Personality Approach To Personality

‘Personality traits are relatively stable, cognitive, emotional and behavioural characteristics of people that help establish their individual identities and distinguish them from others.’(Holt, Bremner, Sutherland, Vliek, Passer, Smith, 2015, p645) Some examples of such traits or characteristic include funny, outgoing or shy. As with many areas of psychology there are many theories and perspectives on development and approach to personality. I will discuss some of these theories, some of which are still used today. Psychodynamic psychologists such as Freud would argue that adult personality is influenced mainly by childhood experiences whereas humanistic psychologists might argue that personality depends on a person’s experience as an adult

Extraversion being a personality factor based on sociability and impulsiveness. For example, a person who is introvert may be quiet and enjoy spending time alone whereas an extravert might prefer to spend time surrounded by people. Neuroticism based on negative emotional experience a level of stability or instability emotionally, for instance a person who is a worrier or anxious. A person who is high on the spectrum of psychoticism may be aggressive and show a lack of caring for example an individual may be egocentric and hostile whereas a person who is low on the psychoticism spectrum might be caring towards others and non-aggressive. Eysenck (2010, p272) Eysenck focused on ‘a small number of uncorrelated or independent factors which are quite separate from each other’. (Eysenck 2010,

Traits are ‘stable aspects of a person that influence his or her behaviour.’ (Eysenck, 2010, p270) However, the social-cognitive theories ‘combine the behavioural and cognitive perspectives into an approach to personality that stresses the interaction of a thinking human with a social environment that provides learning experiences.’ (Passer et al, 2009, p695) As we have seen, it is important not to look at one factor as the sole influence but to understand how all factors affect one another.

For example there may be a variation in behaviour depending on the situation whether in a professional setting or at a more casual environment such as at home with friends. How we are socialised and the social norms we become accustomed to also influence our behaviour and therefore our personality and environment. ‘People’s behaviour varies a lot from one situation to another’ Eysenck, 2010 (p