Psychological theories of personality (SLP) - Essay Example

Overview Different people have different personality traits that can be categorized into diverse areas of psychology. Personalities determine the behavior of individuals in different situations and therefore studying personality is crucial in understanding people. There are several tests used in studying personalities of different people. These tests include the MBTI type of psychological testing and the five factor model. Using the MBTI preference model, it is indicated that an individual’s psychological type is similar to being left or right handedness since people are either born or develop their psychological characteristics.

There are 16 possible psychological types identified by the MBTI psychological model. Using the MBTI model we learn of the four dichotomies of psychological preferences (Bayne, 1997). This model is useful in dictating the character of an individual. The MBTI scores are used in the determination of attitudes and feelings. Attitudes are used to measure the factors of extraversion and introversion (Ewen, 2003). While, functions are divided into perceiving functions of sensing and intuition and the judging functions are made up of thinking and feeling.

The interaction of one or more preferences in the MBTI is referred to as type dynamics. On the other hand, the five factor theory is used as a descriptive measure of the human personality. This model contains the five factors of openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Through this model openness can be described as the ability to appreciate a lot of emotion, adventure or new ideas (Quenk, 2009). While, conscientiousness is a trait that makes a person behave obediently and exhibit self discipline.

All these factors have been extensively tested and found to have strong correlation to human character traits. The FFM (five factor models) use has confirmed high validity and conformity scores to common human behavior traits. For instance, a research was conducted on a population of approximately 24, 000 people using 162 samples and conscientiousness trait matched all the set performance criteria. However, the FFM has been criticized as being limited to assessing all human character traits since the model is mainly based on predicting character (Quenk, 2009).

The comparison of MBTI and FFM show that the two models have the tendency of being similar. The correlation between the two set of personality models show that four of the MBTI measures are related to the big five personality models in the FFM. Extraversion and Introversion combined with Sensing and Intuition measure up to the extraversion and openness models in the MBTI model. This study was conducted on 267 men while they were on their path of aging. It was also found out that thinking and feeling combined with the feeling of judgment and perception correlate with agreeableness and conscientiousness respectively on the FFM (Howard, 2000).

As a result, researchers have concluded that the FFM model is used in explaining the MBTI model for better understanding. However, the MBTI model only measures independent dimensions of human character. The FFM model has been used in correlate to the character traits of young children. This is especially in the case of analyzing children’s social and emotional adjustment and also academic achievement (Bayne, 1997). ReferencesBayne, R. (1997). The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: a critical review and practical guide.

London: Houghton Mifflin.Ewen, R. (2003). An introduction to theories of personality. Boston, MA: John Wiley and Sons.Howard, P. & Howard, J. (2000). The owners manual for personality at work: how the big five personality traits are interpreted. Chicago, IL: Pelshiver. Quenk, N. (2009). Essentials of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment. New York, NY: Greenwood Publishing Group.