The best operating definition of personality that I came across studying psychology was that it was that aspect of the individual that led to the deviations fro

The best operating definition of personality that I came across studying psychology was that it was that aspect of the individual that led to the deviations from the population norm. On the other hand personality psychology as a field (at least in the 90s) was still a bit of a hot mess. There was no connection at all between the experimental personality course and the introduction to personality course that I took. The latter ended up largely being a history of psychological theories course more than anything else, while the former was based around trying to tease out why individuals might produce different responses to an experimental situation.