Theories of Personality Essay Example

Theories of Personality Essay Example Theories of Personality Essay Theories of Personality Essay Theories of Personality Psychoanalytic perspective is based on Sigmund Frued perspectives about early experiences it focuses on the importance of the unconscious mind which contains thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories/past experiences in which we are unaware of. The id operates on the pleasure principle by satisfying basic urges, needs, and desires. Ego operates on the reality principle, satisfies the id’s desires in ways that it will cause pleasure instead of pain. Superego strives for perfection, positive feelings and negative feelings of guilt. These three systems were interactions of Frued’s view of personality structure. Freud perspective also focused on psychosexual stages which is the childhood stages of development. Defense mechanisms are methods of reducing anxiety. This perspective could account for the development of introverted and an extroverted personality Humanistic perspective focuses on an individual’s uniqueness and their ability and responsibility to make choices in their lives. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were the founders of this theory they believed that a persons free choice, free will, and understanding of their own experiences and feelings. The meanings of events in his or her life are the most important things to study. Carl Rogers believed that Human nature is viewed as basically good and that we all strive for actualizing tendencies but never reached them if based on the opinions of others. Rogers used client-centered therapy to raise the self-concept of the client and stop their tendencies to look for others opinions. The client’s esteem needs will be met and hopefully seize from concerning other people’s opinions. Rogers also developed a q-sort to judge the self-concept. The humanistic perspective can lead to an introverted personality by the individual not reaching their actualizing tendencies because of the opinions of others. The individual may base their level of self-concept on others’ opinions and if he/she receives negative opinions then that may lead the individual to have low self-esteem and an introverted personality. The humanistic perspective can also lead to an extroverted personality by the individual raising their self-concept by stopping their tendencies to look for others approval. Once they accept themselves, their esteem needs will be met and obtain gratification about themselves. Once their self-esteem rises, the individual will feel more comfortable socializing and be more energized The Trait perspective suggests that individual personalities are composed broad dispositions. The trait approach to personality is focused on differences between individuals. A trait is defined as a relatively stable predisposition to behave in a specific way. The â€Å"Big Five† is factors of personality that represents five core traits that interact to form human personality. These traits were Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, Openness, and Extraversion. Psychologist, Gordon Allport believed that every individual was unique and categorized their traits in three levels: Cardinal Traits (traits that dominate an individual’s whole life), Central Traits (general characteristics that form the basic foundations of personality), and Secondary Traits (traits that are sometimes related to attitudes and often appear only in certain situations). Also British psychologist Hans Eysenck developed a model of personality based upon just three universal trails. Introversion/Extraversion: Introversion involves directing attention on inner experiences, while extraversion relates to focusing attention outward on the environment. Neuroticism/Emotional Stability: Neuroticism refers to an individual’s tendency to become upset or emotional, while stability refers to the tendency to remain emotionally constant. Finally there is Psychoticism which is having difficulty dealing with reality and may be antisocial, hostile, non-empathetic and manipulative. The trait perspective can lead to an introverted personality by having psychoticism that perhaps consisted from a genetic basis. An individual might have inherited psychoticism, thus leading the individual to have interpersonal hostility and an introverted personality. The trait perspective can lead to an extroverted personality by having Extraversion traits as the individuals Cardinal traits. The individuals attitude would be sociable, fun-loving, and affectionate, plus all that will be their dominate traits, thus having and extroverted personality. Introversion involves directing attention on inner experiences, while extraversion relates to focusing attention outward on other people and the environment. So, a person high in introversion might be quiet and reserved, while an individual high in extraversion might be sociable and outgoing. The social cognitive perspective was proposed by Albert Bandura it emphasizes the interactions of a person and their situations. Social cognitive theorists focused on how we and our environment interact they believed we learn many of our behaviors by observing others as well as mental process which was thinking about our situations affects our behavior. A. Learned Helplessness- Learned helplessness is when people and animals experience no control over repeated bad events and then come to feel hopeless, helpless and depressed. An example of learned helplessness is a person with low self esteem, they start to feel hopeless and depressed when they think someone else is better than them whether they are better looking, or better at doing something they begin to let there guard down and then feel depressed and hopeless. Optimistic Attributional Style- A positive or negative way of explaining events in their lives. A person may say that a positive event happened because of them and they also believe that more positive things will happen in the future due to that event. As for negative events they see them as it not being their fault. An example would be External Locus of Control- The perception that chance or outside forces beyond one’s personal control determine one’s fate. Individuals who have no self-control are external locus of control. Self- serving Bias- is a readiness to perceive oneself favorably. It refers to attribute positive outcomes to personal factors, but attribute negative outcomes to external factors. An example would be if you won your first track meet, you might say that this was due to the fact that you practiced hard, or that you’re a fast runner. If you lost, you might blame the referee, the weather, or the fields where you are competing rather than admitting that you did not do your best. Psychology