Personality is patterns of thinking, behavior and emotional responses that make up individuality over time. Psychologist attempt to understand how personality develops and its impact on how we behave. Several theories attempt to explain personality, using different approaches. The social-cognitive and humanistic approaches are two of many theories that attempt to explain personality. This essay will identify the main concepts of social-cognitive and humanistic approach, identify perspective differences and discuss approach limitations. Main Concepts The social-cognitive theory suggests that personality consists of learned behaviors and mental processes. The social-cognitive theory emphasizes thoughts, feelings, thinking, values and expectations. …show more content…
From a social-cognitive perspective your environment can change your personality, however, humanistic approach implies and event happens in your life and you apply your free will which defines your personality. The social-cognitive approach emphasizes the importance of cognitive processes, situational influences, observational learning, and self-efficacy while, the humanistic approach emphasizes free will, personal awareness, and psychological growth. The social-cognitive theory explains behavior is guided by cognitions of the world, in contrast, the humanistic approach stresses the importance of free will in explaining behavior. The social-cognitive theory incorporates mostly objective and some subjective information, while, the humanistic approach is more concerned with the subjective experiences of the individual. The social-cognitive perspective does not regard humans a unique. The humanistic approach places a high value on humans and does not believe they are comparable to rats in an experiment. Social-Cognitive approach takes into account biological factors related to cognition. The humanistic approach rejects biological determinism. The social-cognitive theory is grounded in empirical, laboratory research, in contrast, the humanistic viewpoint has no empirical research but assumptions or clinical observations. The main perspective differences between social-cognitive and humanistic perspectives are social cognitive theory believes the interaction between the environment, cognition, and behavior influence personality; and the humanistic theory believes people have free will, individual work and potential to reach
When discussing personality one must understand the differences between personality and black personality. While it may be difficult to find an all-encompassing definition, personality refers to a person's unique and relatively stable pattern of thoughts, feelings, and actions. According to an excerpt presented in Psychological Principals and the Black Experience, "the personality represents the compromise between inner drives and needs, and the controls that limit and regulate their expression... Personality functions to maintain stable, reciprocal relationships between the person and his environment." Meaning that personality is made up of distinct characteristics that helps a person manage their day to day experiences under ordinary circumstances (Houston, 1990). There are many different theories on how one develops his or her personality. These theories include, the psychoanalytic theory which attempts to explain personality based on unconscious mental forces; the humanistic theory, which is the idea that all people are good and that they are striving for self-fulfillment; the social cognitive approach which states that people develo...
Social psychology is a scientific study that studies how people think, feel, and how they behave under the influence of other people (Aronson, Wilson & Akert, 2013, p. 2). Thinking about what social influence really means, we tend to think of a person who tries to persuade another person to acting a certain way. It can be a form of peer pressure, like taking that first puff of a cigarette, or it can be conforming to popular societal views, such as obeying the law of the land. Fiction is a great way to learn about social psychological perspectives. Watching popular theatrical films is the perfect way to learn because it illustrates the application of many perceptions within the subject of social psychology.
A Comparison of Psychodynamic and Social Learning in Regards to the Development of Personality "No Works Cited" “Psychologists define personality in many ways, but common to all of the ways are two basic concepts, uniqueness and characteristic patterns of behaviour. We will define personality as the complex set of unique psychological qualities that influence an individuals characteristic patterns of behaviour across different situations and over time.” (Psychology In Life, Phillip .G. Zimbardo, page 509)
I believe our personalities make up who we are and how others perceive us at times. Personalities are our own unique qualities, that we possess as individuals. In writing this short paper, I have found that psychologists use assessments to define an individual’s personality to determine their qualities and what makes them different from other individuals. Through the Big Five Personality test, I found it difficult to define and understand an individual personality
Cognitive theory is a learning approach in psychology that attempts to explain the behavior of humans by studying thoughts and reasoning process. The cognitive theory is founded on many other factors like cognitive reasoning and social cognitive theory. Aaron Beck founded the theory and it is meant to understand the human behavior by observing the processes triggered by reasoning and individual thoughts. The cognitive theory is a research based theory because it tends to investigate human behavior through making observations and thought analysis.
A Comparison of the Main Approaches to Personality Psychology Psychology of personality is a difficult concept to define and quantify, therefore most personality theories, however different they may be in other respects, share the basic assumption, that personality is a particular pattern of behaviour and thinking, that prevails across time and situations and differentiates one person from another. Most theories attempting to explain personality represent part of the classic psychological Nature verse Nurture debate. In other words, is personality “inherited”, or developed through our interactions with the environment. In addition, we shall compare and contrast two of the main approaches to personality psychology by concentrating on Psychoanalytical Theory (Freud) and Social Learning Theory (Bandura). By looking at the Psychodynamic approach, developed by Freud, we can argue that it emphasizes the interplay of unconscious psychological processes in determining human thought, feelings, and behaviours.
The social cognitive theory stressed on the social source of behavior besides the cognitive procedure that prejudiced both the individuals functioning and actions. Bandura’s social cognitive hypothesis argued that the cognitive issues are core to a person’s function and one can acquire knowledge without direct added support. This is through observation of replica. This is what he called the observational learning.
Personality can be defined as an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting. Many personality theorists have put forward claims as to where personality is derived from and how it develops throughout an individual’s life. The two main personality theories this essay will be focusing on is the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1986) and the Trait Theory – Five Factor Theory (FFT) (McCrae and Costa, 1995). The SCT allocates a central role to cognitive, observational learning and self-regulatory processes (Bandura, 1986). An individual’s personality develops through experiences with their sociocultural environment. Whereas the Trait Theory proposes that all individuals are predisposed with five traits (Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Neuroticism) which determines our personality. This theory also puts forward that personality is stable and cannot change as it’s biologically determined.
Psychodynamic, Trait, Behaviorism, and Humanistic are the four major theories of personality. Our personality is our unique characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting. These theories each have their own different explanation of how our personalities came to be. They offer an explanation of why we are the way that we are by using factors, drives, characteristics, and experiences.
Many individuals, especially psychologist, question how can they describe a person’s personality using theories in order for society to have an understanding of why people behave the way they do. There have been many debates in regards to this question. Some psychologists state that genetics is one of the main factors why people react a certain way, depending on the circumstance. However, other researchers indicate that the environment plays an enormous role on the individual. Although both of these predictions might be accurate, one will not fully understand unless there is more information linked to their arguments. According to trait theories in the book of Psychology, there are multiple theories that explain different types of possibilities to these behaviors, two of them are called Trait Theory and Social-Cognitive Theory.
Social cognitive theory is the study on how an individual stores, processes, and applies information about others in their everyday life. It was first known as the “Social Learning Theory”, and was later changed to the term known today as the “Social Cognitive Theory”. The definition of social cognition is defined as any cognitive process that involves one or more than one person. While the definition of cognition is unconscious process in the brain that bring about representations. Social cognition purpose is to study social knowledge, social structure, group behavior, social influences, social categories (age, race, sex) defines a person. (Science Direct) Social cognition is thought to be the outcome of social interactions. One will learn by observing others, this is known as vicarious learning. For example, one is more likely to follow another’s behavior if they can identify with them, whether it be personality wise, age proximity, and more. (Verywell)
Behaviorism and Social Learning Theory are two theories that have been used to describe the development of personality. While Behaviorism places a strong focus on how the environment shapes our personality, mainly through the process of negative and positive reinforcement, Social Cognitive Theory goes one step further by including how one’s thoughts and perceptions combine with behavior and environment to influence personality. Although there are some limitations in both theories, I feel that self-efficacy, self-esteem, and habits are valid parts of the two theories, playing a large role in how personality traits are established and expressed.
This psychology perspective emphasizes individuals ' inherent drive towards self-actualization, the process of realizing and expressing one 's own capabilities and creativity. It helps the client gain the belief that all people are inherently good. It adopts a holistic approach to human existence and pays special attention to such phenomena as creativity, free will, and positive human potential. It encourages viewing ourselves as a "whole person" greater than the sum of our parts and encourages self exploration rather than the study of behavior in other people. Humanistic psychology acknowledges spiritual aspiration as an integral part of the human psyche. It is linked to the emerging field of transpersonal psychology. As per usual, there are advantages and limitations to this particular theory. One of the greatest strengths of humanistic psychology is that it emphasizes individual choice and responsibility. Humanistic psychology satisfies most people 's idea of what being human means because it values personal ideals and self-fulfillment. Finally, humanistic psychology provides researchers with a flexible framework for observing human behavior because it considers a person in the context of his environment and in conjunction with his personal perceptions and feelings. As with any viewpoint, humanistic psychology has its critics. One major criticism of humanistic psychology is that its concepts are too vague. Critics
Personality is the expression of a person’s traits according to ones feelings, mentality and behavior. It involves understanding individuals’ traits such as withdrawal and willpower and how various parts of an individual link together to form personality. Personality expresses itself from within an individual and is comparatively regular throughout in an individual’s life. Different people have different personalities dependent on factors such as environment and genetic composition. Our personality is dependent on the success or failure of our development in the eight stages of life. This is proposed by Erik Erikson. Success in the development stages lead to virtues while the failure leads to malignancies.
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.