The word personality comes from the Latin word persona which means mask and is a dynamic and ordered set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences their emotions, and motivations in certain situations. Personality also refers to the pattern of thoughts, feelings, social adjustments, and behaviours repeatedly demonstrated over time that strongly influences one's expectations, self-perceptions, values, and attitudes. It also calculates human reactions to other people, problems, and stressful situations (American Psychological Association). The study of personality has an extensive and varied history in psychology with an abundance of theories being presented in order to explain the development of personality. These major theories include, psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, behaviourist and evolutionary. For the purposes of this report, in order to explain the behaviour of Will Hunting, the focus will be on Sigmund Freud's' Psychodynamic and Abraham Maslow's' Humanism theories of personality. Will Hunting is the main character and protagonist of the movie. To the rest of the world Will Hunting is a lowly janitor at MIT and a construction worker, however, he also happens to be a prodigy, possessing a genius-level intelligence and a particular gift for mathematics as well as an eidetic memory. A resident of a low socio-economic section of South Boston, Massachusetts, Will is an orphan and the product of an abusive, alcoholic foster father who used to burn him with cigarettes and beat him with a wrench. He bounced through the juvenile correction system and various foster homes but lives alone and occupies a great deal of his free time reading through complex subjects. He also enjoys solving enormously complicated mathematical equations that are presented as extra credit for MIT students. He uses the rest of his time not as productively; drinking and getting into trouble with his friends Chucky, Morgan, and Billy.
