Human behavior has bought about many questions than involve one’s
personality. For years psychologists have been conducting research to gain
understanding on the factors that contribute to why people behave in the manner
as they do. Throughout the course of
conducting research and studies on behavior it has been determined that
personality is a key factor in human behavior.
In this essay I plan to define personality, analyze factors that may
influence an individual’s personality development and examine theoretical
approaches in studying personality.
The word personality comes from the Latin word persona, which was a representation of a
flamboyant mask worn in dramas by Roman actors to develop a character or hide
their identity from others; however personality refers to something more than
the role an individual play. Personality is defined as “a pattern of relatively
permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and
individuality to a person’s behavior” (Feist & Feist, 2009, p.4). Personality can be recognized as a collection
of usual reactions that an individual has encountered in their
environment. These reactions or
responses are mainly learned by mimicking behavior that is observed by others
either in person, such as caregivers, family members or peers or from
television. If an individual observes a
particular behavior often it can become a part of their memory which therefore
can make it “a part of that person as a genetic inclination”
("Personality," 2009).
There are many factors that influence an individual’s personality
development such as traits, characteristics, environment, self-image and inner
desire. “Traits contribute to individual
differences in behavior, consistency of behavior over time, and stability of
behavior across situations” (Feist & Feist, 2009, p. 4). Traits are unique characteristics that an
individual inherits from their parents through genes. Traits can also develop from an individual
repeatedly observing a certain behavior as it will become a part of their
memory which can make them more like to display that same behavior. Traits are a
way to describe an individual’s behavior but it does give explanation to why
people are inclined to do certain things.
The Sage Glossary of the Social
and Behavioral Sciences explains that “the trait approach to understanding
personality is a perspective that views an individual’s personality as a
combination of relatively enduring thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and
behavioral tendencies that characterize and individual and allow for the
prediction of the individual’s future behaviors” ("Trait," 2009).
Characteristics are defined as “unique qualities of an individual
that include such attributes as temperament, physique, and intelligence” (Feist
& Feist, 2009 p.4). Characteristics
are what make an individual who they are they can be learned or inherited. Characteristics that are learned come from
the environment that an individual has been exposed to and characteristics that
are inherited come from genes passed on from parents which could also be
considered traits.
Traits and characteristics are components that affect personality
but research has shown that the environment that an individual is exposed to
has more of an effect on their personality.
Traits and characteristics play a role in influencing whether or not an
individual’s personality will be reserved or outspoken but their environment
will reduce the amount of effect that traits and characteristics have on
personality because individual’s especially children learn from the behaviors
they regularly observe.
Psychology
is the study of human nature.
Psychologist study the human mind and behavior to figure out why people
think, feel and do the things that they do.
Psychologist observe individuals, ask questions, develop theories and
conduct experiments to get a better understanding of human nature and help
improve the lives of individuals. Psychology
has five basic goals which are to observe behavior and give a description,
explain their observation, give a prediction of a future behavior based on past
behavior, control the behavior based on what has already been learned from
observation and make improvement to an individual’s life. The main goal of psychology is to help an
individual improve their quality of life through gaining an understanding
individual differences and similarities.
Personality is a major component in all five if the goals those
psychologists look to achieve because “personality theories attempt to identify
personal characteristics people share and to determine the factors that produce
their unique expression by any given person” (Bashore & Hernandez, 2008).
The first
theory of personality, psychoanalysis, was developed by Sigmund Freud from his
treatment of patients with neurotic disorders which was a method of talk
therapy which believed that human behavior is caused by the unconscious
mind. The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine stated that “psychoanalysis is classified
as an insight-oriented rather than a supportive for than a supportive form of
therapy, because it is based on the notion that people are better able to make
changes in their lives when they have improved their understanding of
themselves through identifying their assumptions about life and the early life
experiences that gave rise to them” (Frey, 2011).
Erik
Erikson expanded from Freud’s psychoanalysis theory as he made observations of
children from different cultures.
Erikson thoughts were that personality developed through a sequence of
stages, with some conflicts occurring at each stage. Erikson also believed that in order for an
individual to have success in any stage they had to resolve those
conflicts. Erikson’s theory developed
eight stages of psychosocial personality development that was designed for each
stage to develop from the previous stage and prepare the individual for the
next stage. The main focus of Erikson’s
theory was the ego which “regulates and resolves the tensions between the
individual’s psyche and society’s expectation with the goal of predominance of
the syntonic end of the continuum, such as more trust than mistrust”
("Erik Erikson," 2008).
In
conclusion, personality is what distinguishes individuals from one another and
is influenced by both biological and environmental factors and is consistent
throughout situations in life. The
biological factors are traits and characteristics that are passed down through
genes from parents and the environmental factors are everything that affects an
individual except genetics. The study of
personality in psychology is a major focus because psychology studies human
behavior and personality is said to be the major factor in an individual’s
behavior. Theories have been developed
such as psychoanalysis, which is also a school of thought, to explain how one’s
personality can alter their behavior and the psychosocial stages of personality
development that breaks down how an individual’s personality develops in stages
based on certain experiences they may encounter in life that could lead to
conflict and how they manage to resolve that conflict.
References
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