Developing a Personality - Case Study Example

? Personal Case Study Thesis ment Every human being has a unique personality which varies depending ontheir immediate environment. Personality can be acquired through learning or through imitation of the one’s behavior on the other hand. Introduction Personality is defined as a set of mental traits and mechanisms within a person which are comparatively and organized to influence interactions in the societal environment with adaptations to intra-psychic physical endurance. Psychology is abroad discipline which entails cognitive psychology, social psychology and industrial psychology all which describes human behavior and practices in life. Most human being are unique in many ways hence psychology tends to explains the similarities through understanding of their respective societal ethics. In understanding different human traits, personality psychology explains how human differ from others. This school of psychology also explains why some of aspects contradict or complement on human life. According to research, this field of discussion came later after all other schools had been discussed by psychologists. Stages of Development According to Freud’s explanation on the theory of psychodynamic, personality is structured in three major categories namely; Id, Ego and Superego and psychosexual stages of development. Whereby Id explains the basic instincts of all human beings, Ego refers to the stage which connects an individual’s Id and superego. Superego depicts human morals acceptable behaviors while psychosexual stage is the last stage in this theory which paves way for behavioral stage. The first stage of development starts immediately after birth to 1 year of age. This is the stage where infants tend to acquire pleasure from sucking. At this stage, the infant may be at a position of chewing pencils, rubbers, thumbs, finer nails biting as an affixation. The next stage is the anal stage (1-3years). At this stage, young children enjoy releasing urine and other waste products from the body. Parent have difficult work in training their children how to use toilets because if they are not well trained they will end up becoming anal retentive. Cleanliness is the major affixation at this stage or messiness. In that a child may hold urine for quite sometime and release it at his or her own will. The enjoyment at this stage is crucial to parents for the development of their children. Between the years of 3 to 6 refers to as the phallic stage. At this stage, the Id of an individual focuses on the genital impulse which explains why children find pleasure from their genital stimulation. Parents’ major worry is the Electra conflict and oedipal conflict for both girls and boys respectively. The child tries to explore his or her body needs with the opposite sex hence may result to wrong sex forcing the parent to have anger towards them. Parents tend to take much time with their children so as to teach them on the various life outcomes but not in depth since they fear they are not grown enough to follow their parents’ restrictions. At the latency stage, the child’s superego develops. At this stage it is believed that there is no much change as of developmental happenings. Lastly is the genital stage of development. It also takes place at the adolescent stage where the child tries to find pleasure through sex or they may have the need for sex. Parents have enormous task of advising their children intensively so as not to indulge in unwanted pregnancies and unhealthy relationships which may affect their later lifestyles. Bandura explains cognitive theory as a school of thought which gives an individual the right to socialize free within the given environment which helps in the developmental learning due to the immediate environment. The psychologist believed this theory is the connector between the environment and the human behavior. The theory focuses most on the observations or imitation of others behavior thus triggers an individual to behave the same. For example when a young child sees the elderly yelling with hostility to other people, he will later acquire the behavior and develop it later in future. The social part of this theory also explains that this behaviors can be achieved through feelings and thoughts of others aggressive acts. In real life situation, if a child sees the father pointing fingers at others while talking, then the child will develop that habit of talking and using the fingers to point at the listeners. All this changes win development of one being contributes to the life span development and thus very important to all growing child and human being in general. Incases where a child hears the father or mother solves problem using three options, leads to the child acquiring the same principle of solving problems in three options lets say a, b, and c. this is acquired through observations as a cognitive theory. It is believed by researchers that this theory of psychology affects an individual’s behavior in life as also evident in daily life of human development. In contrast, Erik Erikson recognized Freud’s development theory as misjudge to most of the development dimensions. In 1950-1968 he came up with psychosocial theory which criticized primary motive of Freud’s theory which was based on the sexual nature as human behavior. Erik explains Freud’s theory as a social reflect of affiliated desire to other people. Erikson explains that development changes through out human life while Freud argued it out that personality is shaped only in five stages of development. In Erikson’s explanation, every human being unfolds a character as they grow and develop. For example in his eighth stage of development, explains why some of the life’s complicated crises are inevitable in that an individual can not trust everybody around them. While on the affirmative, there is achievement of virtues and balance of nature and some emotional strength which emerge as a result. B. F. Skinner a psychologist (1904-1990) explained how change in behavior is brought about by punishments and rewards and not by thoughts or feelings as argued by other psychologists. According to him, rewards and punishments help in shaping an individual’s developmental life. For example shy individuals may later become social oriented in that, after interacting with the people around the change of behavior develops and hence makes the individual understands his personality better. This is an involuntary response development in an individual which has its consequential probabilities in future occurrences as explained in his operant conditioning theory. This explains why parent smiles to young children after doing something worthwhile. The child will therefore grow knowing that what he did earlier is rewarding to others and will have to stick to that good thing even as he gets to grow and develop in his future life. Bronfenbrenner on the other hand argues that development is as reflect of biological influence while environmental background predominates according to his theory of bio-ecological approach. Some of the biological influence he discussed includes; Microsystems where an individual is viewed as construct to families, peers and schoolmates. Second is meso-system which acts as a connector between the Microsystems with experience. Exosystem involves experience being affected by inactive role where an individual does not play a major role. The comparisons of different cultures as explained from the bio-ecological approach explain macro system in human behavior. It also refers to patterns of behavior, belief and other groups of people from one generation to generation. Chronosystem refers to behavior change as a result of technology and work life boundaries in human. In conclusion, all human development is brought about by change in environment or biological effects thus contribute to one’s personality in the society. From all the psychologists’ arguments, it is clear that they all had one thing in common in that all their discussions are based on either environmental change or social contributions. References Lane, H. A., & Lane, M. B. (1959). Understanding Human Development. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Read More