Personality can be defined as a “dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations”. A number of personality theories provide several approaches in attempt to illustrate how personality establishes inside us. The trait theory and the humanistic theory are the two ideas that explain personality.
Trait theory sees personality as a product of a blend of multiple traits. The degree of existence of the traits determines an individual’s personality. Traits are stable and consistent characteristics of a person that induce behaviors to express personalities. They are bipolar and can be located along a continuum. The leading theorists in trait theory include Hans Eysenck, Raymond Cattell and Gordon Allport. Particularly, the Three Factor Theory is the most well-known work of Eysenck.
The Eysenck model suggested personality can be measured across two dimensions named extraversion trait and neuroticism trait. Extraversion trait indicates sociability, so scoring high mark suggests being out-going. Neuroticism trait refers to emotional unstableness, meaning a low score implies having a high stability on mood. The two dimensions interact to form four personality types: choleric, sanguine, melancholic and phlegmatic, according to high or low level of the dimensions. Each type has certain traits that associate with it as shown below. Later the third dimension of psychoticism trait
Roger’s Humanist Theory believes, “That humans are innately good and that they are growth oriented,” (Nye, pg. 105, 2000). Due to the fact that this theory has the belief that individuals are inherently good, Beth’s negative behaviors are not part of her personality, but formed out of her early childhood environment. The Humanistic approach also states, to reach self-actualization, the environment surrounding an individual must be nurturing (Sougstad, Humanistic Psychology, 2018); Beth was not afforded with this type of environment, explaining her negative and harmful behaviors towards her family. In addition, the Humanistic Theory also concludes, “Humans basically need and want both personal fulfillment and close, intimate relationships with others,” (Nye, Pg. 98, 2000). Referring back to Beth’s early childhood environment again, the lack of an appropriate, intimate and caring relationship between her and her biological parents left her without the needed environment to fully develop.
Every individual goes through different experiences that mold them into who they are. The combination of their genetic makeup, the environment in which an individual is exposed to, peers, culture, and many other factors determine who they are as an individual (Twenge & Campbell, 2016). This is also what is considered to be an individual’s personality. It is the greatest influence on how an individual will react in any given situation; not everyone will react the same in any situation. Personality is the recurring patterns of thoughts, behaviors, and feelings that can be seen across all situations and time (Twenge & Campbell, 2016, p. 6).
Everyone has there own personality characteristic that makes a person think and behave. When those characteristic interferes with daily life actives, or cause interferes with personal relationship, and cause stress they are consider to have personality disorders. The DSM-5 splits the personality disorders into three main clusters. The first group is Cluster A that is entitled odd or eccentric disorder, which includes paranoid, schizoid, and schizotypal personality disorder. The second group is Cluster B that is titled dramatic, emotional, or erratic disorder, which includes antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorder.
Based on Pavlov’s theory of strong and weak nervous systems, which is if someone with a strong nervous system has a better chance of tolerating higher intensities of stimulation, while a weak nervous system a person has a lower chance of tolerating high intensities of stimulation (Cloninger, 2013, p. 176), Hans Eysenck expanded to say that there are three more factors of personality, other than a tolerance towards stress. Extraversion is the basically the same thing as strong nervous system, where a person is still social during high stressful times (Cloninger, 2013, p. 177). Neuroticism is the second factor, where a person tends to be extremely emotionally during times of stress (Cloninger, 2013, p. 178). And lastly, is psychoticism where a person does not conform to cultural norms and can be classified as a social deviant during stressful times (Cloninger, 2013, p.
The concept of personality has fascinated psychologists for years. Allport proposed the hierarchy of traits – cardinal, central, and secondary traits (Allport, 1945). Cattell also proposed his theory, the sixteen dimensions of human personality (Cattell, 1944). Jung developed a type-based theory of personality, with different dichotomous personality categories, which was further developed by Myers and Briggs in 1962 to produce the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Ford, 2013). Some psychologists have even argued that personality does not exist; that people change behaviour over time and across various situations.
Over the years, many theories have been developed to study the human personality. Some of the notable theories are psychoanalytic theory, trait theory, humanistic theory and behavioural theory. In this assignment, we have chosen to compare and contrast the psychoanalytic and humanistic theories. Psychoanalytic Theory
To begin with, there are areas of weakness pertaining to the research and measurement of trait theory. Even though Eysenck himself is aware of these, they nevertheless remain troublesome. For example, in investigating the links between individual responses and cortical arousal (Eysenck, 1991), he points out that "different systems of cortical arousal are activated in different people" (p. 90). Some individuals may respond with excessive sweating, while others respond with increased breathing. In other words, how could one be sure which arousal system is activated in a particular individual at a specific time?
Factor analysis of the data led him to conclude that people can be divided into two groups of neurotic and normal. Later, Eysenck (1970) expended these two factors into five: extroversion-introversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. With regard to his model, Griffiths (1991) claims that Eysenck’s model is favored amongst other possible models because it includes a well-defined classification in an unambiguous framework. In addition, it entails a theory that has produced an ample amount of research most of which have been supportive. Moreover, the instrument that is used to measure the model’s factors has been standardized in 35 different countries, some of which are located in Asia such as Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and India.
Common features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organized and mindful of details. The third dimension of personality types is Extraversion this dimension includes energy, positive emotions, urgency, and the tendency to seek stimulation and the company of others. Extraversion - factor most strongly associated with leadership. Most important trait of effective leaders.
Personality is the way one behaves, thinks and feels. Theorists are interested to learn what shapes personality, what causes one to behave, think and feel the way one does. Different theorists have different beliefs in what causes these individual differences. These individual differences can be split into two categories, nature and nurture. Nature would be environment while nature would be the brain and the genes, also known as genotype.
Trait model is developed by Konstantin Vasily Petrides(2001). It encompasses behavioral dispositions and self perceived abilities and is measured through self report. Ability model is developed by Peter Salovey and John Mayer(2004). It focuses on the individual ability to process emotional information and use it to face the social circumstances.
Personality is one of the main areas of psychology research. Over the years, researchers developed theories trying to explain how people are different and similar. Personality traits were grouped together to be determinants of more general traits such as Extraversion, Agreeableness or Neuroticism. The traits were tested for various correlations. All this to better understand why people behave the way they do and how big impact does the personality have on behaviour.
All the last three traits, which is agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, are familiar for people who are outside the realm of psychology. Additionally, Personality can affected by some factor, which are families caring and birth order. First, for each person, family is the first communicate to the society and home is where the personality is made. Family environment play essential role in personality. [5]
Personality is defined as the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual 's unique character. Personality theory is the approaches to understanding the “What”, “How” and “When” of characteristics and features that make up an individual 's personality. An insight into personality is important to understand the function of a person’s mind. By doing this you would be able to understand and observe your own psyche from an outside perspective, interact with others better and understand why they do what they do or predict how someone may react to something. My personality can be describe as Introverted since I am reserved, practical and quiet.
The first component stated that the personality reflects individual differences. Every individual have its own characteristics. Second component is a statement that personality is consistent and enduring, and the last component claimed that personality can change. There are many factors can influence the personality development which are heredity, parental characteristic, person’s cohort, birth order, normative age-graded influences, normative history-graded influences, non-normative life events, culture, and normative socio cultural-graded influences.