Personality mental approaches to understanding

Personality, Nature, Personality Theory, Ego

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Personality

Mental Approaches to Understanding Personality

Persona is one part of psychology where there are numerous conflicting tips. It is good to say there is not one sole approach to persona that is viewed as accepted. Instead, there are a range of ways that persona can be considered. This paper will certainly describe 3 of these methods: the psychodynamic approach, the trait approach, and the behavioral approach. Following each procedure is described and examined, the techniques will be evaluated with the most convincing plus the least convincing identified.

The Psychodynamic Way

The psychodynamic perspective is based on the idea that individuality is based on a conflict among a person’s biological drives and the needs of society. This approach to understanding personality is the one used by Freud. Freud describes personality by concentrating on the internal factors that determine an individual’s individuality. This is discussed via the ideas of the identity, the ego, and the superego.

According to Freud, everybody is born which has a set of prevalent drives. Specifically, these are the drives pertaining to self-preservation and the drives intended for reproduction. Freud refers to these types of basic hard drives as the id, and notes the id is usually selfish and unaware of anything but the basic demands of the individual. Freud also paperwork that the identification is only capable of seek instant gratification. In short, the id is a primitive part of people who knows simply no logic or perhaps compromise. The next part of the person is the ego. While the identification operates shut off from the globe, the spirit operates in actuality. It understands the requirements from the real world and has a realistic view. The ego’s position is to find the give up between the needs of the real life and the demands of the identification. At the same time, it needs to control and manage the ego. Freud likens this to a person riding a horse saying that the ego “is just like a man about horseback, who may have to hold under control the excellent strength of the horse” (Freud 1995, g. 636). A final part of a person that contributes to personality is a superego. This can be described as “an internalized representation of the parents’ value system” (Seamon Kenrick 1994, s. 421). Because of this the individual internalizes a value program based on what they perceive to be right and wrong. Freud goes on to note that this is seriously an outgrowth of the identification, where the superego develops for the identity to gain the love of the father and mother, which is component to its self-preservation desire.

Freud then procedes link these parts of an individual by character, by arguing that persona forms because of conflicts among these unconscious factors plus the environment. This can include that persona develops based on the issues that a person encounters. For instance , if an individual is yelled at every time they speak, all their id could suffer. In an attempt to protect the id, the person might develop shyness. In a similar fashion, if a individual’s parents are amazing and extroverted, a person might internalize this within their benefit system simply by accepting that being fun loving means being loved by the fogeys. This would then become part of the individual’s character.

One of the other important points regarding Freud’s way of studying persona is that it can be based on persona as being caused by unconscious elements. This means that a person is unfit to be understanding their particular personality, being that they are unaware of the unconscious factors affecting them. This means that relating to Freud, personality can not be understood by asking an individual to establish themselves. Rather, individual patterns must be noted, with the reasons for the behavior then simply extrapolated based upon the observed behavior.

The Trait Strategy

The trait approach to studying personality has been described as “a systematic effort to describe and classify behavioral characteristics” (Seamon Kenrick 1994, p. 426). This approach to understanding character was formed after Freud’s way, with individuals noting that before trying to explain how come things change, it is initially necessary to explain and establish the differences. Based on this, the approach is not one that tries to discover why personalities vary, but one which tries simply to describe personalities. It is also well worth noting the fact that trait approach understands personality based on the behaviors that are observed. For instance , a person can be viewed to be timid, relaxed, or perhaps serious. Importantly, this sets the focus on how people look like. As an example, someone might be discovered to be peaceful and secure. However , this can be an overall look only and could not reflect their authentic emotional point out. Therefore , it can be worth remembering that the feature approach might not exactly necessarily reflect a person’s accurate personality. Instead, it better measures how a person’s character is recognized by others.

The initial major examine of individuality based on feature theory was performed by Raymond Catell. Catell started out with a set of 4, 1000 terms which can be used to describe character. By taking away terms that contain the same meaning and terms that advise the same manners, Catell lowered the list to 16 elements that this individual considered adequate to describe persona. These elements were (Catell 1965):

1 ) assertive versus not manly

2 . careful vs . expedient

3. conservative vs . testing

4. mental vs . steady

5. group oriented or self-sufficient

6th. intelligent or unintelligent

several. practical vs . imaginative

8. relaxed versus tense

on the lookout for. self-assured versus apprehensive

twelve. serious versus happy-go-lucky

11. shrewd versus forthright

12. shy vs . venturesome

13. suspicious vs . trusting

13. tender-minded versus tough-minded

15. undisciplined vs . disciplined

18. unfriendly vs . friendly

Depending on this list, psychologists lowered the number of qualities even further to create the “big five” personality traits. These five traits are: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, mental stability, and culture. It is considered that the individual’s place on each of these measurements can be used to determine their overall personality.

Seamon and Kenrick (1994) as well note that could be place on every dimension relates to how other folks experience the individual on interacting with them. Extraversion refers to if an individual appears dominant or submissive. Acceptable refers to whether an individual seems pleasant or perhaps distant. Conscientiousness refers to whether a person seems responsible or perhaps irresponsible. Mental stability identifies whether or not a person appears sane. Lifestyle refers to if the person appears intelligent and informed or perhaps ignorant. This kind of shows that the trait theory is largely depending upon how individuals are recognized.

The Behavioral Approach

The behavioral approach to understanding personality considers just how individual encounters and environmental pressures lead to personality expansion. With this approach, personality becomes something that is learned through contact with the environment and to people, instead of something that evolves internally.

A single behavioral method of understanding character is based on Skinner’s theory of instrumental health and fitness theory. This theory explains how behaviors that have a good outcome are more likely to occur once again. Skinner known this process while reinforcement. The other also occurs where behaviors that have a negative outcome are much less likely to occur again. Skinner referred to this technique as punishment. In relation to personality, this means that people begin to behave in ways that generate positive outcomes, while choosing never to behave in manners that make negative outcomes (Gleitman 1995). For example , in the event that an individual echoes to new people constantly and always receives an optimistic response, they could become out bound. If a person speaks to new people frequently and always obtains a negative response, they may turn into timid. An additional example, if the person will try new things, succeeds often , and is also rewarded with praise, they may become careful. If a person tries the euphoric pleasures, fails frequently , and is punished, they may become irresponsible.

One more behavioral approach to understanding character is based on Bandura’s ideas about personality to be socially constructed. Bandura (1986, p. 22) describes the approach saying, “most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling. inches This means that people observe that which people are carrying out and the response that other people acquire from their activities. This information is then internalized and understood cognitively. The individual after that develops their own ideas in order to behave and what they can get if they behave this way and this affects their selection of behavior. For example , an individual may well perceive somebody else and note that they appear nice and friendly. The individual could also note that they are receiving a great reaction and appear happy. These details is internalized, with the person deciding that they can want to be completely happy and obtain the same results as the person they can be observing. The then versions the behavior and acts in the same manner as the consumer. In doing therefore , the individual has learned being warm and agreeable.

Among the important points about the behavioral procedure is that this explains just how observing outward behavior turns into internalized and after that becomes a part of the person’s individuality. Considering Bandura’s approach, it is noted that initially the person is just duplicating the

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