Personality Psychology - Essay Example

? Trait theory and personal construct theory Personality psychology is a division of psychological studies that is involved in the study of individual differences and personality. This study focuses on constructing a clear image or picture of individuals and the key psychological processes the individual is involved in (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). It also entails a thorough look at individual differences (Butt, 2004). This is the study of people’s uniqueness (Butt, 2004). There is an argument that when put different people are put in different environments they tend to behave differently. People are inherently unique and respond differently to similar circumstances. This is what it means to say that individuals are unique. Personality psychology also involves investigating the human nature. This is the study of how people share similar traits and behaviours (Hollway & Lucey, 2007). There are basic fundamental traits in people, which cause them to respond similarly to different circumstances. This reveals the nature of human beings. This study seeks to show how people are alike, (Butt, 2004). There is a general understanding that personality knowledge and understanding is extremely vital for people to be fully successful in life. Personal awareness is considered a key pillar in the journey to actualization, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). Personality is an organized set of characteristic within a person that makes that person unique when it comes to behaviour, cognitions and emotions and motivation, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). Personality, therefore can be referred to a set of thought patterns, feelings and emotion, (Hollway & Lucey, 2007). Trait theory This theory is based on openness, preferring variety over routine and being imaginative. It emphasizes on emotional stability and agreeableness, (Hollway & Lucey, 2007). This places more emphasis of conscience and reason rather than anxiety and unreasonableness. This can be explained by the fact that personalities have a variety of traits, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). These traits and behaviours cause them to respond differently given similar situations, (Matthews & Deary, 2003). People generally have basic common behaviours, which help in describing them. This includes traits like social, assertive outgoing or even dominant, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). This is the approach that deals with the study of human personality. The aim here is to measure the traits of different personalities. Traits are habits that are manifested in behaviours, emotions and thoughts, (Butt, 2004). Although traits differ across many individuals they are stable over a period of time, (Richards, 2002). They also influence behaviour. For instance, some people are shy while other are quite outgoing. Central traits are fundamental to the personality of an individual while secondary traits or behaviours are in the peripheries. There are traits that can be recognized within cultures because they are common traits. This does not mean that they are common in all cultures; they may vary from one culture to another, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). There are traits that can help identify individuals. This is because they are strong in those individuals. These are the cardinal traits. Trait theorists tend to focus more on group characteristics and statistics those in single individual traits. Personal construct theory This is a psychological theory. Construct psychology was developed by an American psychologist George Kelly in 1950s, (Richards, 2002). It deals this human cognition which relates to human experiences. To be specific, this is the study of human behaviour that relates to setting into order facts and experiences in life, (Matthews & Deary, 2003). This makes it extremely easy to predict how individuals shall respond in case of a future occurrence. This theory tends to argue that psychology is the science of putting human experiences into a definite order to this helps make accurate predictions in case of new situations, ( Butt, 2004). People generally tend to develop constructs as internal ideas to that they can understand their environment, (Matthews & Deary, 2003). These ideas are interpreted depending on our personal experiences and observations. Each construct can be viewed as bipolar, (Butt, 2004). This means it specifies how two things can be similar to each other but different from third thing, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). Each and every person has a duty to put in order all their experiences. After that they are test the accuracy of these observations and experiences by doing the suggestions of the constructs, (Richards, 2002). If it happens that our actions are in life with the knowledge predicted in the construct, then it shows we have successfully given the order of our experiences, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). If not, then we can modify the construct or our predictions. Comparison and contrast Traits theory tends to assume that people have innate behaviours that make them respond to circumstances. Some people are just dominant. It tends to place emphasis of development of human behaviour based on their personality, (Butt, 2004). This does not indicate the theory as extremely interrogative by nature, (Butt, 2004). To put in other words, it tends to make behaviours and traits quite unpredictable. This is not that case with personal contract theory. It the construct theory has got a spacious room for the expertise and experience, (Hollway & Lucey, 2007). It states that the extent of personal awareness make it hard or easy for an individual to predict their behaviour. This is why according to the theory, human behaviour can accurately predicted based to their past experiences and the quality of the construct provided, (Richards, 2002). Although the construct can be modified, it helps to indicate the general trend of behaviour or an individual, (Butt, 2004). Generally speaking, personal construct theory tends to focus more on individual character traits, as opposed to traits theory. The personal constructs are designed to reveal the character traits of an individual, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). It is based to the past experiences that make such traits predictable, (Richards, 2002). The traits theory tends to suggest that, people have some basic common behaviour traits (Butt, 2004). It is intriguing to note that traits theory has been criticize in that it does little to predict the future behaviour of an individual. In other words, traits do a poor job in predicting the behaviour of individuals. This is especially so because the behaviour of individuals tends to differ from one context to another, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). Besides, situations do affect the behaviour of individual, (Matthews & Deary, 2003). We can consider a situation where a person tends to become social just because he or she is surrounded by social people, (Richards, 2002). The same person is likely to revert to his old introvert traits if he or she goes to another different environment. According to traits theory, no real scientific effort is placed in trying to determine the behaviour of individuals, (Matthews & Deary, 2003). The personal construct theory is, therefore more intentional than traits theory. The construct theory is more interrogative in nature. The reality is that environment influences the behaviours of individuals, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). This is supposed to create some natural harmony between the individual and their environment, (Butt, 2004). This influence may not be absolute, but individuals must correlate with their environments for them to have peaceful coexistent, (Butt, 2004). During this process, some behaviour traits are acquired, and some are compromised. This may happen consciously or subconsciously, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). The personal construct theory tends to reason that this is a predictable process. The traits theory brings out individuals are independent of their environment and separate from the mainstream society, (Butt, 2004). This argument suggests that individuals are driven by what motivates that or satisfies them. Some people are said to be open minded. There is no known demerit of interrogating the behaviours of individuals. The construct theory tends to put some confines to human behaviour, (Matthews & Deary, 2003). Some people feel that there are traits that may not be captured in the construct. This gives the traits theory, which place emphasis on individualism, an edge. There construct theory suggest traits are limited while traits theory says they are unlimited and almost unpredictable, (Hollway & Lucey, 2007). The traits theory and construct theory are similar at the onset level. They only drift apart as they advance, (Hollway & Lucey, 2007). They are both based on observations made to individuals in a definite environment. The traits theory states that people possess some traits that cause them to behave the way they do. This clearly suggests that behaviour can be unpredictable, (Matthews & Deary, 2003). It says that individuals are driven by an open mind and that these traits are unlimited, (Langdridge & Taylor, 2007). That statement in itself is an observation. It only happens to be observations whose conclusion is open ended. Imagines behaviour stabilize with time, (Butt, 2004). The personal construct does not deny this uniqueness of human behaviour. It only seeks to contain it using another set of reasoning. Both theories agree on the uniqueness of human behaviour. It is fascinating to see that the trait concept in both theorists is developed through consistency and co variation of human behaviours, (Richards, 2002). The agreeableness of a personality among many other personality traits becomes a benchmark when coming up with a strong construct, (Matthews & Deary, 2003). This means that directly or indirectly both theories are not complete without the input or contribution from either theory. In conclusion, the traits theory is based on openness of mind. It says that people just act based on pleasure and conveniences and can manifest unlimited behavioural traits. These individual traits help them to respond to situations differently although the situation may be common to both. This incorporates aspects like self esteem and the level of self awareness. The construct theory says that human behaviour is inspired by the need to achieve certain goals and is, therefore particularly achievable and predictable. Certain traits can, therefore be grouped to predict the outcome of the behaviour of an individual. All this is put is a construct. References Butt, T. (2004). Understanding People (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=ntEpNR_0pcQC&dq=Personality+Theories+1:+Trait,+biological+and+cognitive+social+approaches&source=gbs_navlinks_s. Hollway, W., & Lucey, H. (2007). Social Psychology Matters (1st ed.). Open University Press. Langdridge, D., & Taylor, S. (2007). Critical Readings in Social Psychology (1st ed.). Open University Press. Matthews, G., & Deary, I. J. (2003). Personality Traits (2nd ed.). Retrieved from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=BqFH_XIq0yYC&dq=traits+theory&source=gbs_navlinks_s. Richards, G. (2002). Some problems with measurement? In Putting Psychology in its Place (2nd ed.). New York. Read More