Final answer:
The set of characteristics that underlie a relatively stable pattern of behavior in response to ideas, objects, or people in the environment is known as 'personality'. It includes traits and patterns that cause consistent thought, feeling, and behavior, distinct from attitudes, cognitive dissonance, and the halo effect.
Step-by-step explanation:
The set of characteristics that underlie a relatively stable pattern of behavior in response to ideas, objects, or people in the environment is referred to as personality. Personality encompasses long-standing traits and patterns that cause individuals to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways. These characteristics are often conceptualized within established models of personality such as the Five Factor Model, which includes openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Personality is thought to be influenced by both genetic factors, referred to as temperament, as well as by life experiences and interactions with the environment. It's important to distinguish personality from concepts such as attitudes, which are our evaluations or feelings towards a person, idea, or object, and cognitive dissonance, which is the psychological discomfort experienced when our actions are not in alignment with our beliefs or perceptions.
The halo effect is unrelated to personality and instead refers to the bias where the overall impression of a person can influence how we judge their specific traits. While perception involves how we interpret and understand the world around us, and dissonance, as seen in cognitive dissonance, relates to the conflict between our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.