Question

Describe the 4 theories of personality and what each can contributes to our knowledge of personality?

Answer 1

Personality is our characteristic pattern of cognition, behaviour and processing emotions.Theories of peronality can be understood under four types.

1.Psychoanalytic - Beginning from Freud's psychoanalytic theory , followed by Jung , Adler, Horney, these theories see personality as a reflection of our unconscious needs,motives and impulses.Personality is seen as dynamic with interactions between id, ego and superego.These theorists agree on the use of defence mechanisms by individuals to cope with life situations and save themselves from feeling guilt or anxiety.

2.Trait Theory-Our language has a rich collection of terms to describe a person.Trait theorists like Allport and Cattel attempted to compress them into personality traits to give a unique picture of an individual.These theories contribute to our everyday understanding of personality.

3.Social Learning Theory -These theorists believe that much of human behaviour that we observe as a part of one'spersonality is learned, conditioned beginning from our childhood.Dollard and Miller studied conflicts in terms of tendency to approach and tendency to avoid is learned in different situations.Skinner believed personality to be a collection of responses that are reinforced.

4.Humanistic Theory -These theories seek to work around the entity of 'self' and understanding its all aspects.They include the person's sense of perceiving himself, through his self concept, the way he believes his actions impact others.Rogers talked about how incongruences in one's real and ideal self is the cause of disturbance for an individual.Maslow believed that the person develops by fulfilling their needs starting from physiological needs then self esteem needs , with the final aim being self -actualization.