Evaluation of a Person by Various Personality Theories - Essay Example

Personality Case Study] Order #362271 3/24/2010 Student Robert is my cousin. He is really a very interesting person. His personality presents a fascinating picture to all the people he meets. He is creative soul. Writes fictions, stories, poetry and literary essays in the weekly magazines and earns a lot of money. But his creativity aside, he is a hyper-impulsive personality. He always complains about health problems like gastric ulcers, acne on face, and insomnia. The most difficult problem with him is that he readily becomes angry over little things. At times, he becomes very altruistic and humanitarian. He loves his friends from the core of his heart. I always take care of his sensitivities and deal with him extra-ordinarily nicely. I consider him an asset in my relatives and feel proud of his friendship. I always explain his personality problem to those friends who become angry with him at times. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the personality characteristics of a person, as a case study in the perspective of different personality theories. Creativity as a personality trait and psychosomatic disorders are the main focus of this essay. Theoretical framework like Behaviorist, humanistic, cognitive and psychoanalytic is utilized for the analyses of above-mentioned traits of the case study, in comparison and contrast to each other. The essay criticizes and sums up the detailed analysis in the conclusion. It is interesting to analyze the creative abilities of an individual from, behaviorists, and cognitive point of view (Ornstein, P.H., Ornstein, A, 1980). Innovative, creative genius makes some people different from all others. Sometimes combination of his genius mind with psychosomatic disorders makes people believe that he is a bit insane person (Santrock, 2008). But this is not true. Creativity is a latent quality in one’s personality. This is actually a function of behavior, cognitive process and personality. There are two major theorists in psychology that can help in explaining the creative quality of people (Abrahamson, L.; Y. Seligman and M. Teasdale, 1978). Abraham Maslow explains it in the humanistic perspective while, B.F. Skinner explains it in the behavioral perspective. The detailed comparisons of their view point about the creativity and innovative quality of individuals are given as below. According to the Behaviorist View, The creativity is not initiated by the person himself. Rather a person is the focal point of those external and genetic forces that stimulate and initiate a creative process in the personality of a person (Allport, G. W, 1937). Skinner explains that a person perceives from the environment and acts in a special way. This is called creativity. For instance the mother feeds the baby like the environment feeds a poet. A poet can accept and reject the pieces of his environmental observation, whereas a baby can seldom do that (Baron, J. ,1982). A poet as a creative person regenerates what he observes from the environment. So the source of perception is the environment according to Skinner. But according to him the autonomy of diverging from the perceived observations from the environment is still there, with a creative person to act and recreate through the behavior which is personal to the creative person ( Bradberry, T. ,2007) The special way of doing the things on the basis of observations makes a person different and creative in the society. However, according to Maslow’s Humanistic -Personality-Based theory, creativity is as an aspect of personality. Some people are creative because their perception is special and different from other people in the society. People see the things as raw, fresh, generic, branded, abstract, classified and categorized. These are different perceptions (Engler, Barbara , 2006  ). The capable people to discern the perception are bold, free, courageous, and spontaneous and all these characteristics make them creative. Creativity makes itself shown in the daily life of individuals and is not a single characteristic of only one aspect of actions or behavior. The qualities of self confidence, extravagance, independent thinking, a greater sense of humor etc also describe a creative person (Hjelle, L. & Ziegler, D., 1992.). These people prefer complexity over simplicity, accept disorders and are highly tolerant about ambiguity. Gordon Allport explains creativity as the cognitive process. This is based upon the violation mental process. This operational process in the same way as a person solves a mathematical question or speaks another language. Recently a two mind theory of creativity has been developed in a New York ad agency by a psychologist Alex Osborn. One part of mind called the judicial mind acts in a filtering manner and logically acts. The creative mind always generates new and novel ideas. Brainstorming thus became a successfully popular idea in the corporate culture (Ryckman, R. , 2004). Previously, the sub-conscious mind was considered as the centre of the creative activity but many creative people’s reports referred to the mysterious activity of mind that was responsible for creative activity of mind. Henry Poincare the, mathematician narrated his experience of creativity of various combinations while having his black coffee. Thus a model was developed by Graham Wallas based on the four stages of creativity, i.e. preparation for creative works, incubation of new ideas, illumination on the ideas and verification of the created work (Tapu, C.S. , 2001). Relaxation reenergizes the creative process. This process is called a black box phenomenon. This phenomenon explains that sometimes the sub-conscious does not help in providing the necessary information. Different analogies of work are stretched to create and discover new things in the human society. Gordon used Metaphor as a mechanism of the essential creative process (Ghiselin, Brewster,, 1952). On the basis of that principle ha established the Synectics Corporation. From 1950 to 1980 he has been finding interactions of the subconscious mind with the conscious mind in order to find the path ways of the creativity (WJJ Gordon and Poze, 1981). The sub-conscious gets alert when the conscious verbal activity of verbal thinking converts the verbal thinking into a blurred image. It can, therefore, be summed up that the creativity can be explained in three different but complimentary theoretical paradigms of the personality. These are the behaviorist, personality based, cognitive process theories. The creativity according to the behaviorists is the environmental product and function of behavior in the backdrop of the genetic endowment. The role of environment is significant in the behaviorist theory as far as the creativity as a characteristic of the individual is concerned. Special perceptiveness is the base of the personality based theory of the creativity. The cognitive process differs and differentiates the thinking process as a learned behavior that can be improved. In view of the above theoretical framework the creativity of Robert can be well-understood (Howard, Niles , 1980). At the most it can be said that not a single theory can independently explain the creative ability of a person but, when this quality is tried to be understood keeping all the above three theories, only then a sufficient picture of understanding about creativity comes about. Psychosomatic illness can be explained different personality theoretical perspectives. People who feel stressed for a longer time period and the frequency of this stress is repeated and graver then the people are said to have developed psychosomatic disorders. Such disorders are usually temporary and go away as the conditions disappear. The recent psychoanalytic school of thought based upon Sigmund Freud psychoanalytic theory of personality explains that in the conflict situation a person tries to adopt the defense mechanism. When the defense mechanism fails then the temporary stress situation occurs which results into the different psychosomatic disorders in the suffering individuals. According to Freud repression is the main human defense mechanism. This repression is based upon the role of ego in psychology. The psychosomatic disorders appear in the form of physical illness like body dysfunctions. Peptic ulcers, acne, arthritis, hyper tension and gastric troubles etc are some of the examples of psychosomatic disorders (Skinner, B.F., 1988). Sigmund Freud and Breuer demonstrated that psychosomatic disorders were not only due to the disturbance in the central nervous system but these are also the expressions of physical signs and symptoms. The psychosomatic disorders can be understood on the assumption that these are the dysfunctions of body and mind at one point of time. Usually these disorders do not require clinical treatment but the removal of physical causes removes the disorders like depression. However, in personality theories the disorders are believed to be the outcome of shared uneasiness in the bodies. People with such disorders feel aimless and ashamed. They feel nervous, fearful, instable and envious. They are always in the search of role model to commit themselves to their whole lives. They can easily be doubtful about many things and they are easily angry. They are either having impulsive or unstable personalities and can easily become social out castes. At the same time they can be very creative and productive people in their own way. The psychological personality theories on the disordered personalities are based upon certain hypothesis called the working models founded about pathogenic and developmental patterns of behaviors and personal feelings of anguish. These people are normally unsuccessful in adapting to the successful life. Cognitive theory is based upon the collection, manipulation, validation and analysis of data from various persons with the personality disorders (Kiechel, W., 1983). This theory emphasizes upon perception of the environment in abnormal and unrealistic manner which results in the disordered view of things. The experiments are done on different people from ages, gender and nationalities and the hypothesis are proved accordingly. The cognitive theory of disorders like the cognitive theory of creativity focuses upon the reliable and valid data which is gathered numerically and tested statistically. While, keeping in view all the above psychological theories about personality disorders, the most powerful work is the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud. According to his theory the basic motivation of life is the libido. It is also called life energy; it leads the people from urge to urge (Shallcross, Doris, 1981). This energy helps the people in seeking pleasures and avoiding pain. When a person thinks about seeking pleasure and each and everything and avoids the pain, there can be certain situations which results into frustrations. People facing frustrations learn to deal with the reality. In this way they adjust themselves in various ways and this adjustment is called defense mechanisms. In the unconscious mind, flight from reality is also a defense mechanism. The repression leads to a stress condition which can be temporary phenomenon. But some people cannot effectively deal with their stress and become weaker in their defense mechanism. The repression and stress is ultimately internalized which appears in the form of neurosis. If this neurosis condition becomes intense and durable with higher rate of frequency, this condition shows itself in the form of psychological disorders. These disorders can appear as psychosis and then the same psychosis converts into the psychosomatic disorders like the following few ones unfounded bodily complaints like pains in the body, sleeplessness (insomnia), stomachaches, headaches, constipations, fatigues, face acne, arthritis, tumors and hair fall conditions. Over the time such people with personality disorders become used to such conditions and thick themselves to be gravely ill. However, due to the change in the conditions the same people feel relived and the same symptoms get disappear. External factors like traveling to the new places, meeting with new people, listening to a choosy music, finding good friends or watching a good movie can relax the repressive process and the people with temporary mental illness can become well and normal. Certain medicinal adjuncts can also help such people. Little doses of tranquilizers and anti-depression medicines with mild laxatives and pain killers can help relive certain psychosomatic disorders. Therefore, in view of above analysis of personality theories about psychosomatic disorders the psychoanalysis is a very powerful paradigm that explains the psychosomatic disorders and also refers to the treatment mechanism while explaining the genesis and symptoms of these disorders. There are many other theories which give one or the other aspect of personality disorder but those are not so comprehensive and complete. In comparison with cognitive theory of personality disorders the psychosomatic disorders are not given that much detail and these only try to explain the reasons as to why the personality disorders appears . The socio-psychological, trade, humanistic, developmental and behaviorist theories try to explain one or the other aspect of mental illnesses and personality disorders but have however, all these put together are not so holistic and comprehensive as are the psychoanalytic theories. In the conclusion, it can be said that creativity is the function of behavior that perceives the things I the environment and certain people behave in very special way which makes them creative. The behaviorists explain creativity as the function of behavior. While, cognitive theory of creativity focuses upon the different ways of perceiving the things in their own way, this makes them creative (Rothenberg, Albert and Hausman, Carl , 1976). Therefore, it can be said that both behaviorists and cognitive theories about creativity explain to essential and complementary aspects of human personality. While, explaining personality disorders and mental illness the psychoanalytic theory is more powerful than the cognitive theory. Because psychoanalysis goes into the genesis of mental illness gives explanation of the abnormal behavior. Counts the signs and symptoms of the psychosomatic disorders and suggests the reliving treatment etc. References 1. Abrahamson, L.; Y. Seligman and M. Teasdale (1978). "Learned Helplessness in Humans: Critique and Reformulation". Abnormal Psychology 87: 49–74. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.87.1.49 2. Allport, G. W. (1937). The American Journal of Psychology, 50, pp. 141-156. 3. Baron, J. (1982). Personality and intelligence. In RJ Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of human intelligence (pp. 308-351). London: Cambridge University Press. 4. Bradberry, T. (2007). The Personality Code. New York: Putnam. 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