Understanding Personality: A Holistic Approach to Human Behavior, Cheat Sheet of Psychology

Download Understanding Personality: A Holistic Approach to Human Behavior and more Cheat Sheet Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! I. What is meant by personality?? • What do you think??? Definitions of Personality • Carl rogers described personality in terms of self, an organized, permanent, subjectively perceived entity which is at the very heart of all our experiences. • But for Erik Erikson, life proceeds in terms of a series of psychosocial cries, with personality a function of their outcome. • George Kelly regarded personality as the individual’s unique way of “making sense” out of life experiences. • Albert bandura viewed personality as complex pattern in which person, behaviour, and situation continually influence each other. The Meaning of Personality • personality is a pattern of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior. • Traits contribute to individual differences in behavior, consistency of behavior over time, and stability of behavior across situations. Traits may be unique, common to some group, or shared by the entire species, but their pattern is different for each individual. Thus each person, though like others in some ways, has a unique personality. • characteristics are unique qualities of an individual that include such attributes as temperament, physique, and intelligence. • Personality has also been viewed as the individual’s most striking or prominent characteristics. – friendliness or shyness personality • Personality refers to the overall social impression that an individual conveys in interacting with others. • No two people, not even identical twins, have exactly the same personalities. The basic assumptions concerning human nature fall within these polarities: 1. Freedom - Determinism 2. Rationality - Irrationality 3. Holism - Elementalism 4. Constitutionalism - Environmentalism 5. Changeability - Unchangeability 6. Subjectivity - Objectivity 7. Proactivity - Reactivity 8. Homeostasis - Heterostasis 9. Knowability - Unknowability Holism – Elementalism • The holistic assumption maintains that human nature is such that behavior can be explained only by studying persons as integrated totalities. Conversely, the elementalistic position assumes that human nature and its resulting behavior can be explained only by investigating each specific, fundamental aspect of it independently of the rest. • The holistic view assumes that persons can be understood only as total entities. To explain the elements, it is argued, does not account for the total configuration (sir gestalt) which results. Holists maintain that the more one fragments the organism. the more one is dealing with abstractions and not the living human being. As one personologist noted, "Half a piece of chalk is still a piece of chalk, only smaller: half a planarian worm is half of one worm. but still a worm in itself." • By way of contrast, advocates of Elementalism argue that a systematic understanding of human behavior can be achieved only by means of a detailed analysis of its constituent parts. Elementalists believe that just as one does not question the underlying reality of cellular structures in the study of gross anatomy, one should not deny the critical importance of studying the specific factors underlying the overall behavior of people. Constitutionalism – Environmentalism • Students in personality courses often raise the question: "How much of what is called personality is the result of genetic make-up and how much is the result of the environment?" This "nature-nurture" question has been asked in one form or another since ancient times. • Constitutionalism (or inherited traits) has a long history in psychology. Hippocrates and Galen. two ancient Greek physicians believed that an individual's temperament resulted from his or her unique balance of four bodily humors. Their twentieth-century counterparts have developed sophisticated techniques by which to determine the influence of genetics on general behavioral dispositions or temperaments. Additionally. the perspectives advanced by Cattell and Eysenck emphasize the importance of genetic predisposition and physiological make-up in the development of basic personality traits. • Watson's emphasis on basic processes of conditioning or learning is based on the underlying premise that environment is of monumental importance in shaping human behavior. In fact. the study of learning is regarded as so important precisely because it is the psychological process through which the environment molds behavior. • A theorist who is inclined toward constitutionalism will tend to see human nature more as a product of internal physical forces than external environmental agents. While the theorist may acknowledge some environmental influences upon behavior, the concepts she constructs to describe personality will reflect a constitutional presupposition. Changeability – Unchangeability • As noted earlier, most definitions of personality stress a life history, or developmental. perspective. The changeability-unchangeability assumption addresses the question of how much fundamental change in personality can actually take place throughout a lifetime. • Erikson assumes a much greater degree of changeability in personality than did Freud. Emphasizing that life is constant change, he depicts persons as necessarily moving through developmental stages, each of which is earmarked by a particular psychosocial crisis. Depending on the manner in which people resolve these crises, their personality development will proceed in either a favorable or an unfavorable direction. • In sharp contrast. Freud 11925) portrayed the basic character structure of individuals as being fixed by the experiences of early childhood. While superficial behavior changes take place throughout life, the underlying character structure remains largely unaltered. For Freud, substantive change in personality can only be achieved with great difficulty at best, and then only through the lengthy and often painful process of psychoanalytic therapy. Homeostasis – Heterostasis • The Homeostasis – Heterostasis dimension is fundamentally concerned with human motivation. Are individuals motivated primarily or exclusively to reduce tensions and maintain an internal state of equilibrium (Homeostasis)? Or is their basic motivation directed toward growth, stimulus seeking, and self-actualization (Heterostasis)? • As Buhler has stated: "One cannot simultaneously believe in the end goal of homeostasis and the end goal of a fulfilling self-realization". personality characteristics are acquired through learning, which always involves a relationship between the factors of drive (e.g.. hunger) and reinforcement (e.g.. food). Without a homeostatic motivational basis. personality development would be impossible. • Maslow and Rogers - Man does not live by drive reduction alone. Instead of directing their behavior toward tension reduction, human beings, by nature, constantly seek new stimuli and challenging opportunities for self-fulfillment. Personality development occurs because of this basic motivational tendency. • homeostatic persuasion would be concerned with the nature and variety of people's basic drives or instincts. the various personality mechanisms individuals develop to reduce the tensions generated by these drives. and the processes by which these tension-reducing mechanisms are acquired. heterostatic orientation would emphasize the integration of human motives under self-actualization. future-oriented strivings, and the various means by which persons seek growth and self-fulfillment. Knowability – Unknowability • William James, the great American psychologist and philosopher. wrote: "Our science is a drop. our ignorance a sea" . Here in lies the essence of the Knowability - unknowability issue regarding human nature. • determinism and objectivity would view people as scientifically knowable; these two assumptions, in effect, place human behavior potentially within the traditional realm of scientific knowledge. • John B. Watson is a historical personification of the knowability side of this philosophical assumption. behavioristic psychologists since Watson's time have developed concepts applicable to personality. Skinner's contemporary behavioristic approach to personality, for example clearly regarded people as ultimately knowable in scientific terms. • In his book Client-Centered Therapy, Rogers (1951) argued that each individual lives in a continually changing world of subjective experience of which she or he is the center. He developed this notion by asserting that this personal world of experience is private and can only he known in any genuine or complete sense by the individual alone. Whether we will ever gain complete knowledge about persons, this view necessarily implies that persons are unknowable in scientific terms. Components of Personality Theories 1. what are the pivotal issues and problems addressed by a personality theory? 2. What does a personality theory actually theorize about? 3. What are the basic components comprising a theory of personality ? 4. how are such components assembled in order to create an integrated account of human behavior? • These are some of the questions inquisitive students ask when beginning a course of study in personality psychology. • This section will discuss six issues that a complete theory of personality must seek to resolve. These issues represent the conceptual domain of a personality theory and reveal the nature of its content and the breadth of its coverage.