Chapter 13: Personality

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Another set of theories that psychologists have is trait theories. Trait theories are theories that focus on determining what personality is based on enduring and stable behavioral patterns in humans. During the early 1900’s Sigmund Freud was fascinated with this form studying peoples behavioral patters. Freud wanted to find out people’s hidden motives for doing some of the things that they do. In a famous interview with Sigmund Freud, Gordon Allport finds out truly how obsessed with this idea Freud was. But during this interview Allport was able to point out things that Freud was not able to see. He explained that meeting Freud “taught me that, psychoanalysis, for all its merits, may plunge too deep, and that psychologists would do well to give full recognition to manifest motives before probing the unconscious” (Chapter 13, Page 527). Basically what I think he means by this quote is that he feels that unconscious is not the key to understanding personality, but the conscious is. He wanted to classify a person’s personality based on certain traits that they have, traits being a person’s characteristics behaviors and conscious motives (Chapter 13, Page 527). This just goes to show you how much of a debated topic personality really is. Psychologists have differing opinions on what makes up someone’s personality.

Another thing that Gordon Allport pointed out was the fact that it was unfair to describe someone’s personality as one personality type because it failed to capture a person’s complete individuality. Allport went on to say that “We are each a unique complex of multiple traits” (Chapter 13, Page 527). This quote further emphasizes the fact that a person cannot be described by only one personality trait. There are so many things that go into your personality type that it is almost impossible to describe it with only one word. In 1936, Allport and his group of fellow psychologists went through the whole dictionary to try to find out how many words that can be used to describe people. During their search they were able to find over 18,000 words that can be used to describe someone’s personality. This was an important finding because previously psychologists tried to make a small list of basic traits to describe personality, but they had only scratched the surface.

The final theory is called the social-cognitive theory. Social-cognitive theorists believe that “we learn many of our behaviors either through conditioning or by observing and imitating others” (Chapter 13, Page 536). Social-cognitive psychologists mainly focus on how humans and the environment interact with one another rather then how the environment may shape an individual. They also like to see how people respond in certain situations or during certain events. A famous social-cognitive psychologist named Albert Bandura came up with the idea of reciprocal influences. Reciprocal influences include three ways that the humans and the environment interact with one another. “1. Different people choose different environments. The school you attend, the reading you do, the TV programs you watch, the music you listen to, the friends you associate with- are all apart of the environment you have chosen, based partly on your dispositions (Funder, 2009; Ickes et al., 1997). You choose the environment and it then shapes you. 2. Our personalities shape how we interpret and react to events. Anxious people, for example, are attuned to potentially threatening events (Eysenck et al., 1987). Thus, they perceive the world as threatening, and they react accordingly. 3. Our personalities help create situations to which we react. Many experiments reveal how we view and treat people influences how they have in turn treated us. If we expect someone to be angry with us, we may give the person the cold shoulder, touching off the very anger we expect. If we have an easygoing, positive disposition, we will likely enjoy close, supportive friendships” (Chapter 13, Page 536). This is important because it shows the main theory of social-cognitive psychologists and shows what they believe makes up your personality.

In a journal within the journal of personality they talk about social influences on personality; “In short, there is evidence from diverse literatures that personality traits and workplace conditions are linked. Broadly speaking, previous research provides support for two occasionally competing explanations for the association between individual characteristics and social conditions: social selection and social influence” (Journal of Personality; Volume 82, issue 1, pages 45-56). This ties back in with how we choose our social environments, but the environment then in return changes and molds us.

One other thing that goes along with personality is personality disorder. A personality is an “enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment”. (http://psychology.about.com/od/personalitydisorders/a/personalitydis.htm). There are a countless number of people who suffer from personality disorders around the world. For example, many people suffer from Bipolar Disorder, which completely controls your mood. Personality disorders show just how strong personalities are.

All of the theories and examples talked about previously go to show you how powerful your personality is and shows how many factors go into making you who you are. The fact that it is such a heavily debated topic among world-renowned psychologists shows you how powerful it is. So many things go into making an individual that you cannot classify someone’s personality with one word.