Personality Analysis Of Ted Mosby's How I Met Your Mother

Personality Analysis of Ted Mosby
This paper will address the various aspects of the fictional character Ted Mosby’s personality. “How I Met Your Mother” is a specific title and that is just what the show is about. An older Ted is narrating the episodes, he's telling the long version of how he met his wife, to his kids. Ted is on a journey to find the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with, his soulmate. This seems to be typical (until we see his personality and dating patterns later on.) Ted Mosby was born in Ohio. He graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in Architecture. In College, he meets his best friends, who later become his roommates. After graduation him and his best friends from college, Marshall and Lily,
On this search for “the one”, he meets a matchmaker in season 1 episode 7. The matchmaker tells Ted that he has an almost perfect match but she is off the market. When she leaves, he steals the paperwork and runs to meet this woman who is a doctor. After going for an appointment he asks her on a date and even after she declines because she's engaged he still pursues her. The doctor states “don’t you think it’s impulsive to proposition an engaged woman you don't even know?” He’s very impulsive when it comes to decisions about his love life. He steals paper work and almost forces a date upon this woman because she is his only true match. This can be traced back to a biological aspect. According to a journal article by Kim Soyoun, “…it is perhaps not surprising that many cortical and subcortical areas in the brain are involved in decision making…many psychiatric disorders, including mood disorders and substance abuse, are thought to result from decision-making abilities impaired in some aspects.” So besides the neoanalytic and psychoanalytic approach, his impulsive dating decisions may be based on a psychiatric or mood disorder, such as ADHD. I can always look at Ted through a behaviorist aspect lens which also can be focused on ADHD. According Sagvolden (2011), “attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (adhd) is currently defined as a cognitive/behavioral developmental disorder where all clinical criteria are behavioral.
According to Wilcox et al. (2010) “Steven Nock argued that love—understood narrowly in terms of emotional and sexual intimacy—was a flimsy foundation for relationships and that the institution of marriage provided a firmer footing for stable, high-quality relationships than love alone. Relying on data from the Marriage Matters Survey of 1414 married men and women in Louisiana (1998–2004), we extended Nock’s insights to consider whether contemporary marriages organized along institutional lines enjoyed more stability, satisfaction, and less conflict than marriages organized around a soulmate model.” According to this research, Ted’s hopeless romantic personality is the problem. I don't believe anything is inherently wrong with Ted’s personality even though he is a “moving towards” type who is definitely complaint. The soulmate approach is based on attraction and emotions as the foundation of the marriage, which usually leads to divorce (if they make it to marriage, that is). If Ted didn't have the hopeless romantic soulmate view on marriage, he probably would have found a suitable partner much sooner. I also believe that his attachment to Lily and Marshall is another reason for his fixation on marriage and settling down. He is watching his two closest friends in love and planning a life together, this definitely has an effect on