Chapter 1: Defining Personality

• Personality - is the unique combination of patterns that influence behavior, thoughts, motivation, and emotion in a human being
• The word Persona meaning "mask"
• Humourism suggests that personality traits stemmed from the balance of bodily fluids, or humors.
• Psychodynamic Theory - pioneered by Sigmund Freud. Suggests that human behavior is influenced by three main parts of the mind: the Id, Ego, and superego.
• Id - This is our instincts or desires. This operates the pleasure principle.
• Ego - This is the rational part of our mind. It is referred to as a reality principle.
• Superego - This is our internalized sense of morality. This aims for perfection and judges our actions based on moral standards.
• GLPAO

  • Genitals
  • Latency
  • Phallic
  • Anal
  • Oral
• Successful resolution at each stages lead to healthy personality development. While unresolved conflicts may lead to fixation or Issues in adulthood.
• Alfred Adler emphasized the importance of social factors such as family dynamics and social expectations in shaping personality.
• Erik Erikson expanded Freud's psychosexual development to include psychosocial development, which emphasize the role of social interactions and cultural influences throughout life.
• Carl Jung focused on collective unconscious and archetypes, suggesting that beyond personal experiences, individual inherit universal symbols and themes shared across cultuers.
• Karen Horney emphasized the impact of societal norms and cultural expectations on personal development particularly in relation to gender roles.
• Learning Theories regards an individual's actions as ultimately being responses to external conflict. Social Learning Theory believes that personality and behavior are determined by an individdual's cognition about the world around them.
• Behaviorism suggests that everything you do, your actions, behaviors, and even thoughts, are reactions to things happening around you.
• Social Learning Theory - your personality and how you act aren't just because of what's happening around you, but also because of what you think and learn from watching others.
• Humanistic Theory argues that an individual's subjective free will if the most important determinant of behavior.
• Abraham Maslow (Hierarchy of Needs) and Carl Rogers (Theory of Personality) believed that people strive to become self-actualized - the best version of themselves.
• Biological Approaches - focus on role of genetics and the brain in shaping personality.
• Evolutionary Theories explore how variation in individual's personalities variance may be rooted in natural selection.
• Biological Approaches focus on how our genes and brains contribute to who we are, while evolutionary theories explore how certain personality traits may have helped our ancestors selection.
• Traits theorists believe personality can be conceptualized as a set of common traits, or characteristic way of behaving.