What is my personality? How do we develop our individual personalities? Was I born with a preset personality? And if so can my personality be changed well into adulthood? These are questions I asked myself, while I gather my thoughts as to what my personal theory of personality is. So far in my quest of self discovery and introspection, I can see that individual personality can be altered and is very adaptive throughout life. I see this in the ways that may individuals go into counseling and with time and true determination are able to move at times from unstable personality condition into healthier state of being. I truly believe that many aspects of theories already developed can be used to explain the development of personalities. Some of the most important theories that impact the development of my personality theory are the biological, attachment, and cognitive theories. I agree with the biological theory in the aspect that we may already have a “preset” personality. This personality is set up via our genes uniquely given to us by our parents, grandparent, and etc. Being a biology major, I have been taught that upon conception our genes which then lead onto our development in utero are …show more content…
In the textbook, Personality Psychology, this is the first case presented (in chapter 6) is of twins separated at birth and then raised with two different families, still showed very striking similarities throughout their lives. Such as marrying women with the same names and also liking the same type of cigarettes, beer and profession. Identical twins are the most identical due to having the same genetic make up, so if they are showing similar likes and dislikes it leads me to believe that we may have some aspect of a predetermined set of traits that are then incorporated into our
The humanistic perspective on personality deals exclusively with human behavior. Humanistic psychologists believe that human nature includes a natural drive towards personal growth, that humans have the freedom to choose what they do regardless of environmental factors, and humans are mostly conscious beings and are not controlled by unconscious needs and conflicts. They also believe that a person's subjective view of the world is more important than objective reality. Two of the humanistic theorists that have made an impact of humanism are Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
This topic is about personality perspectives, I will give a brief description of the theories listed in the chapters read this week. I will define what a personality is, then what traits are then compare them. First a personality is defined as the accumulation of features or assets that form an individual's distinctive character. Traits are defined as a special quality or characteristic, typically one belonging to a person. Then we have personality traits which are defined as qualities or characteristics that are the embodiment of an individual's. They are your habitual patterns of comportment, temperament and emotion. Skills, on the other hand, are the learned capacity to carry out concrete tasks. They are competences or the aptitudes to do things. Some psychologists would define personality as the agreeably put order of feeling and actions, remain flexible in our thinking and open to new ideas and behavior that determine one person from another. (Merriam Webster, 2017).
Many environmental, genetic, and emotional factors are related to the composition of twins. Any types of twin share a relationship that most people will never experience. Twins, whether fraternal, identical, or conjoined, are an amazing phenomena of human life.
The biological approach is a method that looks at our genetics to figure out a reason as to why one behaves in a particular way and why individuals develop abnormal behaviors. The biological theorists who study behavioral genetics study in what manner genetic influences effect behavior. Biological factors such as chromosomes have a substantial effect on humans and their behaviors. Most of what psychologists know about biological influences on personality is derived from twin studies. Twin studies examine and compare monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (fraternal) twins. This is done because identical twins share the same DNA and are therefore predicted to share the same levels of specific traits. They are studied in cases where the twins are both reared together and separately to understand individual differences and similarities in personalities in these twins; in most cases even when the identical twins are reared apart they often are similar in regards to their career choices and personality characteristics. While fraternal twins share about fifty percent of the same DNA which is about the same amount as non-twin siblings. The outcome of fraternal twins is similar to the outcome of individuals not born as twins, meaning the pair of DZ twins will have different personality traits (Holzinger, 1929). This demonstrates that although MZ twins are reared apart they still share the same personality traits because they are heritable. The biological aspect of traits is explained through genetics. Biology is the influence for most of the complex and intricate phenomena that occur within a human being, the same can be applied to the personality of an individual. The Big Five is a list of the five core personality traits that all indivi...
Many psychologists throughout many years present theoretical approaches in an attempt to understand personality. Hans Eysenck’s approach of personality differed from that of Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytical theory of personality. Eysenck’s theory of personality relies on the scientific basis of biology in explaining human personality. Although Freud’s theories are intriguing to an open mind, Eysenck’s approach made measurable scientific sense. He relied on the use of trait and factor analysis, which is a statistical method. Freud relied on faith and his personal opinions based on observational research to reach the assumptions that set forth his theories (Feist & Feist, 2009). Eysenck and Freud did not agree on anything about understanding how and why the mind operates the way, it does.
Personality Psychology has two theories. The first from Sigmund Freud. His Psychoanalytic theory suggests that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influences personality, while the Humanistic idea focused on growth and self-fulfillment. Personality Researchers study the complexities of the personalities: biological roots and interaction between people. Along with those roots, they study bias, self-esteem and cultural influence. Freud’s point of view consisted of the idea that your emotional disorders originate from unconscious dynamics. He analyzed this through free association and dreams. His theory was called Psychoanalysis. Freud thought people defended themselves against anxiety by allowing their
Personality trait theory consists of several approaches in measuring traits (Funder, 2013). The options include; the single trait approach, which helps to identify traits by asking; what do people like that do? (Funder, 2013). The many trait approach asks who does that. And the essential trait approach questions which traits are the greatest importance? The typological approach centers on identifying types of people, and that type is categorized by a pattern of traits (Funder, 2013). The single trait approach focuses on three important traits: conscientiousness, Self-Monitoring, and Narcissism. The many trait approach utilizes personality tests to assist in examining many traits at the same time (Funder, 2013).
A person’s individualized and distinctive patterns of thinking, judgment, thoughts, emotions, and habits make up his personality. Personality is under evaluation in Psychology. These traits make each individual different and significant and lead to the theories of personality which are the psychological theories of personality.
It is true that identical twins who are raised together have many things in common,
Our personalities are what distinguish us from each other beyond our appearance; without them, we would all behave and react in the same way. Personality is the reason we are outgoing or introverted, persistent or blaze, and anxious or calm. We each have different levels of these competing characteristics that make us unique. But why are personalities so varied? Personality is determined by an array of factors from genetic and biological to the personal experiences and decisions we have faced from the day we are born. The complexity of our personalities cannot be simply explained, and for this reason there exists many different theories of how it’s developed and personality is still deeply under study. I went into this subject with an open-mind
It is accepted as fact by psychologists throughout the world that it is the environment that one is raised in that has the most effect on one’s personality. They say that we as humans do not inherit our birth parents’ personality, and that we instead create our own through our exposure to different events throughout our life’s duration. This gives doctors scientific reasoning and thorough explanations behind many people’s lives and the choices they make, and maybe can give shed some light on mine.
When we are born, over time we grow up and develop a personality. For each person, our personalities differentiate between one another which presents a wide variety of individuals. According to psychology, there are different factors that make up who we are. Today, I will be talking about the four major theories of personality (Psychodynamic, five-factor model, humanistic, and social-cognitive).
I would have to agree with Erik Erikson and Alfred Adler's theories. I believe that personality can change and genetics and childhood development plays a big part in it. Through our experiences while growing up, we are influenced by others and we try to make ourselves better and that can change your personality. Our personality is not set in stone, we can change it according to how we want to
Personality takes many shapes and forms and is affected by many factors. My understanding of personality is simply a genetic and environmentally determined set of psychological traits that influence our reactions in the world around us. Genetic because our parents possess a certain set of psychological personality traits that we tend to have in common with them so therefore in my opinion there are heritable personality traits. Personality is environmental because we each have our own separate experiences in the world and these experiences help form our unique personality. Neo-Freudians such as Jung have given us a wide array of ideas of how they believe personality is developed and formatted. Jung in particular has a very interesting
The concept of personality has numerous definitions (Fatahi, Moradi, & Kashani-Vahid, 2016). Schultz and Schultz (2009), define personality in its broad sense as the manner of an individual’s behaviour in different situations. This essay explores the nature of personality, with the intention of highlighting its flexibility. The results of numerous empirical research studies are examined in order to investigate if, and how personality changes over time. It will be argued that an individual’s personality has the ability to change throughout their life.