Dispositional, Evolutionary And Evolutionary Theory

Guilford (1959) defines personality traits as being ‘any distinguishable, relatively enduring way in which one individual varies from another’. Subsequently, trait theory can be identified as an approach to the study of human personality. The aim of psychologists, specifically trait theorists, is to explain similarities and differences between individuals based on traits. Although numerous psychologists differ on the amount of traits that are significant, each theorist categorizes personality traits along several broad type spectrums. This assignment will focus on comparing and contrasting Eysenck’s Hierarchical Theory of Personality and Costa and McRae’s Five Factor Model (FFM), two different trait theories of personality.

Burger (2008), says that there are many theories of personality and psychologists try to explain it with their own approaches. Discussed here will be the psychoanalytic approach, the trait approach, the biological approach the humanistic approach, the behavioural/social learning approach and the cognitive approach. They were devised to search for specific patterns in behaviour and ways of thinking about these

Dispositional personality theories contend that each person per certain stable, long lasting dispositions. These dispositions make a person display certain emotions, attitudes, and behaviors. These dispositions appear in many different kinds of situations, which lends the belief that people behave in predictable ways even when they are in different

Personality and how we behave have been of much interest to psychologists for a long time now and because of this there have been many theories and theorists that have been developed. Personality is defined as consistent behavior patterns and intrapersonal processes originating within and individual (Fritzley, 2012, p. 10). There are six main approaches to personality psychology they include: biological approach, humanistic approach, behaviorist approach, trait approach, psychoanalytic approach and cognitive approach. Each approach shines a little light onto why we behave the way we do and how our personalities are formed, the approaches contain many different theories from

Each one of us has his or her judgment about different issues that affect us on a daily basis. It is because we have different genes that result in different traits to thereby resulting in different reactions to different situations. While some people are profoundly affected by the death of a family member, some are strong and gather the courage to move on with life. Personality allows us to express our emotions differently. In this case, our gene composition will enable us to be in a position to react to different stimuli influencing daily decisions. The purpose of this paper will be to define personality at a deeper level while focusing on various personalities domain and how they apply to different personality theories.

In the article “Our Personality- Is it Genetically Inherited or Determined by The Environmental Factors” written by Alexandra Lupu, she demonstrates three possible process that is done to form one’s personality and argues that she believes individual’s personality is formed uniquely with environment inheritage interacting with each other. After stating her argument, Lupu explains the three types of approaches that divides the psychologist that determines one’s personality. First, nomothetic approaches, which is believed that one’s personality is constant and it is minimally influenced by external factors. Second, Idiographic approaches, which is similar to Lupu’s argument that both factors takes a big role in personality and finally, the complementary

The essence of what defines us, as human beings, is complex, ever evolving process of a combination of biology and life experiences. A person’s personality is innate, yet it can become molded over time due to experience; it is a multitude of interactions and constructs. The construct of personality is challenging to define as personality theorists continue to debate on its definition. Rather than settling on one universal definition, each personality theorist evolved their own distinct perspective. Due to a lack of agreement, the definition for personality will be defined as “a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior” (Feist and Feist, 2013).

The Behaviorist theory states that we are born with a blank slate and that we are a product of our environment and a product of our nurture. It is basically stating that our behavior is learned. I agree with this theory because life experiences whether good or bad help make us stronger and become a better person. The quote that comes to mind is that we are born hating one another and that type of behavior is taught. When you are young, you are innocent and naïve, but overtime you become more aware of your surroundings and have a better understanding of how things are. At an early age, I was taught the importance

There are many different modern perspectives of psychology. These modern perspectives are cognitive,psycoanalysis,humanistic.socio-cultural,behavioral and evolutionary. When thinking about a key event in regard to different personality theories, I felt that I could most relate that key event of my life to the humanistic and behavioral theory. I will mainly be emphazing on these two modern perspectives. Moreover, I will then evaluate the key concepts and the principles of these two theories, and briefly compare and contrast their thoughts in the following paragraphs.

However as much as his ideas may look fulfilling, they are partially correct. The significance of environment cannot be ignored in personality assessment which the theory ignores. However, other aspects of development in human like introversion, extroversion and temperament have been represented in the theory giving it credit. (Diane, 1985).

Personality is an intriguing component in psychology vital for the perception of human beings. Understanding and defining personality has proven to be a difficult task. It is so complex, in fact, that no single theory can adequately define it. If one was to ask an ordinary individual to do so, some of the most common answers might be “a person’s characteristics” or “the impression (s) one makes on others”. Personality Theorists on the other hand view personality as the essence of the person, the individual’s

In 1992, two psychologists by the name of Costa and McCrae made a brilliant discovery of various dimensions of personality traits and put them in five separate personality traits. The five dimensions are usually described in the subsequent order of decreasing vigor based on previous

This essay will give a description of Personality before critically analysing the biological basis of personality approach. The biological basis approach tries to account for the mechanisms between genes and personality by looking at various different brain structures whilst the biochemical approach looks at the impact of hormones and neurotransmitters. The majority of our understanding of personality from a biological perspective focuses on the three main behavioural systems; the reward system, the motivation system and the punishment system. Within this essay I will be discussing the three main theories that have come from these ideas, Eyenck’s three-factor model, Gray’s reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) and Cloningers model of personality.

The study of personality traits is beneficial in identifying the many variables that exist from human to human; the combinations of these variables provide us with a true level of individuality and uniqueness. In the field of psychology, trait theory is considered to be a key approach to the study of human personality (Crowne, 2007; Burton, Westen & Kowalski, 2009). This paper aims to identify a number of significant contributors who have played crucial roles in both the development and application of trait theory. This paper then moves focus to these theorists, outlining their theory and analysing both the strengths and weaknesses of those theories. An illustration of the methods used in trait measurement is given and includes the

In the search for understanding behavior, the quest takes one to the subject of “personality”. There have always been questions as to why people do what they do, whether or not people have the ability to shape their own personality, and why people are so different. There are individuals that are predictable and others that are completely unpredictable, and what exactly controls or is a factor in one’s personality. Personality is a complex topic and different psychologists define this topic in several different ways. The complexity of personality has prompted researchers to use different types of methods which consist of three commonly used approaches. This paper will