Persona

We separate the concepts of identity and personality. Identity consists of the concrete attributes of an entity, such as name, sex, age and hair color. Personality consists of abstract characteristics like sentimentality, sociability, flexibility and diligence. When we bind a personality and an identity together, we call the pairing a persona, and each new combination creates a unique persona.

Persona = Identity + Personality

Another way to see the distinction is the swap test. If you swap a persona’s identity for another, you get an agent that acts the same but may “look” very different. If you keep the identity and swap the personality, you get an agent that looks the same but may behave quite differently. Personality is what a character is like (an inquisitive, socially bold perfectionist). Identity is who they are (a 32-year-old woman named Alice).

Personality is what a character is like… Identity is who they are

In NeoThymos we use the term core personality for the structure of a personality, which is independent of the concrete details of who an agent is, their identity.