Theories Of Personality : Psychodynamic, Trait Or Five Factor Model, Humanistic, And Social Cognitive

Psychodynamic theory, although it is outdated, is the foundation for what we know as counseling today. It was first created by Freud and later expanded by Erikson and Jung. The focus of this therapy is mainly bringing the feelings and desires of the unconscious into consciousness and the unconsciousness’ role in behavior. It also postulates that there are different stages of personality development across the life span. Freud’s focus was on psychosexual development while Erikson used psychosocial stages as well. It concentrates mostly on childhood experiences, arguing that examination of the past leads to character development. This examination of the past and the unconscious can be accomplished through a number of techniques including

There are four main personality theories, these are the different ideas behind where individuals get there personalities from. I will explain three of

The psychodynamic approach was proposed by Freud. This approach towards personality is based on the notion of underlying forces such as the id, ego and superego which are either present from birth or develop during childhood shape our behaviour and personality as such. Experiences in childhood are proposed to be the basis of human personality, according to Freud and as such Psychodynamic theory proposes that some undesirable unbalances between the id and superego can create the arising of ego defence mechanisms which explain individual differences in behaviour. Freudian theory has been adapted by neo-Freudians, however while psychodynamic

The five-factor model (FFM) is a contemporary construct describing personality. It incorporates five traits – openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism also referred to as OCEAN. Within each dimension, there are specific personality attributes, for example, openness includes subcategories of feelings and actions. The FFM was influenced by Cattell’s 16-factor model (1957) and shares traits with many other personality theories such as Eysenck’s PEN model. There has been an ongoing debate discussing how many factors appropriately represent the brain structure of personality, suggestions have varied from 2-7, recently Almagor et al. (1995) advocated that a 7-factor model unfolds when evaluative traits are involved. Costa & Mcrae (1992) claim that the FFM is the best theory of personality, however, the model has received much criticism. Through examining different aspects of the model its credibility can be explored.

The first major theory in psychology is Psychoanalytic perspective which focuses on the importance of the unconscious mental process; the importance of sexual and aggressive instincts and the early childhood experiences on a personality. The psychoanalytic perspective was created by the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, who believed that things hidden in the unconscious part of the brain could be revealed in a number of different ways: through dreams, free association and slips of the tongue also referred to as “Freudian slips”.

Psychodynamic theories may vary in their individual descriptions of intrapsychic and psychosocial processes and forces, but most follow concepts from Freudian psycho-analysis. There are five main key concepts regarding the psychodynamic theory. The first, the importance of early childhood experiences in personality development. Second, the existence of unconscious and preconscious motivation, unconscious is the part of the mind that holds ideas, thoughts, and memories that we cannot access and bring into our conscious awareness (Canda, Chatterjee, and Robbins, 2012). In contrast, preconscious holds ideas, thoughts, and memories that we are not currently thinking of, but if we concentrate, we can bring those to our conscious part of mind (Canda,

Psychodynamic theories of psychology focuses on the subconscious self, influencing behaviors of an individual and are used to explain the development of mental illness and abnormalities. The basis of psychodynamics is Sigmund Freud’s theory in which he describes three states of mind vying for their preferred goal: the Id concerned with obtaining pleasure, the Superego concerned with upholding morality, and the Ego which uses reason to balance the desires of the two extremes. Freud describes three levels of consciousness the conscious which is what ideas we always know about, the preconscious which is ideas that we can make conscious, and the unconscious which is the ideas that are underneath our understanding which may include suppressed memories of traumatic events. He sees human motivation coming from a vague notion of instincts which include the life instinct which drives people to stimulate themselves/survive and the death instinct which drives people to be calm, serene, slipping into death. Freud gives great importance to human sexuality in his theories by linking such dilemmas during the childhood stages of development of the “sex instinct” to mental problems in adulthood in the form of subconscious ideas about the past influencing current actions. He sees defense mechanisms in people’s actions as an attempt to protect the person’s view of self or to protect from revealing something they don’t want known, certain cues like forgetting what to say reveal that there is

There are four major personality theories: psychodynamic, trait, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. The humanistic theory focuses on the role of each person’s conscious life experiences and choices in personality development. The social-cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of both learning and cognitive processes play an important role in personality. Whereas, the trait theory is more concerned with the end result of personality as well as the characteristics themselves.

Personality Theories Paper Anthony J. Hebdo Ohio Christian University May 30, 2018 Personality Theories Paper Psychodynamic theory is the view of personality with the focus on the unconscious and the importance of childhood experiences (Myers & DeWall, 2014). These theories view human behavior as an interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind. Psychodynamic theory focuses on trying to get inside the head of individuals to make sense of their relationships, experiences and how they see the world. Sigmund Freud was the leading psychologist of his time, and is best known for developing the theories and techniques of psychoanalysis.

A psychodynamic theory is an observation that tells behaviour in terms of aware as well as unconscious concentrates including unconscious requirements as well as beliefs. However, in the 20th century, Sigmund Freud planned a psychodynamic theory giving to which character contains of the id accountable for characters including pleasure seeking, the superego which goes to obey the rules of parents as well as the society including the ego which mediates among them according to the difficulties of reality. Therefore, psychodynamic theories normally hold that childhood knowledges shape personality. As the theories are linked with psychoanalysis, a type of therapy that efforts to tell unconscious thoughts including the needs. However, not all psychologists agree psychodynamic theories including criticisers claim the theories lack supporting scientific data (Coursehero.com, 2016).Moreover, the other theories of personality such as the behavioural as well as the humanist theories.

In the four major theories of personality one of these theories is psychodynamic. Psychodynamic personality theory focuses on the role of the unconscious mind in the development of personality. In Freud’s study, one of the advantages that prove to be present in psychodynamic theory is its ability to recognize there is subconscious and how it has impact on one’s life. As well, it brought the importance that childhood experiences have an effect on an individual’s life. For example, many of Freud’s patients proved this case when discussing the effects of being sexually abused as a child altered their way of living. However, one of the disadvantages of this theory would be its claim that human behavior is pre-determined and individuals do not have free will. For instance, the psychosexual stages that Freud claim that lead to the end result personality of an individual.

I already knew before seeing the final results of the collages that my description of myself would differ from my partner’s portrayal of me. No matter who I had chosen to do it, I knew the final product would end with positive traits on their collage, and negative traits on my own. I am my worst critic, and am sometimes very blind to the good impressions I leave on other people. I do see a few of the same words between the two collages, as well as some general key themes I can make out between the two. I also notice my self criticism is very apparent, even from the other person’s point of view. I chose my mother to make the other half of the collage for me. So, obviously there is going to be a bit of a bias towards my good qualities rather

Personality plays a significant role in how individuals react to certain situations and in different environments. It is encouraged to conduct research into the variability in personality, as every individual differs from one another (Abali, 2006). There is no fixed definition of personality acceptable to all theorists, as research results are interpreted in different ways. Generally speaking, personality is as a set of persistent psychological traits and patterns within an individual, that form distinctive characteristics which make individuals unique from one another.

Personality psychology is a broad branch of psychology that looks at various different personality disorders. In addition to that, they also look at what a person does and how that relates to their own personality. In this assignment, I took an article that looks at mate poaching and how it varies in various cultures. With this article, I related it to what we are learning from Chapter two of our Personality Psychology book, research and research theories.

There are Nemours different theories that exist that try to explain personality, for example trait theories such as the five factor model which describes five personality traits in terms of five basic dimensions extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience. (Soto, J. C, Jackson J. J. 2013).