n.1. the philosophical position that human personality is the sole means through which reality can be understood or interpreted. At the core of this perspective is the concept of the person as a unique living whole, irreducible in value or worth, who is striving toward goals and is simultaneously self-contained yet open to the surrounding world. Personalism reorients the material of psychology around an experiencing individual as a systematic focal point. Thus, the findings of psychology can be organized only by reference to such a unique, living individual as the originator, carrier, and regulator of all psychological states and processes. This position reflects that of the school of personalistic psychology. 2. a tendency to believe that another person’s actions are directed at oneself rather than being an expression of that individual’s characteristics.