Personality

What is Personality? An accepted definition by American Psychological Association states, “Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. The study of personality focuses on two broad areas: One is understanding individual differences in particular personality characteristics, such as sociability or irritability. The other is understanding how the various parts of a person come together as a whole. (URL-http://www.apa.org/topics/personality/)” Personality is looked at by psychologists as a tool to better understand individuals and draw differences between them. Many psychologists focus on drawing comparisons and similarities between people’s individual traits through theories and tests. There are many different theories that go into defining and leaning about personality. According to Best Master in Psychology, “Psychological theories regarding personality are numerous, however, they all fall within an overall framework of theory types. These types include trait theories, type theories, psychoanalytic theories, behaviorist theories and humanistic theories.” (URL - http://www.bestmastersinpsychology.com/faq/personality-psychology/) The theories that will be covered are the trait and psychoanalytical theories.

            In trait theory personality is often looked at by psychologists as a series or number of traits that an individual possess. There has been much development of the theories to how many different traits people can have. Gordon Allport’s ideas were one of the first to be introduced in this field of psychology. In 1936 Allport developed a theory that included 4,500 different personality traits that defined an individual. In his theory he categorized all of his traits under three different levels these comprise of cardinal, central and secondary traits. Boundless online textbook provides a deeper description of each of these different levels to Allport’s theory, “Cardinal traits dominate and shape an individual's behavior, such as Ebenezer Scrooge’s greed or Mother Theresa’s altruism. They stand at the top of the hierarchy and are collectively known as the individual's master control. They are considered to be an individual's ruling passions. Cardinal traits are powerful, but few people have personalities dominated by a single trait. Instead, our personalities are typically composed of multiple traits. Central traits come next in the hierarchy. These are general characteristics found in varying degrees in every person (such as loyalty, kindness, agreeableness, friendliness, sneakiness, wildness, or grouchiness). They are the basic building blocks that shape most of our behavior. Secondary traits exist at the bottom of the hierarchy and are not quite as obvious or consistent as central traits. They are plentiful but are only present under specific circumstances; they include things like preferences and attitudes. These secondary traits explain why a person may at times exhibit behaviors that seem incongruent with their usual behaviors. For example, a friendly person gets angry when people try to tickle him; another is not an anxious person but always feels nervous speaking publicly. (URL - https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/personality-16/trait-perspectives-on-personality-79/allport-s-cattell-s-and-eysenck-s-trait-theories-of-personality-310-12845/) Allport was not the only one to delve into the psychology of personality. Raymond Cattell in a sense revised Allport’s voluminous theory. Cattell reduced the amount of traits down to 171 dissimilar traits that resulted in 16 classes with sub-sets. Trait theory goes into the details of Cattell’s theory, “First he went through the list and combined similar traits and eliminated those that seemed unnecessary or very rare. This got him to a list of 171 characteristics, which he then ran through the factor analysis method to determine which of the traits were closely related in a sample group of people. This got him down to just 16 main personality traits that he determined defined our personalities—characteristics like warmth, dominance and apprehension. According to Cattell, we all have these main traits, and our personalities are determined by the degree to which each is present. The resulting test, the 16PF assessment method, became one of the most commonly used personality rating tools.” (URL -http://traittheory.com/) Cattell was not the last one to leave his imprint upon the theory of the personality traits. Hans Eysenck reduced the personality traits down to three main groupings these encompassed extroversion, introversion, and psychoticism. On top of his theory Costa and McCrae built the widely accepted theory for defining personality. UK essays further explains, “Costa & McCrae's (1976) developed this further with their big five model, Openness, extroversion, neuroticism conscientiousness & agreeableness. Eysenck's argued against agreeableness and conscientiousness saying they belonged at a lower level in the hierarchy than psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism. Just as extraversion is made up of; impulsivity and sociability, so also psychoticism is made up of the factors agreeableness and conscientiousness. At the highest level in the hierarchy are the super factors P, E, and N. These super factors are not only psychometrically sound, but also have a physiological basis that has never been claimed for the Big Five.” (https://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/hans-eysencks-trait-theory-of-personality.php)  

            Psychanalytical theory of personality is most famously developed by Sigmund Freud. He has been called as the father of psychoanalytical philosophy. He explores the structure of the human mind and psychosexual behaviors. In Freud’s structure of the mind there are three main components. The Id, Ego and Super-ego. Each of these play an important role in the mind. From the boundless psychology text-book each of these parts of the mind are explained thoroughly, “The Id

The id, the most primitive of the three structures, is concerned with instant gratification of basic physical needs and urges. It operates entirely unconsciously (outside of conscious thought). For example, if your id walked past a stranger eating ice cream, it would most likely take the ice cream for itself. It doesn't know, or care, that it is rude to take something belonging to someone else; it would care only that you wanted the ice cream.

The Superego

The superego is concerned with social rules and morals—similar to what many people call their "conscience" or their "moral compass." It develops as a child learns what their culture considers right and wrong. If your superego walked past the same stranger, it would not take their ice cream because it would know that that would be rude. However, if both your id and your superego were involved, and your id was strong enough to override your superego's concern, you would still take the ice cream, but afterward you would most likely feel guilt and shame over your actions.

The Ego

In contrast to the instinctual id and the moral superego, the ego is the rational, pragmatic part of our personality. It is less primitive than the id and is partly conscious and partly unconscious. It's what Freud considered to be the "self," and its job is to balance the demands of the id and superego in the practical context of reality. So, if you walked past the stranger with ice cream one more time, your ego would mediate the conflict between your id ("I want that ice cream right now") and superego ("It's wrong to take someone else's ice cream") and decide to go buy your own ice cream. While this may mean you have to wait 10 more minutes, which would frustrate your id, your ego decides to make that sacrifice as part of the compromise– satisfying your desire for ice cream while also avoiding an unpleasant social situation and potential feelings of shame.

Freud believed that the id, ego, and superego are in constant conflict and that adult personality and behavior are rooted in the results of these internal struggles throughout childhood. He believed that a person who has a strong ego has a healthy personality and that imbalances in this system can lead to neurosis (what we now think of as anxiety and depression) and unhealthy behaviors.” (https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/personality-16/psychodynamic-perspectives-on-personality-77/freudian-psychoanalytic-theory-of-personality-304-12839/)  From the Id, Ego and Super-ego Freud begins to analyze the psychosexual development of people. His theories stemmed through his society largely because the sexual desires and pleasures were repressed greatly in the era he was a part of. People were taken ill because of these repressions were damaged neurotically. He developed a theory based on the Oedipus complex. “(in Freudian theory) the complex of emotions aroused in a young child, typically around the age of four, by an unconscious sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex and a wish to exclude the parent of the same sex. (The term was originally applied to boys, the equivalent in girls being called the Electra complex .)” (URL - https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Oedipus+complex)  Through the development of a child there are five general stages for them to go through. These comprised of oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Through Freud’s psychosexual theory of development, he was able to identify if people made it through all the stages properly. If people didn’t that is when problems would arise neurotically for the people, he studied. The people who made it across these five stages would be normally functioning humans and be stable individuals.

            There are many compelling theories of personality throughout psychology. Some of the most popular and understood theories include trait and psychoanalytical theory. Many years of people’s lives have been dedicated to the study of personality. Its deep concepts spanning from personality traits that can be complex as thousands of traits for a single person to understanding of the development of personality when one is a child. Personality is a deep topic and one that will inspire many to read and discover its intricacies.