Comparing Allport's Psychodynamic Theory Of Personality

In psychology, there are four major theories of personality: psychodynamic, trait or five-factor model, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory primarily focuses on the role of the unconscious mind. The social cognitive theory focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior and is based on theories of learning. Whereas, the humanistic theory emphasizes conscious life experiences and choices. The trait or five-factor model focuses on characteristics themselves and not the roots of personality.

New needs and tensions will arise in each area of life initiating one to seek new ways of adapting to these new found stressors. In return this forces them to form different kinds of intimate relationships. This maturation helps forms one’s personality (Kowalski, & Westen, 2002). “Relationships formed during each stage of life serve as a prototype for interactions in later stages. For this reason, there exists a continuum of relationships formed throughout a lifetime that shape and mold specific personality traits. Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg, describe development as a series of stages. A stage is a period in development in which people exhibit typical behavior patterns and establish particular capacities” (Kowalski, & Westen, 2002). “The various stage theories share three assumptions: First people pass through stages in a specific order, with each stage building on capacities developed in the previous stage, second stages most related to one’s age, third development is discontinuous, with qualitatively different capacities emerging in each stage” (Kowalski, & Westen, 2002).

There are many developmental milestone events and transition points that help form the identity of an individual. As one transitions from milestone to another, they are not necessarily losing or gaining anything, but are adapting to their new stage in life (Bjorklund, 2011). These transitions can affect other domains of human development including: physical changes, cognitive changes, personality or identity, social relationships and mental health. The transition into adulthood is a transition that varies widely between each individual (Bjorklund, 2011). Some young adults may enter military service, go into the workforce, get married, or go to college. This indicates that young adults do not have to go into a role they do not wish to enter and they have the freedom to make their own decisions (Bjorklund, 2011). This transition into adulthood varies in length for all young adults, and this time is spent solving issues that affected them in childhood, and will help them to become successful adults (Bjorklund, 2011). Emerging adulthood is the transition that takes place between the ages of 18 and 25 (Bjorklund, 2011). This transition gives young adults the time to explore and experience new things that eventually lead them to commitments of work and love (Bjorklund, 2011). According to Erik Erikson, one’s personality will continue to develop throughout their entire life, and, in order to have

Psychodynamic theory Psychodynamic theory seeks to explain how early child hood experiences and how interactions between natural drives has an influence on adult development. In accordance with Freud (Eysenck, 2005),

Human personality emerges as a composite of early adolescence encounters of which how these encounters are consciously and unconsciously processed inside the human formative stages. When they don’t, the outcomes can be a mental condition necessitating psychoanalysis to accomplish appropriate working condition.

Gordon Allport, born on November 11, 1897, is considered the founder of “personality psychology” and “trait theory”. Allport, just like any other psychologist, had his own definition on what personality is. According to Allport, “ no two psychologists could easily agree on one definition of the term ‘personality’” (Kendall, 2010, p. 282), Allport believed that personality could be characterized in two ways, idiographic and nomothetic; while Freud believed that personality is composed by the Id, Ego and Superego.

The major principles of a lifespan development theory are: Freuds' psychoanalytic theory, Erikson's psychosocial theory, Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and Vygotsky's socialcultural theory. Each theory in particular showcases different aspects of a persons' experience while growing up in life from a young age to adulthood. Freuds' theory believes that unconsciousness is what determines someone’s personality and behavior. This is just one example, as each given theory deals with something of different. If we take the psychoscial theory and put it beside the psychoanalytic theory: The difference is easy to spot. Eriksons' theory deals more with others where as Freuds' deals with ourself. With Piaget's theory, it is more drawn to the

The article deals with the personality pathology in childhood and adolescence. The relevance of this paper is conditioned by the fact that the development of personality disorders is still poorly understood. There is much that remains to be closely scrutinized.

There are many major developmental constructs and theories within the field of psychology that have been developed throughout the years. Within all of these developmental constructs and theories there are both similarities and differences present. When it comes to development many people hold the idea that we are all completely different and unique but the reality is that, for the most part, we all seem to follow certain patterns as we develop. I am no different, and my development thus far can be placed within the constructs of many of the theories that have been developed by different psychologists over time. Within this paper I will be focusing on two theories as they apply to my own life and development, Freud’s

Freud believed that the human child is born with natural instincts and drives. The relationship that the caregivers had with the child has a major impact on how this child developed into a mature adult. Erikson’s psychosocial stages are also directly related to the caregiver’s responses to the child.

Introversion was defined as “withdrawn and often shy, and they tend to focus on themselves, on their own thoughts and feelings” (Jung, 1923) Therefore focusing on this personality trait can help to better understand why people tend to be reserved and withdrawn from everyday life. Carl Jung was the creator of the neopsychoanalytical approach, which focused on psychic energy. While Gordon Allport and Hans Eysenck contributor to the trait theory, focused on biology and individualized traits. Jung, Eysenck and Allport focused on extrovert vs. introvert, yet had completely different ideas of how introversion is seen in everyday life. Personally believeing this trait is one I carry, focusing on completely different approaches will bring light to many explanations of why people act the way they do, including myself. By using both case studies and personal work from the works of Jung, Eysenck, and Allport researching introversion should not be a an issue. Although there is a lot of work to do with introversion, through this research one can get a better overview.

“Personality can be better understood if it is examined developmentally” (Santrock, 2006, p. 45). Considering cognitive, biological, and socioemotional development throughout life will provide context, guideposts, and reasonable expectations for counselors. Life-span development theories also

At some point in your life, did you ever wonder how you became the person you are today? What factors might have had an influence in your life to how you behave in society? Developmental Psychology helped me figure out how events in my life molded me into the young adult I am today and helped discover the themes that affected my life.  In this paper, I will be focusing on divorce, my personality, premature births, and how I struggled in my academics. I will be explaining this journey throughout these four themes: family influences, personality development, physical development, and cognitive development.

There are many theories on Human Development which include Psychoanalytic theory- this help us to understand human behaviour, it tells us that to understand adults we have to look back at what happened to them as children for instance an adult who can not cope in a social setting may have been bullied as a child and is now afraid to speak to new people or Every time the vehicle she is riding in stops suddenly, Mrs. Smith panics. She thinks this is because she was in a car accident when she was a child, and in each new situation the fear of another accident crashes over her like a wave or another example is Jack’s mother left his family when he was a child. Ever since then, he has had a very difficult time trusting people because he is afraid they will abandon him. Sigmund Freud is said to be the founder of this theory “Freud believed that the

The next scholar to contribute was Allport. Allport stated that it is very unlikely that people just possessed one personality characteristic (Fleming, 2006). He claimed that personality exists in a “psychological matrix” meaning within a person, that people possessed traits which can be categorized into levels, which in turn allows there to be comparison among different individuals (Liebert, R. M. & Spiegler, M. D., 1970, 117). Allport also recognized that it is important to understand individuals within themselves, and that it is necessary to recognize some characteristics are not universal/transferable among individuals (Liebert, R. M. & Spiegler, M. D., 1970). To list the all the contributions Allport made to the academic world would be too much, in short, he among other scholars introduced an extensive list of adjectives that were descriptive of individual behaviours (Fleming, 2006). Lacking necessary agreement among classifications and definitions of the many personality traits, the further development of personality theories in the 1960’s was brought to halt.