Eysenck Personality Theory

Pyschology assessment 3

Personality
Personality is the sum total of an individual’s characteristics which make him/ her unique. Hollander (1971)
There are six types of theory for personality. The first one is trait theory and this is by Eysenck, 1947. Eysenck believed that personality is genetically based so people were born with their own personality and it doesn’t change. He says that personality is shaped by a part of the mid brain called the reticular activating system. He says that our personality is shaped by the activity and arousal of parts of our nervous system network so we can’t help being shy or disagreeable. Trait means you have a relatively stable and enduring tendency to behave in a particular way. Eysenck theory is based on

In the Narrow band approach, there is two different types of personalities. Type A personality is where the person’s qualities are impatient, intolerance, high levels of stress, they also enjoy the achievement of goals and love achieving more difficult goals, they find it hard stop after they have achieved the goals so want to keep going, they are very competitive, they hate failure and they are generally educated and fit. However, type B’s personality is where they are more relaxed, tolerant, have lower levels of stress, they work steadily, enjoying achievements but not becoming stressed when they are not achieved, they don’t mind losing when they are faced in a competition, they are creative and they are reflective. A sporting example of this is that a footballer that likes competition will try harder than a person who is more relaxed and just enjoys playing the game. In my opinion, I don’t agree with this theory because it is too simple and athletes don’t fall into just one category because they can have characteristics in the other type as

You especially get them from the people you hang around with like your close friends, parents, your teachers and other people. We learn them from this process which is observe, identify, Reinforce and then copy. An example of this is that Dick Frosbury did a different technique over the bar doing high jump so going over backwards and he won so people thought that this was a good way to do it so they started to do it as well. The definition of this theory that people learn from observing other people’s behaviours, attitudes and outcome of those behaviours. Most learning behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed and on later occasions, this coded for information serves as a guide for action. ( Bandura, A