Why is personality theory considered to be a general theory of behavior?

Answer 1

Not sure I understand your question (and I assume the motivation may somehow be linked to why this question is in Business Law?) but I'll try and help. Personality is really a vague concept, but is usually comprised of what characteristics an individual brings to a situation. This often (but not always) includes past experiences, genetics factors, etc. as there are many different personality theories. Using such a general definition of personality, behavior is then reducible to two components: personality and situation. Most research actually shows that the situation plays the dominant role but many people, especially from Individualistic countries like America (that emphasize independence and being special and successful and believe everyone is a unique individual) tend to believe personality is the main determinate in behavior. (And it likely is more influential where it is believed to be.) Personality theorists tend to share this bias, while Social Psychologists tend to emphasize the situation and downplay personality. All that being said, personality (under most theories) gets reduced to a type or something to help summarize it, as it is quite complex and difficult to use otherwise. The Big 5 (Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Emotional Stability) is the most accepted theory of personality in the research world, but it is harder to apply than many "Type" theories for day to day classifications because you essentially get a score for each of the 5 traits rather than a single "Type" such as the Jung-typology where you are either an Owl, Bear, Monkey or Dolphin (with subclasses based on your extraversion and secondary type).