Personality Theories

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Personality Theories
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Schools of Thought

• Psychoanalysis
• Behaviorism
• Humanism

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Psychoanalysis

• Freud --- the founder, weve already talked about
  him at length
• Carl Jung originally Freuds closest associate
  ? stopped speaking because of differences
• Jung had a more positive view of human nature
• People do the best they can to reach their
  potential and control their instinctive urges

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Jungs Two Levels of Consciousness

• Personal your own unique thoughts and feelings
• Collective storehouse of instincts, urges and
  memories of the whole species
• Archetypes same themes that appear and reappear
  in folklore, myths, religions, etc.

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Alfred Adler

• Believed that the driving force in anyones life
  is to try to overcome feelings of inferiority
• People who compensate for their weaknesses and
  avoid feeling inadequate have an inferiority
  complex

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Criticisms of psychoanalysis

• Doesnt help no plan to help person once the
  causes/sources of their behavior is uncovered
• High cost psychoanalysis takes years
• Interpretations by psychoanalysts cant be proven
  or disproven not based on scientific study but
  on observations of patients

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Behaviorism

• Believe that psychology should concentrate on
  observable behavior only

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BF Skinner

• Not really a personality theory
• Less desire to understand behavior but more
  desire to predict and control it
• How are aspects of personality learned?
• Skinner believed it was all about how behaviors
  were reinforced.

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Albert Bandura

• Personality is achieved/created through
  reinforcement and through observational learning.
• Personality is formed by the interaction of three
  factors
• Cognitive/personal (beliefs, expectations,
  values, motivations, roles, genetic and bio)
• Behavior actions
• Environment social political and cultural
  influences

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Humanistic

• Life is a conscious experience of choices.
• Human beings strive for self-actualization
  achievement of potential

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Abraham Maslow

• Based on healthy creative, self-actualized people
  looked for common traits
• Perceive accurately
• Accept themselves, others and environment as they
  are
• Problem centered

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Maslows Hierarchy of Needs

• First primary/biological food, shelter, safety
• Then belonging, love, self-esteem
• At the top, self-actualization

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Carl Rogers

• Full functioning self-actualization
• Conflict between what they value in themselves
  and what they believe others value in them
• Everyone is striving to be more complete/perfect
• Self who you are and what you value

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• Positive regard what you want from others,
  positive feedback
• Conditions of worth conditions a person must
  meet in order to regard himself/herself
  positively
• Unconditional positive regard