Some Other Approaches on Personality

 Hi guys...I'm back with my new post...hope you all are healthy and in harmony :)

In this blog, I have talked about various other approaches on personality and issues in personality theories and research which will help you to get thorough about this particular topic.

Happy reading!!

Psycho-dynamic Theories

This approach was proposed by Sigmund Freud. His Psychoanalysis became both a theory of personality and a method of psychotherapy (1920, 1938, 1940/1949).

Psychoanalytic theory has 3 major parts - 

1. Structure of Personality : In which the ego, id and the super-ego are the principal parts. Ego operates according to the reality principle that it delays satisfying id motives and channels behavior into more socially acceptable outlets; Id is a sort of storehouse of biologically based urges such as urge to eat, drink and especially to be sexually stimulated and it follows the pleasure principle in which the goal is to reduce the immediate tension created by biological drives and maximization of satisfaction; Super-ego follows the moral principle and represents the rights and wrongs of society as handled by a person, parents, teachers and other important figures.
2. Personality Dynamics : In which conscious and unconscious motivation and ego-defense mechanisms play a major role.
3. Psycho-sexual Stages of Development : In which different motives and body regions influence the child at different stages of growth with effects persisting in the form of adult personality traits. The stages are - 

• Oral Stage : Birth to about age 1; sucking thumb, swallowing etc.
• Anal Stage : Ages 1-3; withholding or expelling feces.
• Phallic Stage : Ages 3-5; penis or clitoris masturbation.
• Latency Period : Age 6 through puberty; little or no sexual motivation present.
• Genital Stage : Adolescence and beyond; when mature sexual interests appear.

-- Adler's Psycho-dynamic Approach on Personality : This was proposed by Alfred Adler. Each individual creates his/her own personal approach to living, thus highly individualized style grows out of the individual's unique sense of his/her own inferiorities. This concept together with the concept of the subjective nature of individual goals led Adler to label his theory of Individual Psychology. 

Adler believed that like hypothetical children in stories, people are forever struggling to overcome their feelings of inferiority. he identified this struggle as the most basic life urge. When someone fails repeatedly to overcome weaknesses and achieve some mastery or simply places excessive emphasis on some particular inferiority, the result can be what he labelled as inferiority complex.

Adler gave close attention to birth order as an influence on personality development. The first born begin life as the exclusive focus of their parents' attention but may feel inferior and may develop inferiority complex once the younger ones arrive. Middle born children are not pampered as much as their older or younger siblings but they have a sense of superiority. The youngest child may feel like they have least power to influence other members of the family as they are the most pampered and they may develop personality problem of inferiority just like their first born.

-- Defense Mechanisms : A major contribution of the dynamic approach has been the concept of defense mechanisms which are used to cope with anxiety (vague fearfulness). Freud described several defense mechanisms by which the ego disguises, redirects, hides and otherwise copes with the id's urges. The mechanisms are as following - 

1. Repression : It is the fundamental technique people use to allay anxiety caused by conflicts. It is an active mental process by which a person 'forgets' by 'pushing down' into any unconscious thoughts that arouse anxiety. For example, we know that unsavory thoughts, painful memories or irrational beliefs can upset a person. Instead of facing them, one may unconsciously choose to hide them in hopes of forgetting about them entirely but that does not mean that the memories disappear completely. It can influence one's behavior as well as future relationships.
2. Reaction Formation : It refers to as a motive that would arouse unbearable anxiety if it were recognized is converted into its opposite. For example, a person who reacts this way may feel they should not express negative emotions such as anger or frustration, they choose to instead react in an overly positive way; reversal of motives.
3. Projection : It is a way of coping with one's unwanted motives by shifting them on to someone else; blaming others. For example, you may dislike your new co-worker but instead of accepting that you choose to tell yourself that they dislike you. you see in their actions the things you wish you could do or say.
4. Rationalization : It substitutes an acceptable conscious motive for an unacceptable unconscious one; making excuses but rationalization is not lying, we believe our explanations. For example, a person with an unconscious fear of intimate relationships may find a succession of potential mates unacceptable for different reasons and as a result spend the rest of life alone.
5. Intellectualization : Here the intensity of the anxiety is reduced by a retreat into detached, unemotional, abstract language, it involves reasoning. For example, some adolescents discuss their new experiences with sex and independence on an abstract and impersonal level.
6. Displacement : The motive remains unaltered but the person substitutes a different goal object for the original one. A good example of this mechanism is getting angry at your child or spouse because the person who is angry with his/her boss cannot show the anger for fear of being fired may come home and bawl out the children or spouse.
7. Regression : Attempting to return to an earlier libidinal phase or pattern of adaptation of functioning, possibly a childish or primitive one, to avoid the tension and conflict evoked at the present level of development. For example, if children experience trauma or loss, they may suddenly act as if they are younger again which revert to baby talk, sucking thumb or wetting bed again; adults too sometimes revert when in stress producing situations to childish episodes of exaggerated dependency, such as sleeping with a stuffed toy, overeat foods they find comforting etc.
8. Sublimation : For Freud, this was the highest level of ego defense. It consists of a redirection of sexual impulses to socially valued activities and goals. For example, a writer may divert some of his/her libido from sexual activity to the creation of a poem or novel, thus indirectly satisfying the same drives. Freud believed that satisfactory sublimation could only be achieved by an individual whose sexual impulses were being at least partly gratified and whose ego was healthy and mature.

Though this approach, in general, has been rich in ideas but poor in experimental tests of those ideas. Dynamic theories are limited in many of their concepts and interpretations are difficult to prove or disprove.

Learning and Behavioral Theories

These theories are specifically structured to be tested. As we will see, the theories themselves emerged from experiments in classical conditioning, operant conditioning and cognitive learning.

• Dollard and Miller's Early Social Learning Theory :

Two of the best examples of learning theorists are Neal Miler, an experimental psychologist and John Dollard, a sociologist. They joined forces in the 1930s to test the basic idea that individual and social behavior can be explained by means of basic learning principles.

They used animal experiments to develop and test selected Freudian notions (eg., conflict and repression), thus advancing the early social learning theory.

• Skinner's Radical Behaviorism :

B. F. Skinner's (1953, 1971, 1972) approach is exclusively on instrumental or operant conditioning which deals only with the processes by which reinforcement (reward) and punishment influence the likelihood of behavior.

He used instrumental conditioning principles to explain the ways in which environmental conditions influence people's behavior.

-When we are 'creative', are we really 'creating'?

Those of us who have written a poem, composed a song or produced a work of art, we tend to think of our actions as inventive and original and ourselves as possessing a 'creative urge' or a trait of 'creativity'. 

In a 1971 lecture, Skinner suggested that we are much too generous in these self-assessments. Only a person who truly initiates his/her behavior can claim that he/she is free to do so and that he/she deserves credit for any achievement. If the environment is the initiating force, he/she is not free and the environment must get the credit (Skinner, 1972).

Skinner argued that most of our creative products are primarily products of our environment. To make this point, he drew a parallel between an act of biological creation such as having a baby and an act of mental creation such as having a poem.

There is another more general implication of his point. When we 'have an idea' or when 'an idea occurs to us', we tend to take credit for the idea as if we chose to produce it by an act or free will. He said we 'have' ideas in the same sense that women 'have' babies - that is we are merely a place in which the ideas happen.

Taking this line of thought to its logical conclusion, we should not give him very much credit for the ideas he presented in this speech. Skinner agrees, as he noted at the end of the lecture.

• Bandura and Walters's Later Social Learning Theory :

Albert Bandura and Richard Walters (1963) saw the animal-derived principles of Dollard and Miller and Skinner as simply too limited to account for important aspects of real human behavior.

Bandura and Walters focused on the highly efficient form of learning known as Observational Learning or Imitation. It generally takes place in a social situation involving a model and an imitator. The imitator observes the model and experiences the model's behavior and its consequences vicariously, this process is called Vicarious Reinforcement. All learning that can take place directly with instrumental learning procedures can also take place vicariously through modelling.

Learning and behavioral theorists have been accused of diminishing the person in personality but many value their approaches for their clarity and their experimental 'testability'.

Humanistic Theories

If we stop studying other people's behavior for a moment and pause to think about our own, we become aware of a set of feelings and attitudes and a certain sense of who we are. This entity is known as self.

Humanistic theories emphasize the importance of people's subjective attitudes, feelings and beliefs, especially with regard to the self.

Self has 2 distinct sets of meanings - 

1. One set has to do with people's attitudes about themselves, their picture of the way they look and act, the impact they believe they have on others and their perceived traits, abilities and weaknesses; self as 'object'. This collection constitutes what is known as the 'self-concept' or self-image' (Hall & Lindzey, 1970).
2. The second set relates to the executive functions, process by which the individual manages, copes, thinks, remembers, perceives and plans; self as 'process'.

• Carl Rogers' Theory of Self :

Carl Rogers' theory grew out of his client-centered approach to psychotherapy and behavior change (Rogers, 1959, 1961). It focuses on the impact of disparity between a person's ideal self (the self the person would like to be) and perceived real self.

He also helped to popularize the Q-sort technique, a method of self-description in personality research. In this technique, the individual is given a large number of descriptions and is asked to sort them into categories from 'least characteristic' to 'most characteristic'.

Research has been found that people who are seeking psychotherapy indicate more of a disparity between their real and ideal selves than do people who are not seeking help. Some findings have suggested that acknowledge a disparity between one's real and ideal self maybe a sign of maturity.

• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs :

Another phenomenological theorist who emphasized development of the self was Abraham Maslow. In his view, we all have higher level growth needs such as the need for self-actualization and understanding of ourselves but that these higher needs only assume a dominant role in our lives after our more primitive needs (physiological needs, safety needs, need for love and belongingness and self-esteem needs) are satisfied.

Maslow stressed that 'the human being is not a white rat' and emphasized that 'man has a higher and transcendent nature' (Maslow, 1971).

Theories of this type are often criticized for their heavy reliance on subjective self-report data.

Issues and Controversies in Personality Theory and Research

Many psychologists have become disenchanted with sweeping efforts to capture 'the whole person' in a single theory and have turned instead to focused research on specific issues in personality. To get a clear picture, we need to consider two of these issues - 

1. Research involving twins (animals), has uncovered evidence for a genetic contribution to personality.Twin studies with human also seem to show a genetic influence.
2. The person-situation controversy revolves around a key question - Are people's behaviors determined primarily by such 'person' factors as traits or primarily by the situations people find themselves in?  Recent research suggests that some people are strongly influenced by some traits that do not greatly influence other people. Some situations are powerful, involving heavy demands for specific kinds of behavior. Other situations are less structured and thus weak, they permit personality traits to have a stronger influence on people's behavior.

If you have any doubts, please feel free to write it in the comment section...will be happy to help.

Thank you for reading.

See you in the next post :)

~ Mousumi Gayen