Sample of Identity: Speculative Outlook - Essay Example

Running Head: Psychology Psychology Customer’s Name Customer’s Course: Tutor’s Name: 18th July 18, 2013 PART 1: ESSAY PLAN In this essay, I am going to address the trait theory of personality. This theory is one of the main theoretical areas in the study of personality (Mischel, 1981). Introduction A trait can be defined as a distinguishing quality or characteristic, usually one belonging to an individual (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). Thus, trait terms such as ‘introvert’, ‘intelligent’ and many others can be used to describe an individual (Hogan, 1986). The trait theory of personality is one of the main theoretical areas in the study of personality. In this essay, I am going to discuss this theory in detail and also compare it with some other theories of personality such as the psychoanalytic and humanistic theories. I am also going to discuss the contributions that were made by several psychologists to this theory. In addition, I am also going to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this theory. Body The first paragraph of the essay will be the introduction. In the introduction will provide an overview of the trait theory of personality. This paragraph will also highlight some of the major concepts of this theory. The second paragraph of the essay will address the contribution that Gordon Allport made to this theory. Allport was one of the pioneers of the trait theory (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). He found out that there are over 18000 words in the Webster’s New International dictionary of 1925 that could be used to describe an individual’s personality (Allport, 1960). He managed to shrink this list to 4000 words and further grouped them into 3 categories: secondary, central and cardinal traits (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). I will discuss these three categories of traits suggested by Allport in the same paragraph. In the third paragraph, I will discuss Hans Eysenck’s contribution to this theory. According to Eysenck, physiology and genetics are fundamentally important (Eysenck, 1997). Eysenck conducted surveys on hundreds of people and used the data that he gathered to develop a model similar to Galen’s Four Temperaments (Hogan, 1986). Eysenck also came up with the idea of super traits (Eysenck, 1997). Examples of these super traits include: Extroversion, introversion and psychoticism (Hogan, 1986). The fourth paragraph will address the five factor model. Most trait theorists view human personality based on a five-factor model (Hogan, 1986). This model suggests that the big five dimensions of personality are: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (Wiggins, 1997). I will discuss this in detail. In the fifth paragraph, I will address Raymond Cattell’s contribution. Cattell came up with the 16 personality factor model which could be used in categorizing all personality traits (Cattell, 1965). In this paragraph, I will discuss the 16 personality factor in detail. The sixth paragraph of the essay will address the strengths and weaknesses of the trait theory of personality. This theory has been praised and also criticized for various reasons. These reasons will be addressed. Conclusion The last paragraph will be the conclusion. In this paragraph, I will briefly compare the trait theory of personality with other theories of personality such as the humanistic and psychodynamic theories in a bid to assess its usefulness. PART 2: ESSAY The personality trait theory is one of the main theoretical areas in the study of personality (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). This theory proposes that an individual’s personality comprises of various temperaments. This means that an individual’s personality can be described as having more than one character trait, for example a person can be described as caring, kind and short tempered (Cervone & Pervine, 2007). Unlike many other personality theories such as humanistic or psychodynamic theories, the trait theory of personality does not entirely focus on the development of personality (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). In addition to this, trait theory does not focus on predicting an individual’s behavior in a given situation. The trait approach, however, is more concerned with comparing individuals on the basis of aspects as well as degrees (Hogan, 1986). Thus, the trait approach mostly focuses on identifying and measuring individual personality characteristics. Some early psychologists such as Carl Gustav Jung, Gordon Allport, Hans Eysenck as well as Cattell, contributed significantly to the development of trait theories. My essay will discuss people who have helped develop this domain, their specific contributions, how traits are measured, and the strengths and weaknesses of the trait approach. One of the premier trait theories of personality was established by Carl Gustav Jung (a psychoanalyst), who was an associate of Sigmund Freud (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). Jung’s belief was that some of the characteristic traits are inborn. These inborn, genetically determined traits are normally referred to as temperaments (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). Later on, two of Jung’s students, Myers and Briggs came up with a personality test based on Jung’s temperaments. This personality test, commonly referred to as the Myer-Briggs Type inventory [MTBI], went on to become one of the well known personality tests (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). According to this theory, traits are seen as opposites, for example, introversion versus extroversion, sensing versus intuiting and thinking versus feeling (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). Introversion can be defined as the propensity to prefer the world inside oneself (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). The most common aspects of introversion include shyness, a love of privacy as well as aversion of social functions (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). On the other hand, extraversion can be defined as the propensity to look to the outside world, particularly other people, for one’s pleasures (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). Thus, extraverts are normally outgoing and they love social activities. Moreover, extraverts do not like to be alone unlike introverts (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). According to Jung, an individual is either born an introvert or an extravert, but not both (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). This has remained controversial over the years, but nonetheless introversion and extraversion have been identified as very significant and stable traits (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). Gordon Allport was another early psychologist who contributed to the development of trait theory. He criticized psychoanalytic theory stating that it was too deep as well as the behavioral approach, which he thought was too shallow (Allport, 1960). Allport stressed the uniqueness of each person, as well the importance of the contemporary context as opposed to history, for understanding a personality (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). Allport made his breakthrough in 1936 when he discovered that there were over 18000 words in Webster’s new international dictionary (Hogan, 1986) that could be used to describe a person’s personality (Allport, 1960). Allport was able to shrink this list of words to approximately 4000 words. He then grouped these words into 3 categories: secondary, central and cardinal traits. According to Allport (1960), central traits are fundamental to an individual's overall personality. This is because they are the key traits that describe a person. Moreover, central traits are the easily detected characteristics within a person. Thus, central traits are the building blocks of an individual’s personality. Terminologies such as kind, daring, careless and shy are superb examples of central traits (Allport, 1960). According to Allport, everyone has more than one central trait, in fact, around 5 to 10 (Cervone & Pervine, 2007). Since they are easy to detect, central traits can be easily measured and compared. While these central traits contribute substantially to an individual’s personality, occasionally some of them become more dominant than the rest. According to Allport (1960), these dominant traits may be termed as cardinal traits. According to Allport, cardinal traits dominate a person’s entire life, often to the point that the individual becomes known distinctively for these traits. Individuals who have such personalities more often than not become known for these traits and their names are often identical with these qualities. Descriptive terms such as “Freudian”, “Machiavellian”, “narcissism”, “Don Juan”, “Christ-like” among others are some outstanding examples of cardinal traits (Schultz & Schultz, 2008 pp 73). Allport implied that only a few people in the general population developed cardinal traits (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). Moreover, the people who develop these traits do so later in their lives (Cervone & Pervine, 2007). Lastly, Allport described secondary traits as the less important and more difficult of the three to detect. Secondary traits may be related to preferences or attitudes and often show up only in some situations or under definite circumstances (Allport, 1960). Some good examples of secondary traits include anxiousness during public speaking and impatient behavior during queuing (Allport, 1960). Allport suggested that secondary traits are neither straight forward to identify nor are they so general and consistent (Allport, 1960). However, most of the trait theorists who came after Allport’s time focused more on group traits rather than individual traits. Hans Eysenck was another psychologist who significantly contributed to the development of the trait theory. In Eysenck's theory, physiology and genetics is fundamentally critical (Eysenck, 1997). Despite the fact that Eysenck was a believed to be a behaviorist, he recognized that learned behaviors were of immense importance. Moreover, he also suggested that personality differences developed out of genetic inheritance. While he was working on this field of personality, Eysenck found out that there were two disciplines, which dealt with personality in psychology. The first discipline comprised of scholars who studied personality. These scholars were only interested in establishing theories with little or no experimental evidence (Eysenck, 1997). On the contrary, the other discipline adopted employed empirical evidence but had little or no interest in individual differences (Hogan, 1986). Eysenck stressed the significance of these two disciplines of personality studies, and he wanted them to be merged (Eysenck, 1997). Nonetheless, Eysenck's hypotheses focused on being able to spot and measure the different aspects of personality by employing factor analysis in which he developed a way to identify and measure them (Hogan, 1986). Eysenck was mainly a research psychologist, but he changed his focus and began to examine historical approaches of personality (Boree, 2006). Eysenck reviewed the work formerly done by Hippocrates and Galen in a bid to find out the core basis of personality (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). By doing this, he discovered evidence which implied that there are differences in personality types. He then employed these findings in his description of personality. With this knowledge, Eysenck was able to build a personality list which was similar to Galen's Four Temperaments (Cervone & Pervine, 2007). Eysenck's model gave valuable additional information than Galen’s Four Temperaments (Hogan, 1986). This is because Eysenck’s theory surveyed and scrutinized personality in terms of dimensions, derived from intellect, physique and the nervous system (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). Eysenck hypothesis encountered cynicism from other psychologists mainly because he suggested that there was an enormous biological determinant to personality (Cervone & Pervine, 2007). Nonetheless, his biological hypotheses have been widely accepted. Eysenck scrutinized hundreds of people by using a variety of adjectives, representing behavior, as well as types. He collected large quantities of data mostly through the use of questionnaires (Eysenck, 1997). It was this data that he used to formulate his trait theory of personality (Eysenck, 1997). Unlike other psychologists, Eysenck started by formulating a theoretical framework and then creating data from his theory (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). Using questionnaires of personality, Eysenck asked the interviewees forty six questions whose answers reflected their individuality (Eysenck, 1997). From these surveys, Eysenck identified key traits, which he called super traits; these are Extroversion, Neuroticism and Psychoticism (Eysenck, 1997). According to Eysenck (1997), normal extraverts tend to be amongst other things lively and responsive while normal introverts tend to be thoughtful and reliable. The neurotic extravert may be aggressive and touchy, whereas the neurotic introvert may be pessimistic and anxious. On the other hand, Eysenck proposed that individuals with high psychoticism tend to be hostile and unconventional (Eysenck, 1997). Most trait theorists tend to see the human personality based on a five-factor model. The Five factor model suggests that there are five main dimensions of personality. The five factor model is a further development of Eysenck’s theory (Wiggins, 1997). According to the five factor theory, the five principal dimensions of personality are: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism (De Raad, 2000). Based on a scale, an individual’s personality should be structured depending on the degree he or she exhibits these characteristics (De Raad, 2000). Extroversion is one of the traits that have appeared in factor-analytic models, and is one of the key traits which feature in the five factor model, as well as Eysenck's theory. Extroversion is at times regarded as social adaptability, though the recognition of this terminology appears to be fading (De Raad, 2000). Extroversion can be described as "a trait characterized by a keen interest in other people and external events, and venturing forth with confidence into the unknown" (Wiggins, 1997). Neuroticism is the other trait which features in most of the modern factor models for personality. The foundations of neuroticism are levels of nervousness and volatility. Within such frameworks, neuroticism can be defined as “a dimension of personality defined by stability and low anxiety at one end as opposed to instability and high anxiety at the other end” (Wiggins, 1997). The other dimensions; openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are traits which many people even this outside psychology are quite familiar. By and large, openness refers to “how willing individuals are to make adjustments in activities and notions, in accordance with new situations or ideas” (De Raad, 2000). Agreeableness refers to “how compatible people are with other people or how able they are to get along with others” (De Raad, 2000). On the other hand, conscientiousness refers to “how much a person considers others when making decisions” (De Raad, 2000). In addition, the five factor model comprises of various propositions regarding the nature, origins, developmental course of personality traits and the interrelation of traits (Wiggins, 1997). The five-factor model provides a biological explanation of personality traits, in which knowledge and experience plays a small part in influencing the “ambitious five” (Wiggins, 1997). However, the Five-factor model is not the only theoretical explanation of the big five. Other personality theorists have suggested that environmental factors, including societal roles, come together and interact with the biological influences in shaping an individual’s traits (Wiggins, 1997). Moreover, the “Big Five” are employed in various areas of psychological study in methods that do not depend on the propositions of any model (Wiggins, 1997). A clear example is in interpersonal opinion research where the Big Five are a useful framework for categorizing an individual’s perception of another's personalities (De Raad, 2000). Another psychologist who helped to develop this domain is Raymond Cattell. He contributed to this theory through the 16 personality factor model which suggested that personality traits can be categorized into 16 personality groups (Cattell, 1965). Cattell used the computer technology to reanalyze Allport’s list, which contained over 4000 words (Cattell, 1965). He arranged the list into 181 groups and requested interviewees to describe people they knew with the various adjectives on his list (Cattell, 1965). Employing factor analysis methods, he came up with twelve factors, and later added four more which he deemed as essential to be on the list (Cattell, 1965). According to Cattell, everyone has all of the 16 traits to a certain extent. These sixteen traits are: Abstractedness, Apprehension, Dominance, Emotional Stability, openness to change, Perfectionism, Privateness, Reasoning, “Rule Consciousness”, “Self-Reliance”, Sensitivity, “Social Boldness”, Tension, Vigilance, Warmth and liveliness (Cattell, 1965). The 16 PF Questionnaire was developed to comprehensively measure normal, adult personality (Cattell, 1965). Perhaps the main strength of trait theory is its reliance on statistical or objective data (Hogan, 1986). Unlike many other theories, the subjectivity or personal experiences of the theorists play no role in trait theory (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). Freud's relationship with his mother, Adler's childhood illness, or Jung's belief in mythology could be said to have influenced their theories (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). In that sense, subjectivity may have biased their ideas. Thus, the trait can be said that the theory has no bias. Secondly, the trait approach is easy to use and understand (Cervone & Pervine, 2007). People use trait theory, to develop a number of assessment devices. It provides an easy to understand continuum that provides robust information regarding a person's personality, interaction, and beliefs about the self and the world. Understanding traits help us to compare people, to determine which traits allow a person to do better in college, in relationships, or in a career (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). In regard to the weaknesses of the trait approach, this approach is said to be non effective when it comes to predicting future behavior (Mischel, 1981). While we may be able to say, in general that a person falls on the high end or low end of a trait, trait theory fails to address a person's state. A state is a temporary way of interacting and handling dealing with the self and others (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). For example, "an introvert may be quiet, reserved, intellectual and calm in most situations. When around close friends, however; he may seem quite outgoing, fun loving, and excitable. The same could be said for the extrovert who, when presented with a job interview, may act more introverted, shy, reserved, and intellectual" (Cervone & Pervine, 2007 pp 53). Moreover, the trait approach does not address development (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). While statistics may be strength of trait theory, it may also be its biggest criticism. Because it is based on statistics rather than theory, it provides no explanation of personality development. In conclusion, it is vital to note that the trait approach and the humanistic approach are similar in the sense that both concur that an individual’s personality is abundantly established by the choices that he or she makes (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). However, the trait theory of personality is more useful than the psychodynamic and the humanistic theories when it comes to concluding which profession may suit an individual's main personality traits (Cervone & Pervine, 2007). In addition to this, the trait theory is deemed to be more useful than both the psychodynamic theory and the humanistic theory when it comes to predicting and mitigating mental disorders such as schizophrenia (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). References Allport, G. W. (1960). Becoming: Basic Considerations for a Psychology of Personality (The Terry Lectures Series). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Cattell, R.B. (1965). The Scientific Analysis of Personality. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books Cervone, D. & Pervin, L. (2007). Personality: Theory and Research. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley De Raad, B. (2000). The Big Five Personality Factors. Boston, MA: Hogrefe & Huber Pub Eysenck, H. (1997). Dimensions of Personality. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers Hogan, R. (1986). What Every Student Should Know about Personality Psychology. In Parker, M. V., (Eds.), the G. Stanley Hall Lecture Series, Vol.6. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Mischel, W., (1981). Current Issues and Challenges in Personality. In Ludy, T. (Eds.), The G. Stanley Hall lecture series vol. 1. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Schultz, D.P. & Schultz, S.E., (2008). Theories of Personality. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning Welsh, E.B. & Schlager, G. (1962). Personality: A Behavioral Science. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc Wiggins, J.S. (1997).The Five-Factor Model of Personality: Theoretical Perspectives. New York, NY: The Guilford Press Read More

Conclusion The last paragraph will be the conclusion. In this paragraph, I will briefly compare the trait theory of personality with other theories of personality such as the humanistic and psychodynamic theories in a bid to assess its usefulness. PART 2: ESSAY The personality trait theory is one of the main theoretical areas in the study of personality (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). This theory proposes that an individual’s personality comprises of various temperaments. This means that an individual’s personality can be described as having more than one character trait, for example a person can be described as caring, kind and short tempered (Cervone & Pervine, 2007).

Unlike many other personality theories such as humanistic or psychodynamic theories, the trait theory of personality does not entirely focus on the development of personality (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). In addition to this, trait theory does not focus on predicting an individual’s behavior in a given situation. The trait approach, however, is more concerned with comparing individuals on the basis of aspects as well as degrees (Hogan, 1986). Thus, the trait approach mostly focuses on identifying and measuring individual personality characteristics.

Some early psychologists such as Carl Gustav Jung, Gordon Allport, Hans Eysenck as well as Cattell, contributed significantly to the development of trait theories. My essay will discuss people who have helped develop this domain, their specific contributions, how traits are measured, and the strengths and weaknesses of the trait approach. One of the premier trait theories of personality was established by Carl Gustav Jung (a psychoanalyst), who was an associate of Sigmund Freud (Welsh & Schlager, 1962).

Jung’s belief was that some of the characteristic traits are inborn. These inborn, genetically determined traits are normally referred to as temperaments (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). Later on, two of Jung’s students, Myers and Briggs came up with a personality test based on Jung’s temperaments. This personality test, commonly referred to as the Myer-Briggs Type inventory [MTBI], went on to become one of the well known personality tests (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). According to this theory, traits are seen as opposites, for example, introversion versus extroversion, sensing versus intuiting and thinking versus feeling (Cervone & Pervin, 2007).

Introversion can be defined as the propensity to prefer the world inside oneself (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). The most common aspects of introversion include shyness, a love of privacy as well as aversion of social functions (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). On the other hand, extraversion can be defined as the propensity to look to the outside world, particularly other people, for one’s pleasures (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). Thus, extraverts are normally outgoing and they love social activities.

Moreover, extraverts do not like to be alone unlike introverts (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). According to Jung, an individual is either born an introvert or an extravert, but not both (Schultz & Schultz, 2008). This has remained controversial over the years, but nonetheless introversion and extraversion have been identified as very significant and stable traits (Cervone & Pervin, 2007). Gordon Allport was another early psychologist who contributed to the development of trait theory. He criticized psychoanalytic theory stating that it was too deep as well as the behavioral approach, which he thought was too shallow (Allport, 1960).

Allport stressed the uniqueness of each person, as well the importance of the contemporary context as opposed to history, for understanding a personality (Welsh & Schlager, 1962). Allport made his breakthrough in 1936 when he discovered that there were over 18000 words in Webster’s new international dictionary (Hogan, 1986) that could be used to describe a person’s personality (Allport, 1960). Allport was able to shrink this list of words to approximately 4000 words. He then grouped these words into 3 categories: secondary, central and cardinal traits.

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