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Psychology
Theories of personality focus on inner traits of individuals, which may or may not be viewed as static. The most important schools of personality psychology include Psychodynamic Theory, Freud's Theory of Personality, Humanistic Theory, B.F. Skinner's Theory of Personality, Social Learning Theory, and Evolutionary Personality Theory. While all these theories share in common their goal to explain, analyze, and understand human behavior in terms of personality explanations, there are important differences in these main approaches. The differences will affect theory but also practice of psychology.
Behaviorism was one of the earliest expressions of psychological inquiry. Therefore, it makes sense to begin with an understanding of behavioral theories of personality. Behaviorism suggests that individual behavior is the key to understanding personality. Because of its emphasis on behavior rather than emotion or cognition, behavioral theories of personality are relatively weak and limited in scope. However, it is still worth understanding the contributions of B.F. Skinner and John B. Watson to the study of personality.
Psychodynamic theories of personality are highly relevant to the study of psychology because they have become pervasive in the understanding of human nature. Sigmund Freud's theory of personality falls under the rubric of Psychodynamic theories of personality. However, other famous psychologists such as Erik Erikson and Alfred Adler also have developed personality theories that remain extant in the...
According to Sigmund Freud, the person is a structure that comprises of three different dimensions or levels. Those dimensions include the id, or the childhood impulses that people need to keep under control; the ego, or the core identity of the individual and face a person shows the world; and the superego, or the conscience that tells a person right from wrong or good from bad. The way these three personality structures interact determines the gamut of the personality. There are dysfunctional and healthy dynamics between these functions.
Alfred Adler developed a different psychodynamic theory from Freud. Adler's theory suggests that individuals are born with the sense of being inferior, and that they will struggle to maintain identity in opposition to this sense of inferiority. Moreover Adler emphasized the importance of birth order in determining personality, ignoring or downplaying the experience of only children. Whereas Freud focused a lot on repressed sexual urges, and the death wish, in personality functioning, Adler mainly focused on the issues surrounding birth order and inferiority ("Psychodynamic Theories of Personality," n.d.).
Erik Erikson postulated the psychosocial development theory of personality. According to this theory, an individual passes through different stages of social development. These stages are influenced by the environment. Therefore, Erikson shares in common with the behavioral theories of personality the…
Psychology Theories In psychology, personality can be described as the "the patterns of behavior, thought, and emotion unique to an individual, and the ways they interact to help or hinder the adjustment of a person to other people and situations" ("personality," 2013). Psychologists may make use of idiographic or nomothetic techniques in order to study personality of an individual. Many characteristics of human behavior can be examined while studying one's personality.
Personality Theories PERSONALITY VS SITUATION Personality refers to the unique set of relatively constant behaviors and mental processes in a person and his or her interactions with the environment (Kevin 2011). It is generally accepted that personality is influenced by genetics in the form of dispositions or temperament at 40-60% and by the environment. The tasks of the psychologist are to characterize and describe personality traits, investigate the relationship between these traits
Personal interviews -- especially what the respondent actually says in them -- can be extremely useful to humanist practitioners. They also share a reliance on objective tests -- where the respondent attempts, in a guided way, to assess their own behavior and/or personality, with the two remaining branches of personality assessment. Trait-based and social-learning psychology have vastly different approaches to assessing personality, but there are also some commonalities insofar as
Further, research on music theory has shown that students who receive higher praise or rewards for improved skills consistently outperform those who do not (Madsen, 2003). Such information suggests that motivation, a component of personality, is based on experiences with the rewards for specific behaviors. The concept that personality is based on experience suggests theorists such as Freud who suggest individuals are evil by nature, are incorrect. Since our experiences
Therefore they have more kind of skills that will be able to get better results with the same individuals than transactional leaders. Subordinates who will examine leaders as transformational are highly dedicated (Humpreys, Weyant & Sprague 2003) and they have high development need and high needs of independence (Deluga 2005)). Furthermore the dependents of transformational leaders have frequency that is higher of information pursuing (Charbonneau, D. 2004)). Likewise subordinates' behavior
Personality and Individual Differences Max is an individual who has long been interested in acting. He gained this interest when he took part in a school play at age 12. After Max completed his secondary schooling, he wanted greatly to enroll in a local arts college, but his parents protested. They communicated to him that they desired him to gain a "real career," or in other words, follow in their footsteps