Assessment for Research - Assignment Example

Theories Of Personality: Psychodynamic, Trait or Five-Factor Model, Humanistic and Socio-Cognitive. Personality refers the permanent, distinguishing thoughts, sentiments and behavior that characterize how one adjusts to our world. The psychodynamic theory described by Sigmund Freud links personality to early childhood experiences and perceives it as unconscious. According to Freud, personality has three structures; the id which constitutes biological instincts and is unconscious. Second is the ego that works on reality principle which makes people develop unconscious defense mechanisms while responding to anxiety created by life challenges.

Thirdly is superego which operates on moral principle. Freud supposed that adult problems stem from early childhood experiences and fixations due to poor advancement through the psychosexual phases. The advantages includes recognizing the importance of childhood on personality, psychologist have also found this theory less controversial. Objections include the overemphasis of sexuality and the past, difficulty to test the unconscious aspect of the personality (Santrock, 05).The trait or five factor theory explains the broad durable dispositions that cause specific responses in various situations.

Trait perspective claims that personality is constant across situations and time. Based on views of Allport and Eysenck, there is existence of five factors of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (OCEAN) crucial in prediction of physical and mental health (Santrock, 2005).The advantages are the ability to use reliable personality tests and viewing development of personality from biological perspective. Disadvantages include focus on broad dispositions instead of uniqueness of a person, being very descriptive and the tendency for biased self-reporting.

The humanistic theory focuses on people’s natural affinity for growth. Rogers’s view promoted unconditional positive regard, empathy and authenticity to enhance self-concept. Maslow described the hierarchy of human needs and concluded that people strive for self-actualization as the motivation to develop one’s full potential. Maslow emphasizes on self-esteem, a part of personality that individuals use to evaluate self-worth and self-image. Self-esteem is upgraded through achievements and coping (Santrock).

The advantages include focusing attention on a healthy personality and giving insight of a person’s subjective view of reality. The negatives include being overly optimistic, excessive self-love and poor testability. Socio- cognitive theory is based on Bandura’s theory which claims that environment, behavior and person or cognitive factors and can influence self –efficacy, expectations and personal beliefs. Walter Mischel explained that both individual and situation take part in determining behavior, hence the inconsistency of behavior in various situations.

The advantages of the theory is focusing on cognitive processes and the insights of effects of learning and environment factors. The disadvantages include fragmented view of personality, dehumanizing nature of radical behaviorism and failure to account for individual differences (Santrock).Works CitedSantrock, John W. Psychology Updated, 7/e. University of Texas, Dallas: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Online Resources.