Personality Theory - Research Paper Example

?Topic:  Personality Theory Introduction Each one of us is different from others and there are patterns of thinking, feeling and actions that somehowconstantly relate the self to others. Each person is said to have a personality of his own but is also likely to have some commonalities with many others. Although distinct in one’s own ways, yet there can be similarities with others that can be identified and categorized based on some mean or abstract terms defining the personality of the individual(s). The persona of an individual is termed as his or her personality as that being “a characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting” (Website 1) that is in an organized manner and which enables us to identify the person. Different psychologists have taken interest in studying these personality types in humans and have proposed theories based on which each different individual can be identified for his behavior and thinking. This paper explores the theorists, theories, personality types, characteristics, structure of personality, content or definition of personality, etc. While it can be seen that the content that is used to define a personality is almost constant, the paper also studies the reasons behind personality changes over the lifetime of an individual, if it does change. The difference between the various theories and the most accurate theory that defines the personality traits of an individual will also be figured to understand the definition of personality. What is personality? Carl Gustav Jung (1934) defined personality as: “the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of high courage flung in the face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes the individual, the most successful adaptation to the universal condition of existence coupled with the greatest possible freedom for self-determination” (Website 2). Personality is an organization of the dynamic psychophysical system that creates consistent, casual and distinctive characteristic patterns of thoughts, behavior and feelings of an individual at any given point of time of an individual’s development. Personality can be thought of as a mask that a person wears in terms of his feelings, thinking and behavior over a lifetime that remain almost constant and which are consistent with the personality of an individual. It can be seen that the personality traits of an individual consists of layers of characteristic patterns that are wholly integrated by a set of unifying characteristics (Website 2). Personality is seen as a set of social skills of an individual that identify the most basic instincts or characteristics of a person that help explain the reasons behind a person’s behavior based on heredity, past experiences, motivation, influences, etc. (Website 3). Personality is considered as the essence of a person and is seen to reflect the true inner nature of the person at all times. There are many theories as are theorists that have been proposed to explain he different personality traits, each one centered around a unique characteristic or a set of characteristics that the theorists have identified. Intelligence of an individual is also considered to influence the personality and most often considered as a characteristic trait of one’s personality. Further, personalities have structures based on concepts or definitions of characteristic traits that have been identified by several theorists like Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Karen Horney, etc. Each of the theorists has identified a different perspective to explain personality traits of individual(s) to propose the different theories of personalities and their perspectives. Personality theorists Among the first personality theorists who studied the unconscious mind to define human persona was Sigmund Freud who studied the behavior influenced by the unconscious mind, to understand the reasons behind people’s social behavior. Freud empirically studied the unconscious and wrote “The interpretation of dreams” in which he described how the unconscious traits were expressed in a person’s dreams. Further, he explained the relations between different personalities as developing from two most basic human instincts: sexuality and aggression. He expounded that these two basic instincts can be explained based on Darwin’s theory of evolution where instincts are often directed into more socially acceptable behaviors and these set of behaviors can be studied to understand and differentiate the various human personalities (Larsen and Buss, 2002). Also, it is the psychic energy that is innate in humans that is seen to drive the instincts at three different levels of consciousness to channelize the energies towards either self-preservation through seeking sexual and other kinds of pleasures or destruction of others through an act of aggression. Freud’s emphasis on the consciousness motivation has identified three levels of consciousness that determines the behavior: conscious, preconscious and unconscious level. At the conscious level the mind is aware of the feelings, thoughts and perceptions, at the preconscious level the information gathered by the individual is available for retrieval and which can be brought forward to the conscious level and finally, at the unconscious level, the conscious level of the mind is not aware of the feelings or thought processes (Larsen and Buss, 2002). Carl Gustav Jung is another famous psychologist who was a student of Freud and who differed with Freud’s focus on basic instincts to define one’s personality. Jung centered his explanation of personalities around the idea that it is defined by the personal and collective unconscious mind, where the personal unconsciousness grows out of personal experiences and previous generation’s experiences passed on to the future generations define the collective influences on the unconscious mind (Larsen and Buss, 2002). Karen Horney on the other hand has contributed to the personality theory by defining and explaining the character traits of the different personalities. These traits: narcissism (N), perfectionism (P) and aggression (A) are the basis of many models of assessing personality traits and further, the personality of an individual to help identify and categorize one’s personality. The traits identified by Horney can be seen to resemble Freud’s stress on instincts as all the three traits described by Horney are found to be related to the instinct of aggression that to an extent enables one to achieve the pleasures based on the other extreme instinct. There are other personality theorists like Raymond Cattell, Hans Eysenck, etc. who have tried to explore other facets of one’s personality to define the characteristic traits. Cattell’s 16 Personality Factor and Eysenck’s P-E-N model of personality are among the various theories that are available to explain personalities (Benis, 2011). Personality theories The most primitive theory of personality was based on the assumption that personalities are developed through an idea of the nurture-nature forces that are competing with each other to define one’s personality. Modern day theorists have concluded that both nature and nurture play an important role in creating one’s personality, which can be thought of as the interplay between biological and societal influences or tendencies. Several factors: heredity, culture, family background, one’s own experiences in life and societal interactions are found to define personality over time. Based on these different determinants of personality, different theories of personality have been proposed to explain why a person behaves in a certain manner. Theories like: traits (biological) theory, psychoanalytical theory, humanistic theory, learning (social) theory, organizational theory, etc. are some of the prominent theories of personality using which psychologists and theorists of personality have tried to define individual personalities (Website 3). Psychoanalytical perspective 200 This theoretical perspective of personality deals with the Freud’s theory of emphasis on the influence of the unconscious mind on the conscious mind. It emphasizes the influence of the unconscious mind on the conscious and the preconscious mind to determine the behavior of the individual. According to Freud, the thoughts, feelings and experience on the unconscious mind always try to push through to the conscious mind space where they further determine the personality. When this happens, there is an innate conflict between the three levels of consciousness which ultimately leads to a resolution of conflict where the structure components of one’s personality: Id, ego and superego, interact with each other to resolve the conflict and develop the personality. Freud observed this based on the cases of his patients and his self-assessment (Website 1). However, Jung opposed Freud’s explanation which he found to be inclined to the extreme, and explained that the collective unconsciousness plays a major role in motivating the psyche through more general psychological energy to determine personality. Horney based her explanation on the theory of anxiety in social relationships as being the motivating force behind one’s personality while Alfred Adler suggested that the feelings of inferiority or superiority determine the personality behavior of individuals. However, the psychoanalytic theory of personality has been discarded by many as the basis of understanding personalities due to lack of sufficient evidence (Website 1). The humanistic perspective Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers have been instrumental in proposing the humanistic perspective of personality and emphasized on the actualization need of the self. Rogers observed that the self-concept in humans drives the actualization tendency which seeks unconditional positive regard for self owing to an optimistic view of humans in the self. Maslow has stressed on the self-actualization tendency of humans who tend to appreciate the positive aspects of life where human needs are organized in terms of physiological needs to self transcendence (Website 1; CliffNotes) as shown in Figure 1: Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Source: (Website 1). The social cognitive perspective Albert Bandura’s and B.F. Skinner’s theories of social cognitive perspective of personality term personality as a result of interaction between persons in the social context while totally ignoring the unconscious mind and its influence on the personality. The observable and measureable behaviors are considered to explain this theory while the internal feelings and thoughts are ignored (Cherry, 2011). Bandura’s concept of self-regulation arising from a sense of self-efficacy is useful in understanding the cognitive processes that determine the personality as it begins to emphasize the rational side of life while totally ignoring the emotional aspect to one’s personality (Website 1). The trait perspective This perspective of personality identifies, describes and measures individual differences that can arise from characteristic behaviors and conscious motives. The stable characteristic behaviors or traits of an individual are used to describe the personality while the traits themselves do not help determine personality. Some apparent traits like surface traits, source or personality traits, etc. are used to describe the behavior and coupled with an understanding of the situational context of behavior, personalities can be understood. However, it is to be noted that traits alone do not help determine the personality of a person but, the trait perspective along with the situation can help determine the personality. Eysenck's three-dimension (extraversion, neuroticism and psychoticism) theory and the five factor (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness) theory of personality (by McCrae and Costa) are just some of the trait perspective theories of personality (Website 1; Cherry, 2011). Three types of trait theories: phrenology, typology, and the factor theory have been developed to help determine personality (Website 3). Character types Different models consider the various traits to determine the character type of an individual. As the trait theory of personality is the most accepted theory for explaining personalities, the NPA model and the subsequent model by Karen Horney have established the relevance of environmental, cultural and structural factors like narcissism, perfectionism and arrogance-vindictiveness or aggression to the character types of individuals. Older theory of humors describes the character types as: phlegmaticus, cholericus, sanguineous and melancholicus which are related to the character types: N, A, NP, NA and NPA types of trait theory. While the NPA model considers narcissism to be a genetic trait, it is not fully substantiated with evidence although Livesley and colleagues have found a total of eighteen dimensions of personality to be related to narcissism in identical twins (Benis, 2011). Determinants of personality Personality formation is a combination of unique characteristics in the socio-cultural context and the unique configuration of traits lead to individual differences. Several different characteristics of the socio-cultural context like genetic factors, early experience, primary groups like the family, and the cultural setting all play an important role in determining the personality of a person. Heredity is a major determinant of personality although the likes of Freud consider it purely biological. It is seen that 15-50 percent of personality traits are inherited. Also, while the personality of an individual is developed continuously, the early years of one’s life, the immediate environment and personal experiences play a major role too where the personality structural elements: Id, ego and superego are developed (Website 1). Measures of personality Personality can be measured using some of the standard tests and scales developed using behavioral indicators as constructs where the behaviors will be used to draw conclusions about the personality. Tests like Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), Myers-Briggs Types Indicator (MBTI), The Big Five Model, etc. are some of the more popular tests to determine personality of an individual. TAT test is considered to be a valid test the person constructs stories based on images that are interpreted to reflect the unconscious. The Big Five model is said to encompass all other measurement models as the basic dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional stability and Openness to experience, are all measured which invariably cover the extent of socio-cultural dimensions of one’s personality to include the basic theories of personality (Website 4). Theory of personality change While the different theories of personality have considered the content of personality as more or less constant, it still needs to be understood that there is an element of change inherent in the determinants responsible for one’s personality, leading to the conclusion that personalities do change. A look at the reasons for this change reveals that human persona can change if exposed to certain factors that have enormous influence on the determinants of personality traits. Two processes: a feeling process and a personal relationship can have personality altering effects on a person’s behavior. It can be understood that the unconscious mind pushes feelings and thoughts to the fore on to the conscious mind when there is the influence of a personal relationship where repressed feelings, thoughts and experiences can take precedence and come to awareness to change the person’s personality altogether (Worchel and Byrne, 1964). Conclusion A person’s behavior is typical of his personality and remains almost constant for a lifetime. Several psychologists and others have tried to explain why differences exist between each individual, and in this attempt have proposed various theories of personality. While the most basic theory was proposed by Sigmund Freud, and whose theory forms the basis of many other theories of personality, it is close to the psychoanalytic theory. However, the trait theory of personality is the most accepted theory of personality up on which models like MBIT, Big Five, etc. have been based. Various determinants of personality are assessed to understand the behavioral traits which are further measured to describe an individual’s personality. It can also be noted that although the different theories are based on structures (Id, ego and superego) that are projected as being constant, the content of these structures can be changed by repression and personal relationships that influence the unconscious to push to the conscious and become aware. References 1. Website 1: http://www.nios.ac.in/srsec328newE/328EL18.pdf 2. Website 2: http://wilderdom.com/personality/L5-1WhatIsPersonality.html 3. Website 3: http://dakota.fmpdata.net/PsychAI/PrintFiles/PersTheories.pdf 4. Randy J. Larsen & David M. Buss. (2002). Personality Psychology (International Edition). McGraw-Hill. 5. Benis, M. Anthony. (2011). NPA Personality Theory: Personality theory based on the genetic traits of narcissism, perfectionism and aggression. 6. CliffNotes. (2011). The Humanistic Perspective. http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/The-Humanistic-Perspective.topicArticleId-25438,articleId-25390.html 7. Cherry, K. (2011). Theories of Personality. About.com. 8. Website 4: http://managementconsultingcourses.com/Lesson31Personality&ItsTheories.pdf 9. Worchel, Philip and Byrne, Donn. (1964). Personality change. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More