Explain what is meant by personality.Why is no single definition of personality is universally accepted?

It is generally accepted that behavior is a complex interaction of the person and the situation.People always bring something of themselves to the situation.That something,representing the unique qualities of the individual,is personality.However,since personality is not directly observable,but rather is inferred from behavior,different individuals may focus on different elements in defining its particular or essential nature.(Since this point is not articulated in the text,it will represent a rather high-level insight for many students).
This is what has happened in personality research over the years,with different ideas about the essential nature of personality being emphasized by different writers.One key idea is that personality represents personal characteristics that lead to consistent patterns of behavior.Another idea is that personality somehow accounts for the behavior of all people in all situations (i.e. ,it is a general theory of behavior).However,writers often also focus on the concept of individual differences.Thus,attempts to understand the personality of an individual include efforts to specify what that individual has in common with others and what makes that particular person unique.A final dimension that is frequently emphasized in personality theories is the idea that personality has stability and continuity in time.Personality develops primarily in the early years of childhood,then achieves a relative stability,although personality development clearly occurs to a certain extent throughout life.Combining these frequent conceptions,the text defines personality as "a person's set of relatively stable characteristics and traits that account for consistent patterns of behavior in various situations."