Theories of Personality
Personality is the pattern of behaviour, thinking and feeling that characterize the individual and the way he adapts to the world.
Personality psychologists are interested in describing and explaining human differences. There are different theories that have tried to explain personality and its development. Some theories say that biological and genetic factors are responsible for our personality, the others say that life experiences are more important.
| Approach | Theorist | Basic ideas of the theory |
| Psychodynamic | S. Freud | Unconscious motivation as the major determinant of personality; personality structures include id, ego and superego; 5 stages of personality development |
| Behavioural | B. Skinner | Personality is a collection of learnt behaviour formed by environment. |
| Social learning | A. Bandura W. Mischel J. Rotter | Personality, behaviour and environment influence one another. The role of cognitive behaviour is important. |
| Big Five Trait Theory | G.Allport H.Eysenck | People can be described by the basic ways they behave. The traits are the fundamental building blocks of personality. |
| Humanistic | C.Roger A.Maslow | Each person has the potential for personal growth, free will and freedom to choose one’s destiny. |
Psychodynamic approach
Sigmund Freud was a medical doctor from Vienna, Austria, who specialized in neurology. His psychodynamic approach to personality developed as a result of his work with adult patients who had psychiatric problems. His theory had 3 main points:
- Childhood experiences determine adult personality.
- Unconscious mental processes influence everyday behaviour.
- Conflict influences human behaviour.
According to Freud, adult personality consists of id, ego and superego.
Id is unconscious, inborn and has no contact with reality. It operates according to pleasure principle – always seeks pleasure and avoids pain. Develops at birth.
Ego develops from id and operates according to reality principle. It is called the executive branch of personality because it makes rational decisions. Develops at the age of 6 months.
Superego operates according to morality principle. Can tell what is right and what is wrong because it is our conscious. Develops at about ages of 5-6 after the resolution of Oedipus or Electra complex (a strong desire of a young child to replace the parent of the same sex and have love of the opposite-sex parent).
Freud considered that our behaviour is the result of the conflicts between the id, ego and superego. Personality is like an iceberg – most of it is below the level of awareness just as most of an iceberg is hidden under the water. The hidden part is the unconscious (thoughts, memory, desires) but it influences our behaviour.
Because of the conflict between the id, ego and superego a person may feel anxiety. The ego uses defense mechanisms to distort reality and protect us from anxiety. A defense mechanism is a process that an individual uses to compensate for a desire that cannot be fulfilled because of social taboos. They are:
| Rationalization | Creating false excuses to explain wrong behaviour. Example: You don’t pay taxes and say “everybody does it”. |
| Repression | Taking unpleasant thoughts, memories from consciousness. Example: You have no memory of unpleasant experiences. |
| Reaction formation | Behaving in the opposite of true feelings. Example: A mother who feels resentment to a child can be very cautious and protective. |
| Projection | Projecting one’s own feelings, motives, faults to others. Example: A wife suspects her husband of having an affair because she unconsciously thought of having an affair. |
| Displacement | Moving unpleasant thoughts from their original source to a safer object. Example: You are angry with your boss, you don’t shout at him, but you become angry with your family member when you come home. |
| Sublimation | A socially acceptable behaviour replaces a socially unacceptable one. Example: A person who feels aggression due to lack of control plays an aggressive game of basketball. |
| Intellectualization | Dealing with a stressful situation in an intellectual but unemotional manner. Example: A person who lost a family member due to illness will speak of the medical terminology but will not discuss the emotional aspects of the illness. |
| Denial | Not acknowledging some painful aspects of reality. Example: A person with severe stomach pains, possibly an ulcer, refuses to see a doctor because he thinks it’s only indigestion. |
Behavioral approach
Behaviorism is a theory that studies only observable behaviour. Behaviorists are not interested in mental processes that can not be observed. This approach only analyses behaviour that can be seen – stimuli and responses (S – R).
B. Skinner sees child development as a building process. Each new experience forms the child’s personality. Everything a person does is based on past and present rewards and punishments and other aspects of operating conditioning. He didn’t agree that a person is made up of traits. Skinner didn’t use the term “personality” – it is the collection of learnt behaviours. In treatment of psychopathology, reward and punishment would be seen as the most effective ways of changing the abnormal behaviour of a person.
Social learning approach
Social learning theory differs from the behavioral view of Skinner by saying that we can regulate and control our own behaviour despite changes in our environment. Albert Bandura, Julian Rotter are social learning theorists. Bandura believes that learning is achieved by observing what others do, by imitating behaviour of other people. A person can imitate if he has the necessary skills to do it and motivation to do it. The quality of a model is very important. With an aggressive, fearful, antisocial model a person will not learn socially useful behaviour.