Personality Theories and Its Applications
Abstract
Determining theories of personality is quite an adage to the present social context as of today as human behavior describes the social well-being of a person that can be transcribed in his various personality cycle. The theory of trait-based personality implies that every person has his own traits that can reflected within his psyche involving psychoanalysis phenomena as shaped through cognitive and behavioral mechanisms of his behavior that points out to his humanistic paradigms of personality. The use of case situations is important to amicably explain the value of personality theories and its respected application to the social indicators comprising of person, as an individual being with diverse personality types. Personality really affects how people communicate, react and respond to the environment process through his social, mental, physical and emotional cognition and behavior as he is motivated and influenced by changes of actions and decisions due to the milieu set-up.
Introduction
Personality refers to important and relatively stable aspects of behavior. Consider a young woman whose personality includes the trait of ‘painfully shy’, she will behave shyly in many different situations, and over a significant period of time. There are likely to be exceptions: She may be more outgoing with her family or a close friend, or at her own birthday party. But she will often have difficulty dealing with other people, which will continue for months or even years and will have a significant effect on her general well-being. Some theorists contend that personality can be studied only by observing external, social behavior. However, the majority of psychologists define personality as originating within the individual. These theorists emphasize that personality may exist in the absence of other people, and may have aspects that are not visible. Thus, personality deals with range of human behavior, everything about such person his, mental, emotional, social and physical aspects (Cited from, , 2002 ). Aside, some aspects of personality are unobservable, such as thoughts, memories, and dreams, whereas others are observable, such as overt actions. Personality also includes aspects that are concealed from yourself, or unconscious, as well as those that are conscious and well within your awareness.
Furthermore, human behavior can possibly be bewilderingly complicated and useful theory helps bring order out of chaos. It provides convenient descriptions, establish framework for organizing substantial amounts of data, and focuses attention on matters that are of greater importance. In addition, good personality theory explains the phenomena under study. (Cited from, , 2002 ) It offers answers to such significant questions as the causes of individual differences in personality, why some people are pathological than others. Then, these theories will generate predictions, so that it may be evaluated and improved in the ability to predict future event leading to important practical application facilitating control and change of environment such as for instance bring better techniques of parenting and or therapy.
Discussions – With Cases
The trait-based theory
The trait-based theory reflects the idea entailing human behavior as embodied in the notion of trait as viewed with reliable human behavior, as the trait-based adheres to such reifications in explaining observable behavior, behavior that itself is cited to prove the existence of those reifications. For such situation, why does company manager behave in such responsible manner? And, due to the fact that, because of his personality, one of the personality traits is high responsibility since, he acts in responsible manner as his elevated responsibility trait does not remove the circularity of the trait as reified explanatory fiction as it obfuscates that circularity. Similarly, the manager’s consistently behaving in responsible manner does not mean he has the responsibility trait. Instead, it means he did have the opportunity to learn the complex behavioral repertoire and values that result in his behaving responsibly (Cited from, , 2002 ). Furthermore, that complex repertoire and those values are not reifications as he has learned the complex behavioral repertoire and values that support behaving responsibly. As of course, many people claim to make such changes in the repertoire and values of adults, but the absence of convincing data leaves me skeptical, whether the claim makers are clinical psychologists touting the impact of a few one-hour sessions of talk therapy, educators touting the benefits of workshops teaching high-risk students to self-manage their study time and study behaviors. And saying that a person’s responsible behavior really results from an interaction between the responsibility gene and the environment just clouds the issue, as does saying that the responsibility gene only determine tendencies of behaving responsibly. (Cited from, , 2002 )
The psychoanalytic theory
Freud claimed that human beings are born with certain instincts to satisfy their biologically determined needs for food, shelter and warmth. When the infant, sucking at its mother’s breast discovers the pleasure inherent in this activity, the first glimmers of sexuality are awakened. The child discovers an erotogenic zone which may be reactivated later in life through thumb sucking or kissing. Through this intimate interaction with the mother, upon whom the child is dependent, a sexual drive emerges. As this drive is separated out from its original function as purely biological instinct, it achieves a relative autonomy. The boy will eventually abandon his incestuous desire for his mother out of fear of being castrated by his father. Thus, the boy represses his incestuous desire, adjusts to the reality principle, and waits for the day when he will be the patriarch. In this way the boy identifies with his father and the symbolic role of manhood. Thus, the ego can be thought of as variable aspect of the subject constructed as system of beliefs that organize one’s dealings with the internal and external demands of life according to certain laws referred by Freud as secondary process. It reconciles the biological, instinctual demands and drives the id with socially determine constraints of super-ego and the demands of reality.
Psychoanalysis deal with language and with interpretation, it introduces a significant approach to the hermeneutics of suspicion, the idea that there are motives and meanings which are disguised by and work through other meanings. A ‘companion’ level to the level of writing is the level of reading; both reading and writing, as they respond to motives not always available to rational thought, can be illumined by psychoanalytic thought. Psychoanalysis opens the nature of the subject: who it is who is experiencing, what our relationships of meaning and identity are to the psychic and cultural forces which ground so much of person’s being. Thus, it is important to understand that psychoanalytic theory was not designed as personality theory as psychoanalytic is broad in scope and offered unique, controversial insights into how the human mind worked. The psychoanalytic approach assumes the psychological apparatus of the mind needs some kind of energy to make it go. Aside, humans desire pleasure, but society places limits on the kinds of pleasure-seeking which it deems acceptable. Freud emphasizes the extent to which humans are motivated by psychosexual pleasure. The quality of person’s mental health was seen as determined by the extent to which psychic conflicts been resolved.
The behavioral and cognitive theory
While the underlying theory of cognitive behavioral management is related to social learning theory, there are many theoretical constructs which concern us in delineating a full understanding of how it is used. While it is relatively easy to suggest that thought controls behavior, that if person believe that he is superman, he will try to fly, this simple construct is not easy, because in many senses it is self reflective. Not only do people need to help people with problems in living learn to attend to their internal dialogue as a means to making choices about change, but they must understand in attending and making of choices. The simple becomes difficult when person attempt to break through his belief systems and deal with the dichotomies of internal realities and those with broad perspective. In such example, the creature is born, thrown into the world, there to be exposed to new form of selection based upon experience. Despite sudden, incomprehensible explosion of electromagnetic radiation, sound wave and chemical stimuli; the world encountered is not one of complete meaninglessness and pandemonium, for the infant shows selective attention and preferences from the start. The values are essential for adaptation and survival as it serves to weigh experiences differently, to orient the organism toward survival and adaptation, without feeling there can be no animal life. Cognitive approaches acknowledge that emotions place value and what a person loves or hates are important object or schema to them. It is up to the infant animal, to create its own categories and to use them to make sense to construct world and it’s not just world that the infant constructs, but its own world, world constituted from the first by personal meaning and reference. The personality of the individual is construction, built upon category which makes up the schema which makes up the whole person. The use of words to describe the variation of emotional levels is the cognitive construct which links here. Teaching person to discriminate between rage and irritation is not simply an expansion of vocabulary; it is an expansion of conceptual and symbolic powers making possible new links. In suggesting the necessity for flexibility in the classification process, Sacks relates that the theory suggests that the body-image of a person is not fixed, but plastic and dynamic, and dependent upon a continual inflow of experience and use; and that if there is continuing interference with one’s perception of a limb or its use, there is not only rapid loss of its cerebral map, but remapping of the rest of body which then excludes the limb itself (Cited from, , 2001 ).
There can be pro-social environment has certain size requirements that provide for the ability of children to be close to the teachers and students and make available as many prosocial roles as possible. Within this framework there is some possibility to identify and correct inappropriate or ineffective stimulus control and to influence aggression modeling as well as direct and indirect reinforcement (Cited from, , 2001 ). The environments which exceed evolutionary limits weaken the potential facets from social learning perspective, student aggression may occur as a result of complex interactions of these issues requiring interventions at the environmental as well as the individual level and that both the context and the function of aggressive behavior must be considered when developing interventions (Cited from, , and , 2002 ).
Furthermore, in story of the boy who called wolf, there is an epitome the use of deceit to control the actions of other people who trust. With the advent of deceit came the loss of innocence. Unlike other animals, humans now lose innocence at some point in their development and no longer implicitly trust. The loss of innocence occurs when the child develops reasonably comprehensive and coherent, contains assumptions about self, others and future (Cited from, , and , 2002 ).
Using the assumptions provides at least a sufficient capacity to predict and therefore control event, as it comprises the personality of child as it becomes cache of lore through which all new propositions are valued and predisposes the child to act in ways that are appropriate to the beliefs (Cited from, , 2001 ). Some people have an absolutely wonderful way of telling someone to go to hell in a fashion in which the person so instructed enjoys the trip. This is social skill to which each should all aspire as only when person believes that they are okay and that other people are okay, despite occasional evidence in contrary, can she reach the serenity for restraint on basis.
From behavioral view, there is something magnetic about horrible thoughts and images and that people in general and children in particularly seem to love to be scared as related to the evolutionary process of escape making life somehow more important and satisfying. Some people are better than others in dismissing thoughts or in distracting themselves from them. Behaviorists have found that exposure and response prevention works just as well (Cited from, , 1995 ). Thus, if the patient is exposed to the feared situation and then prevented from engaging in the ritual, they at first become very anxious. However, if they continue to refrain and the expected harm never occurs, the self reinforcement cycle is broken. While case histories have shown that the thoughts still lurk, the obsession and compulsion never returns. People who along with their obsessive and compulsive behaviors are depressed or have delusions, or who secretly perform their rituals usually will not improve.
The humanistic theory
In addition, humanistic, belief in basic goodness and respect of humankind as based in understanding and acceptance of one’s own existence and responsibility, as (Cited, 1943 ) paved the way for the approach to understanding personality and improving satisfaction of individuals. The humanistic theory gives people an understandable way to look at man’s need for war for the sake of peace. It is simplistic theory that has become one of the most popular topics in self-help style books and man’s struggle for meaning has been and will always be a major part of literature and entertainment (Cited from, , 1954). The present is the most important aspect of the person and therefore humanists focus on the here and now rather than looking at the past or trying to predict the future. Humanistic theory is reality based and needs to be psychologically healthy as people must take responsibility for themselves, whether the person’s actions are positive or negative. The individual here posses an inherent worth actions may not be positive but this does not negate the value of the person. The goal of life should always be to achieve personal growth and understanding through improvement and knowledge can one truly be happy. For instance, business students are taught that managers who understand their employees’ motivations as they fall within the hierarchy of needs will be better able to influence the motivation of those employees, thus improving the productivity of the organization. Satisfied workers merely happen to be by-product. (Cited from, , 1954) felt the great need to make a difference in society, saw the hierarchy as path to enlightenment for individuals and felt that organizations should attempt to create spaces for employees that were conducive to achievement of self actualization, top of known pyramid. The whole man is not needed and just his hands easily learned, the job is broken down into parts and bits not needing trained people; judgment, professionalism, autonomy as it leads toward manager sitting in an office planning for organization of ad hoc people (Cited from, , 2001 ). The individuals become dependent on external cues, ignore their inner voices, and become uncertain and unable to make decisions on their own and according to , what leads individuals to seek those who are certain, to seek leadership from others seeing important nod in the direction of humanist version of motivation and problems for industrial culture (Cited from, , 1954).
The Case Application
In the case of foster care and adoption, depriving young child of a significant emotional bond could damage his ability to form intimate and trusting relationships, which may explain why some adopted children are prone to develop attitude problems. As young children, they may be more likely to move from one caregiver to another before a final adoption, thereby failing to develop appropriate or sustaining emotional attachments to adult figures. The presence of erratic or inappropriate discipline and inadequate supervision has been linked to antisocial behavior in children. Involved parents tend to monitor their child’s behavior, setting rules and seeing that they are obeyed, checking on the child’s whereabouts, and steering them away from troubled playmates (Cited from, , 1995 ) Good supervision is less likely in broken homes because parents may not be available, and antisocial parents often lack the motivation to keep an eye on their children. The importance of parental supervision is also underscored when antisocial grow up in large families where each child gets proportionately less attention. A child who grows up in disturbed home may enter the adult world emotionally injured. Without having developed strong bonds, he is self-absorbed and indifferent to others. The lack of consistent discipline results in little regard for rules and delayed gratification. He lacks appropriate role models and learns to use aggression to solve disputes. He fails to develop empathy and concern for those around him.
Conclusion
In conclusion, theories of personality deemed to address individuals as social beings, having behaviors and attitude based on their cognitive as well as emotional sense as human behavior intensifies the ideas of moving forward towards positive drive within the social aspects of human persona – the archetypes that has been with the person. There is the need to formulate and activate the ideal self for the investment of time and energy needed to maintain nearby condition. Throughout, human beings are driven by imagination and ability to see images of desired power to become inspiration for social development and growth.
References
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment