. When I look at my friend Sarah, a bubbly, yet anxious college student, I can see two aspects of her personality clearly: on the bright side, she is cheerful and ready to please, on the gloomy side, she is also a nervous wreck and is easily stressed. How did Sarah 's personality become this way? Using personality theories and approaches from class, I will attempt to analyze my friend Sarah 's personality by presenting an overall interpretation of her personality through the Big Five approach, her genetic and environmental background, as well as her perception of her goals and motives.
Big Five Analysis According to her Big Five Assessment results, Sarah seems to be somewhat extraverted as she scored in the 58th percentile. Being the talkative type, she enjoys interactions. Social interactions for her, are observations, gleaning information about

As such, she also developed a bad tendency to focus on extrinsic goals rather than intrinsic goals. For example, when applying for a job, Sarah always practices her interviews and does her very best to be a competitive candidate. However, when she doesn 't get the job, instead of thinking about the experience she accumulated and other external reasons as to why she may not have gotten the job, she believes that she is simply useless, unqualified and unworthy of the position, focusing more on the extrinsic reward she lost (such as the job position), rather than intrinsic rewards she gained (the additional practice and experience she