Theories of Personality

Theories of Personality



Theories of Personality

Introduction

Personality Development quintessentially means enhancing and grooming one's outer and inner self to bring about a positive change to your life. Each individual has a distinct persona that can be developed, polished and refined. This process includes boosting one's confidence, improving communication and language speaking abilities, widening ones scope of knowledge, developing certain hobbies or skills, learning fine etiquettes and manners, adding style and grace to the way one looks, talks and walks and overall imbibing oneself with positivity, liveliness and peace. The whole process of this development takes place over a period of time. Even though there are many crash courses in personality development that are made available to people of all age groups, implementing this to your routine and bringing about a positive change in oneself takes a considerable amount of time. It is not necessary to join a personality development course; one can take a few tips and develop his or her own aura or charm. (Schultz, 2009)

Explanation

Psychoanalytic Conflict over sexual and hostile motivesDefenses, phobias, depressed mood AttachmentRelation to the caretaker in the infant yearsControl of impulse, social habits, security, anger, frustration tolerance, trust in others, capacity for love SelfInterpretations of experience, identificationGuilt, shame, anxiety, self-confidence Observed behaviorAcquired habitsSociability, aggressive behavior, impulsivity, shyness, obedience. There are five different hypotheses regarding the early origins of personality (see accompanying table). One assumes that the child's inherited biology, usually called a temperamental bias, is an important basis for the child's later personality. Alexander Thomas and StellaChess suggested there were nine temperamental dimensions along with three synthetic types they called the difficult child, the easy child, and the child who is slow to warm up to unfamiliarity. Longitudinal studies of children suggest that a shy and fearful style of reacting to challenge and novelty predicts, to a modest degree, an adult personality that is passive to challenge and introverted in mood. A second hypothesis regarding personality development comes from Sigmund Freud's suggestion that variation in the sexual and aggressive aims of the id, which is biological in nature, combined with family experience, leads to the development of the ego and superego. Freud suggested that differences in parental socialization produced variation in anxiety which, in turn, leads to different personalities. A third set of hypotheses emphasizes direct social experiences with parents. After World War II, Americans and Europeans held the more benevolent idealistic conception of the child that described growth as motivated by affectionate ties to others rather than by the narcissism and hostility implied by Freud's writings. John Bowlby contributed to this new emphasis on the infant's relationships with parents in his books on attachment . Bowlby argued that the nature of the infant's relationship to the caretakers and especially the mother created a profile of emotional reactions toward adults that might last indefinitely. (Schultz, 2009)

A fourth source of ideas for personality centers on whether or not it is necessary to posit a self that monitors, integrates, and initiates ...