The Humanistic Theory And The Theories Of Personality

There are four major theories that attempt to describe personality: the psychoanalytic theory, the five-factor model, the humanistic theory, and the social learning theory. The psychoanalytic and social learning model theories both dominated personality psychology throughout the first half of the 1900’s. Later, the humanistic and big five theories arose and brought about new ideas. Each theory is important to analyze, as each has its advantages and disadvantages. Sigmund Freud developed the psychoanalytic theory of personality that revolves around three major inferences. One inference is called psychic determinism, which is, “the assumption that all psychological events have a cause,” (548). This implies that people are not entirely control

They believed that our thinking and our interpretations of our environments are what bring about our personalities. For example, if we perceived somebody to be dangerous then we would most likely have an alert and bitter personality. This goes along with the term called reciprocal determinism, which explains how people have the urge to influence each other in a mutual manner. This includes both personality and cognitive factors. For example, if I was introverted I would not talk to my classmates, and on the other hand they would observe my personality and return an introverted personality back to me by not talking to me either. Social learning theorists also propose that the majority of learning happens by watching other people. This implies that our families and teachers all play a significant role in our learning because those are the people we are more frequently around and observe. In addition, it is assumed that individuals have a locus of control. Some have an internal locus of control, which means they believe that life changes are due to their own work and personal characteristics, while external locus of control people believe that life changes are from chance or fate. An advantage of this theory is that it is widely accepted that people’s personalities are influenced by both internal and external factors. A disadvantage to this theory is that it implies that we

Self-actualization is, “the drive to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent,” (561). Carl Rogers was the best-known humanistic theorist and he came up with three components that contribute to our personalities as: organism, self, and conditions of worth. The organism describes our natural and genetically influenced selves just the way it is. The self is the set of beliefs about who we are as an individual. The conditions of worth are the outlooks we create and put on ourselves as appropriate or inappropriate behavior. Furthermore, Abraham Maslow focused on people who were self-actualized and he concluded that they were creative, self-confident people but not selfish. An advantage to this theory is that Maslow’s findings made way for today’s positive psychology. On the other hand, a disadvantage to that is the fact that his work was very problematic. Another disadvantage is that is claims the importance of free will and individual choices, but comparative psychology researchers argue that not all human nature is positive. There is evidence that we are aggressive animals. Also, humanistic models are challenging to