Factors Responsible For An Individuals Personality Psychology Essay

‘I like his/her personality. ‘ We hear this really frequently. Besides, in our twenty-four hours to twenty-four hours conversations, we use the word personality while depicting certain persons. If we like a individual, we say that he has a good personality. It is a word that we take a batch of autonomy in utilizing. However, the significance of personality, in the existent sense, is non understood decently by everyone. For some, it may be the attitude or behaviour of the individual. For others, it may be his expressions, the manner he dresses or carries himself around. None of this completely defines personality.

Laic people tend to concentrate merely on the person when it comes to personality. But psychologists have developed tools and techniques which are applicable to everyone, and can be used to measure his/her personality. Besides, a figure of theories have been developed through research, which helps in explicating an person ‘s personality.

The subject for this paper is ‘Personality ‘ . We will be looking at the significance of ‘personality ‘ from a psychological science position, factors responsible for an person ‘s personality, how personality is responsible for differences in single behaviour, different personality theories and trials, and so on.

Personality surveies came approximately as a consequence of the cardinal thought that people are different. There are differences in the manner people walk, talk, eat, drink, frock and so on, which provide great penetrations into the person. A individual who surveies personality is called a personologist. Personologists look into these facets of persons and effort to explicate the grounds for these differences.

There are three beginnings which provide information for analyzing personality, viz. ;

Biological ( familial and environmental beginnings )

Social kingdom ( societal forces which shape motivations, traits, behaviors and attitudes

Clinical scrutiny

Specifying Personality

“ Personality is far excessively complex a thing to be trussed up in a conceptual straitjacket. ” ( Gordon Allport, A Becoming, 1955, p.vii )

There is no universally accepted definition of personality among psychologists. However, definitions of personality have a dichotomy. They either seek to explicate the differences between persons, or they try to explicate qualities that common to all of world.

The word personality comes from the Latin word ‘persona ‘ , which means mask. It can be understood as the survey of masks that people wear. Personality besides includes the interior parts of psychological experience which we jointly name our ‘self ‘ .

A celebrated definition is one given by Carl Gustav Jung. Harmonizing to Jung, “ Personality is the supreme realisation of the unconditioned foible of a life being. It is an act of high bravery flung in the face of life, the absolute avowal of all that constitutes the person, the most successful version to the cosmopolitan status of being coupled with the greatest possible freedom for self-government. ”

A simpler definition by brain doctor Paul Roe is the more widely accepted one. Harmonizing to Roe, personality is “ an person ‘s sensitivity to believe certain forms of idea, and hence engage in certain forms of behavior ” .

Factors which shape personality

Personality is the sum sum of mental features that makes an single unique when compared to others.A There is besides ideas, every bit good as emotions which an person experiences, which causes him to act the manner he does.A At a really superficial degree, personality comes out through one ‘s temperament or emotional tone.A However, personality is besides reflected in the values, beliefs, and outlooks of a individual.

Most of the factors which shape person ‘s personality are a consequence of his/her heredity and the environment in which he/she was exposed to. Research findings suggest that heredity is mostly responsible for basic traits such as the emotional tone, whereas, values, beliefs, and outlooks are a consequence of experiences and socialisation that a individual had in his/her childhood.

It is interesting to observe that the exchanges that a individual has with the societal environment as a kid can do some familial factors to lend to his/her personality. For illustration, a individual may non be a good vocalist, because he has non inherited a good voice. As a kid, if he is repeatedly told that he is a bad vocalist, he is likely to shy away from any signifier of cultural activity. Even after going an grownup, he will hold this feeling interior, which would suppress him from making a batch of things that he loves making, merely because of fright of rejection. All these shape the manner he perceives himself excessively. Likewise, awful comments about a individual ‘s skin coloring material can besides hold similar consequence.

One major environmental factor which influences personality is the manner kids are brought up different societies. In the US, kids are brought up to be strong and independent. Parents dainty kids about as peers. They have a right to voice their sentiments. They are encouraged to make portion clip occupations and do money. All this is done to do them responsible persons. However, in India, kids are brought up in a more protected environment. Parents take attention of all their kids ‘s demands till they attain maturity. They are made to experience responsible merely after they become grownups.

In malice of these differences, there are some similarities excessively. In all societies, male childs and misss are socialized in different ways. Male childs are given more freedom than misss. Male childs have the freedom to experiment and make physically demanding undertakings, whereas misss are taught to make domestic work and prepared for kid raising.

Alone state of affairss or events can besides lend to determining the personality. Having an opprobrious parent, meeting a major accident, or witnessing a slaying, etc can go forth cicatrixs that wo n’t have on off easy. It can do people fearful and less trusting.

Personality Theories

Theories are really of import in analyzing personality for several grounds.

They help us form what is already known or suspected about a set of informations.

They serve a heuristic map, i.e. they suggest, by forming of import facts, what sort of research demands to be done to make full in losing information.

They provide a formal statement of the cardinal rules of its capable affair.

Theories identify the of import facets of a phenomenon.

The followers are some of import theories of personality

Trait Theories

Harmonizing to theA Diagnostic and Statistical ManualA of theA American Psychiatric Association, personality traits are “ digesting forms of perceiving, associating to, and believing about the environment and oneself that are exhibited in a broad scope of societal and personal contexts. ” Traits are digesting, stable properties or features of a individual.

Gordon Allport was a innovator in the field of trait theory. Harmonizing to him, there are different sorts of traits, which he besides called temperaments. Cardinal traits are the edifice blocks of personality. They are the really basic traits. Secondary traits are the 1s which are non really obvious, and are more peripheral. Cardinal traits are the 1s which define a individual ‘s life. These are the 1s by which a individual is recognized.

Another of import which forms portion of trait theories is the Five Factor Model, besides known as “ Large Five ” . Harmonizing to this literature, personality has five of import dimensions.

Openness to Experience – the inclination to be inventive, independent, and interested in assortment vs. practical, conforming, and interested in modus operandi.

Conscientiousness – the inclination to be organized, careful, and disciplined vs. disorganized, careless, and unprompted.

Extraversion – the inclination to be sociable, fun-loving, and affectionate vs. retiring, somber, and reserved.

Agreeableness – the inclination to be softhearted, swearing, and helpful vs. ruthless, leery, and uncooperative.

Neuroticism – the inclination to be unagitated, secure, and smug vs. dying, insecure, and self-pitying.

Some of the major unfavorable judgments against trait theories are that they are strictly descriptive and barely or supply any accounts for the causes behind personality and that the analysis is frequently really superficial. They frequently do non take into history the consequence of specific state of affairss on an person ‘s behavior.

Type Theories

Type theories classify people into distinguishable classs. The major difference between trait and type is that traits come in changing grades or degrees, whereas types are absolute. For illustration, take extroversion. Trait theory suggests that invagination and extroversion are portion of a uninterrupted dimension, and people are in the center. Type theory classifies people as introverts and extroverts, and nil in between.

An of import literature in the field of type theories is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ( MBTI ) , developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. It is aA psychometricA questionnaire designed to measureA psychologicalA penchants of people and how they perceive the universe and do determinations. It is based on the theory of psychological science type developed by Carl Jung. MBTI uses a four-scale construction for placing and categorising an person ‘s behavioural penchants. Each of these graduated tables represents two opposing constructions. They are:

“ Extraversion or Invagination ” – It shows the orientation of an person ‘s behavior, whether it is outward or inward.

“ Feeling or Intuition ” – It shows how the single gathers information.

“ Thinking or Feeling ” – It shows how the single decides.

“ Judgment or Perceiving ” – It shows whether the single prefers doing determination or maintaining options open.

Another of import literature in type theories is the “ Type A and Type B personality theory ” . It was developed by Meyer Friedman and his associates. He defined Type A and Type B behavior forms. ‘Type A ‘ are extremely impatient, ambitious, extremely competitory, commanding, aggressive people. They find it hard to loosen up. They are frequently described as “ stress drug addicts ” . Type A behavior is a major coronary hazard factor. ‘Type B ‘ are relaxed, mellow and easy traveling people. They have no sense of urgency. They are frequently looked at with disdain by Type A individuals. Those who can non be clearly categorized autumn under Type AB class.

Psychoanalytical Theories

Psychoanalytical theory is the inspiration of Sigmund Freud. He coined the term ‘psychodynamics ‘ based on the term ‘thermodynamics ‘ used in natural philosophies. He proposed psychic energy could be converted into behaviour, in the same mode that heat is converted into mechanical energy. Freud ‘s theory places cardinal importance on dynamic, unconscious psychological struggles. The termA psychoanalysisA is used to mention to many facets of his work and research, including Freudian therapy and the research methodological analysis he used to develop his theories. Freud relied to a great extent upon his observations and instance surveies of his patients when he formed his theory of personality development.

Harmonizing to Freud ‘s personality theory, the head has two chief parts: the witting head and the unconscious head. The witting head includes everything that the individual is cognizant of. When a individual thinks and negotiations rationally, it is his witting head which is at work. The individual ‘s memory is besides portion of it, which is non precisely consciousness, but can be instantly retrieved and brought into consciousness. The unconscious head is a pool of feelings, ideas, impulses, and memories that are outside of our witting consciousness. Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of hurting, anxiousness, or struggle. Harmonizing to Freud, the unconscious continues to act upon our behaviour and experience, even though we are incognizant of these implicit in influences.

Freud ‘s theory besides says that the human personality has three important constituents. They are id, ego and super-ego. These three elements interact to make complex human behavior.

The Idaho is the lone constituent that is present in an single right from the clip of birth. It refers to all the crude and natural behavior. It is driven by the pleasance rule, which strives for immediate satisfaction of demands, wants and desires. The self-importance operates based on the world rule, a attempts to fulfill the Idaho ‘s desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The super-ego instills moral criterions and ideals on the self-importance. It forces the demands of the Idaho to be met non merely realistically, but morally besides.

Since these forces compete with each other, there might be struggles between the Idaho, self-importance and super-ego. The self-importance ‘s ability to work decently in malice of the struggles is called ego strength. A individual with good self-importance strength is able handle these struggles good, whereas a individual with excessively much or excessively small ego strength can go tough or disturbing. Striking the right balance between these elements is the key to a healthy personality.

Decision

Personality theories are applied in organisations all over the universe. While choosing a campaigner for a occupation, companies look for individuals with the right personality that meets their demands. In fact, cognition of personality theories will besides assist us understand people better. Such a individual would be able to recognize why a certain single behaves the manner he/she does. It prevents un-necessary clash between people. More significantly, it helps a individual understand himself. It will assist him screen out, or come to footings with the struggles that disturbing his head.