Analyzing the Biological and Humanistic Approaches to Personality
Table of Contents
Introduction1
Personality and Maslow's hierarchy of needs1
Biological factors that influence the formation of personality3
Relationship between biological factors and Maslow's theory of personality3
Humanistic theory4
Conclusion4
Analyzing the Biological and Humanistic Approaches to Personality
Introduction
Personality is the combination of thoughts, behavior and emotions and depends on how we perceive and give meaning to the environment around us. It is this thinking pattern that makes one person different from the other. Hence, each person is an individual and is unique in his own way (Buss, 2010). For most people, personality remains the same throughout their life. However, in certain instances, some major events of our life are strong enough to utterly change our personality.
Personality and Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Maslow is best known for his concept of self actualization. He gave the hierarchy of needs in the year 1943. The hierarchy of needs has five levels. These levels are as follows:
Psychological needs - the basic human needs of food, water, shelter and sleep
Safety needs - another basic need for security and safety
Social needs - needs for love and belongingness
Esteem needs - the need to feel a sense of achievement, social recognition, accomplishment and respect
Self- actualization needs - the highest level in Maslow's hierarchy, this level presents the need of people who are self assured and want to make the best of their potential.
Maslow worked with monkeys and studied their behavior to find that confidence comes, not from physical strength but from the perception. To a considerable extent, our perception about our self shapes our personality. As we move up the ladder and meet our needs, our personality becomes stronger. For instance, a poor man who is unable to meet the very basic human needs such as food and shelter will not think of anything but how to get food for him. Similarly, a well off man will have needs such as a branded suit, a branded watch etc. hence the fulfillment of our needs and the resulting comfort level in our life shapes our personality.
Our needs change our personality (Friedman, 2009). A wise man once said when in Rome do as Romans do. The tendency to adapt is common for most people. Not only our needs, but the situation around us forms or breaks our personality.
When talking about the role of Maslow's hierarchy of needs in shaping ones personality, it is important to note here that not every individual follows the hierarchy as given by Maslow. Two personality characteristics, that is, introversion and extroversion decide a person's motivational needs. Depending on the personality type, the hierarchy of needs alteres and reorganizes to three levels: growth, other (relatedness), self (existence).
An introvert and a gregarious person have very different ways of fulfilling the above mentioned three needs. For instance, in the growth level of need, an introvert person will focus on his own competencies whereas a sociable person will indulge in transcendence and focus on assisting others with their ...