Personality

Personality:

….. distinctive patterns of behavior that

characterizes each individual’s adaptation to the
situations of life.

…….includes the behavior patterns a person shows

across situations or psychological characteristics
of the person that lead to those behavior patterns.
Theories of Personality:

…..four main categories:

•Trait Approaches
•Psycho-Dynamic Approaches
•Learning & Behavioral Approaches
•Humanistic Approaches
Trait Theories:
Descriptive terms which describe characteristics that lead
people to behave in more or less distinctive and
consistent way across situations, represents “traits”.

The main Trait Theories include:

• Allport Theory,
• Raymond Cattell 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire,
• Eysenck’s three dimensions of Personality,
• Five Factor theory of Personality.
2. Dynamic Personality Theory:

• Dynamic approaches involve a search for the

processes by which needs, motives and impulses
often hidden from view interact to produce
individual’s behavior.

• Dynamic theory involves a tendency to over

interpret, i.e. to attribute deeper meaning to
behavior than the behavior shows.
Freud’s Dynamic Theory of
Personality:
• Sigmund Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory of
Personality argued that human behavior is the result
of the interaction of three component parts of the
mind: the id, ego, and superego.

• …… role of unconscious psychological conflicts in

shaping behavior and personality.
Freud’s Dynamic Theory of Personality:
Defence Mechanism:
• Defense Mechanisms reduce/redirect anxiety by
distorting reality.

• The coping process of the ego that helps keep it

functioning properly.

• Different strategies that mind uses to reduce

anxiety and stress.

• When the inner war gets out of hand, the result is

Anxiety.
3. Learning & Behavioral
Theories of Personality:
• Learning theories believe that the personality essentially arises
from the molding that individuals receive from their
environment i.e., the patterns of behavior are shaped by
experience.

• The underlying assumption of the learning perspective is that

all behavior is learned through experiences and by interaction
with the environment. 
4. Humanistic Theories:

• The humanistic theories are optimistic about the core of human

nature.

• For humanists, personality is not driven by unconscious

conflicts and defenses against anxiety but rather by needs to
adapt, learn, grow, and excel.

• Self as object and self as process.

Maslow’s Self Actualization
Theory:
• Abraham Maslow described a healthy personality as one that is
not only free from illness but is also satisfied, he also came up
with the idea that an individual is motivated by hierarchy of
needs.

• Maslow described people who have met healthy personality,

such as Abraham Lincoln, are Self-Actualization Personalities.