Personality
PERSONALITY
1. The study of personality is concerned with generalities about people (human nature) as well as with individual differences. Personality is understood in terms of what characteristics individuals have, how they became that way (the determinants of personality), and why they behave the way they do (motivation).
2. There are several perspectives or approaches that one can use to understand a person’s personality: A. Psychodynamic Perspective: Early life experiences, particularly with parents, shape the individual’s personality. The unconscious plays a role in personality development. Personality goes through stages of development
B. Behavioral Perspective: Personality is learned through experience with the environment.
Behavior changes as the environment changes.
C. Social Cognitive Perspective: Personality is determined by a complex interplay of behavior, environment, and cognitive processes. Instead of being passive recipients of the environment, individuals actively regulate and control behaviors.
D. Humanistic Perspective: This perspective emphasizes the importance of self-perception and world perception. It assumes that individuals have the innate capacity to fulfill their potential; however, a controlling and conditional world keeps individuals from reaching that potential.
E. Trait Perspective: Personality can be understood by describing the organization of traits within the individual.
3. Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory: The unconscious mind is the key to understanding personality; hence, exploring the deep inner workings of the mind is needed to understand behavior. The unconscious processes are disguised in symbolized form, which can be accessed and analyzed through the interpretation of dreams, fantasies, and free associations. The iceberg is used as an analogy of the conscious and unconscious mind—the conscious mind is the part of the iceberg above water, the preconscious mind is the part directly below the
1. The study of personality is concerned with generalities about people (human nature) as well as with individual differences. Personality is understood in terms of what characteristics individuals have, how they became that way (the determinants of personality), and why they behave the way they do (motivation).
2. There are several perspectives or approaches that one can use to understand a person’s personality: A. Psychodynamic Perspective: Early life experiences, particularly with parents, shape the individual’s personality. The unconscious plays a role in personality development. Personality goes through stages of development
B. Behavioral Perspective: Personality is learned through experience with the environment.
Behavior changes as the environment changes.
C. Social Cognitive Perspective: Personality is determined by a complex interplay of behavior, environment, and cognitive processes. Instead of being passive recipients of the environment, individuals actively regulate and control behaviors.
D. Humanistic Perspective: This perspective emphasizes the importance of self-perception and world perception. It assumes that individuals have the innate capacity to fulfill their potential; however, a controlling and conditional world keeps individuals from reaching that potential.
E. Trait Perspective: Personality can be understood by describing the organization of traits within the individual.
3. Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory: The unconscious mind is the key to understanding personality; hence, exploring the deep inner workings of the mind is needed to understand behavior. The unconscious processes are disguised in symbolized form, which can be accessed and analyzed through the interpretation of dreams, fantasies, and free associations. The iceberg is used as an analogy of the conscious and unconscious mind—the conscious mind is the part of the iceberg above water, the preconscious mind is the part directly below the