Trait Theory And Social Cognitive Theories

The current paper will explore the history and future of personality in social psychology, and how the integration of these fields show more similarities than differences.

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

Feist, J., Feist, G. J., & Roberts, T. (2013). Theories of personality (8th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

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

The personality theory that I have chosen to focus on will be Identity Theory. It was developed by Erik Erikson in the nineteen hundreds. Erik Erikson believed that every individual goes through a certain number of stages to reach his or her full development or potential (Erikson, 1994). He theorized that a human being goes through eight different stages ranging from birth to death (Erikson, 1994). Identity Theory focuses on eight psychosocial stages of development, and an epigenetic principle of maturation (Schultz, 2008). The stages of development are

One main goal of psychology has been established a model to describe and understand human personality. The five-factor model of personality is the most widely used model in describing personality types. The components of the Big Five are extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.

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.

There are many theories that have been created to help try and explain how personality

openness. They are referred to as the Big Five in many research studies and textbooks. However,

The “Big Five” personality classification model includes the traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. The Big Five are broad, global traits that are associated with behaviors at work.

The Five Factor model uses the following traits: neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness to rate someone’s traits on a scale of effectiveness as a leader. Each trait is explained below:

Social Cognitive perspective- states that behavior, environment and cognitive factors, such as thoughts, memories, and expectations, are important in understanding personality. Like the behavioral approach of Skinner, the social cognitive view relies on empirical research in studying personality. But this research has focused not just on observable behavior but also on the cognitive factors that influence what we are like as people. Alber Bandura and Walter Mischel are the main architects of social cognitive theory.

The factors of the Big Five are neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness (Schultz, 2015, p. 231).

Personality can be defined in many ways due to the individual and unique aspects of personality, and there is yet to be a definitive answer for what personality is and how it comes into being. Generally personality can be defined as the relatively constant, individual and unique characteristics and traits which present themselves to others in different circumstances. Due to the many unknown factors of personality psychologists have suggested many ways in which personality is created, these psychologists pose reasons as to what personality is and how it manifests, these are known as personality theories (Carter & Grivas, 2014). The main two ideas being that of genetically influenced personality and personality which is influenced by the environment one lives and grows up in (Carter & Grivas, 2014). These two theories are known as Nature (Genetics) and Nurture (Environment). Many modern psychologists pose that both nature and nurture work in conjunction with each other (Coon, 1995).

The big five model is a model describing five personality factors that personality would look like. The five factors consisted of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (Burger 2014). Each factor has a variety of characteristics that describe that persona. Neuroticism was described as emotional stability along with their personal adjustment (Burger 2014). People who have frequent mood swings and are upset daily therefore being susceptible to anxiety and depression ( Burger 2014). Extraversion people are very social, energetic, and friendly and described as someone’s level of enthusiasm and sociability (Rentfrow 2009). Introverts are the opposite as extraverts are