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Theories of Personality

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Theories of Personality
Theories of Personality
Personality
sum total of the qualities and characteristics of a person as shown in her manner of walking, talking, dressing, and her attitudes, interests, and ways of reacting to other people came from the Latin word “persona” which means mask
Psychoanalysis (Sigmund Freud) believes that there are 3 levels of awareness of one’s mind conscious preconscious unconscious acc. to Freud, there are 3 parts of personality id (pleasure) ego (reality) superego (moral center of one’s personality)
Carl Gustav Jung believed that there is a collective unconscious that contains archetypes or models of people, behaviors, and personalities which are innate, universal, and hereditary
4 major archetypes the self the shadow the anima or animus the persona
Birth Order Theory (Alfred Adler) proposed feelings of inferiority as the driving force behind personality firstborn (feel inferior once younger siblings get attention) middle child (feel superior over older child and dominate other siblings) younger child (feel inferior because they do not have the responsibility of older siblings)

Birth Order Theory (Frank Sulloway) firstborns are more dominant and less open younger children are open and rebellious
Behaviorist Perspective of Personality a set of learned responses or habits everything a person or an animal does is a response to some environmental stimulus that has been reinforced or strengthened by reward in some way actions are always to make a positive result happen or keep a negative result from happening (reinforcement and punishment)

Social Cognitive Perspective of Personality (Albert Bandura) believed that there are 3 factors that influence one another, which determines personality the environment characteristics of the person behavior reciprocal determinism: the environment can influence behavior, but behavior can also influence change in the environment social-efficacy: a persons’ belief in his/her competencies can actually produce designated level of performance or result
Humanistic Perspective of Personality focuses on the things that make people uniquely human, such as subjective emotions and the freedom to choose one’s own destiny or the fulfillment of one’s potential rather than reacting to environmental stimuli and reinforcers.
Humanistic Perspective of Personality (Carl Rogers) proposed that a person operates his own belief about themselves or the essence of self-concept he agreed with Abraham Maslow that man’s basic motive is the tendency to self-actualize; it is fulfilling one’s potential and achieving the highest level of beingness.

Trait Theory of Personality (Gordon Allport) three general levels of traits
Cardinal Traits – traits that dominate an individual to the point that a person becomes known specially for these traits
Central Traits – general traits used to describe another person
Secondary Traits – traits that are sometimes related to attitudes or preferences and often appear on certain situations or specific circumstances
Big-Five Theory
1. Openness – refers to being open about one’s ideas of one’s surroundings
2. Conscientiousness – the tendency to be scientific and formal
3. Extraversion – is being social and outgoing (extrovert)
4. Agreeableness – is being understanding about others
5. Neuroticism – is being sensitive about the self and feeling emotions such as nervousness
Assessment of Personality
Interviews
Projective tests
Rorschach Inkblot Test (Hermann Rorschach)
Thematic Apperception Test(TAT) (Henry A. Murray & Christiana D. Morgan)
Personality Inventories
NEO Personality Inventory: used to measure the Big-Five Personality Traits
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): initially developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2): designed to aid in the assessment of a wide range of clinical conditions. In a nonclinical setting

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