Counselling Theory & Practice

Inside Personality

March 12, 2010
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Life is a learning experience. The complexity of human behaviour is finely related to the several mechanisms which define how, what and when we learn about the world. People devote varied levels of energy to observe, memorise and recount the ongoing stimuli around them – and that focus is the magical touch which produces the fascinating ambiguity of mankind.

In the realm of behavioural science (and also common sense), there is one word which is vastly used to define such effect: personality.

What is Personality?

‘Personality’ is a word originated from the Latin persona, which means ‘mask’.

“Significantly, in the theatre of the ancient Latin-speaking world, the mask was not used as a plot device to disguise the identity of a character, but rather was a convention employed to represent, or typify that character.” (Wikipedia).

Personality is a broadly used term which meaning can be sought through popular knowledge. Most people use the word as a reference to the collection of characteristics which define how a person sees and acts upon the world – something like a mix of their thought processes and behaviour. In psychology, it could be defined as the emotional, cognitive and behavioural patterns unique to an individual, learned and incremented through experience, and relatively consistent over time.

Overview of the Personality Framework

The study of personality has developed relatively parallel to the evolution of psychology as a science. The perspective on human nature has been floating between nature and nurture throughout the years, with researchers constantly finding evidence to support and validate both determinants. Thus, many theoretical concepts of personality were based on the perspective that psychologists and behavioural scientists had of human nature at a certain period in time.

“Over the years, numerous personality theories have been proposed, and they can be classified within several major approaches, each assuming its own model of human nature. Personality psychologists within each approach emphasise different aspects of personality, favor different research methods, and use different standards to evaluate sufficient explanations.” (Peterson 1997)

Understanding personality involves not only analysing the individual as a whole, but considering individual behaviour in a particular social context. Culture plays a major role in defining the variants between individuals. For instance, western civilisations tend to encourage individuality – which increases the incidence of people that present unique behaviour with the aim of standing out. Being distinctive in our society is normally a social benefit. In other societies – such as Japan and China – uniqueness can play a divergent role: standing out is not socially sanctioned and therefore not admirable.

Theories of Personality

“The major theoretical approaches to personality are akin to great schools that dominated psychology throughout the early part of the twentieth century”. (Peterson 1997)

Psychodynamic Theory

Encouraged by Freud’s psychoanalytic approach, psychodynamic theories emphasise motivation and emotion as the major dictators of personality, along with the presence of unconscious divergences of individuals. In such theory, libido (defined by Freud as a ‘psychological energy’) is the primary determinant of our behaviour. This perspective concentrates on the conflict between an individual’s biological motivation (instincts) and the social rules which guide common individual behaviour.

In the psychodynamic theory, the structure of personality is described in terms of the conscious, preconscious and unconscious (id, ego and superego). Other major contributors of this theory were Carl Jung (collective unconscious), Alfred Adler (compensation for inferiority) and Erik Erikson (psychosocial development).

Trait Theory

The trait approach is derived from Darwin’s theory of evolution and the emphasis on individual variation within a species, defining the function of that individual in the social setting. This theory is mainly concerned with the heritable traits which determine behaviour and result in particular characteristics and types of individuals. Such theory began with Gordon Allport around 1937. Allport defined a trait as “a neuropsychic structure having the capacity to render many stimuli functionally equivalent, and to initiate and guide equivalent (meaningfully consistent) forms of adaptive and expressive behavior.” (1961)

The Big Five is a model of personality that describes five defining personality traits. They were originally described by Warren Norman (1963) and consist of: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Phenomenological Theory

The Phenomenological approach stresses the importance of the cognitive side of human behaviour – therefore – what and how people think. Phenomenological theory dictates that conscious thoughts and beliefs are the major determinants of personality. This approach puts individuals in the role of scientist: analysing the world and themselves within a social context to reach conclusions about the formation and display of personality traits.

George Kelly, a clinical psychologist, developed the concept of ‘personal constructs’ which refers to the “categories with which we interpret our experiences” (Peterson 1997). The personal construct theory suggests that our interpretations of the world around us create our personality. Therefore the concept of personality is a flexible one.

Phenomenological theory was further developed by Carl Rogers’ self-actualisation concepts. According to Rogers, the drive towards self-actualisation (familiar to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs) was the major determinant of an individual’s personality. This humanistic and optimistic approach was also the basis for Rogers’ client-centred therapy.

Social Learning Theory

Finally, the social learning theory focuses mainly on the influence of social dynamics and learning. This approached is based on behaviourism and it stresses the importance that the human learning process has in the formation of personality traits. In social learning theory, the most important psychological process is learning. The pioneering theorists of this approach were John Dollard and Neal Miller, authors of the book Personality and Psychotherapy (1950). According to them, people learn behaviours that decrease their physiological drive.

Albert Bandura also played a key role in the development of this theory. Bandura affirmed that people learn through modelling, and such modelling becomes the main determinant of personality. The concept of self-efficacy, the belief that one can perform a given behaviour, creates an immediate mechanism in which people modify behaviour in order to improve performance in life.

The Human Perspective

Personality is not only part of the realms of scientific research and behavioural studies. In order to better understand the world, we tend to create patterns – to classify everything we can into groups based on common characteristics. This learning process seems to work effectively with our brain structure, and also to improve the interpersonal communication process and to define roles in a social setting. It is normal that we analyse other people’s behaviours and physical appearance based on predefined ideas which are enforced by our experiences, culture, inherited traits and social setting.

A common example of such effect is found in the perspective towards personality: there are hundreds of popular measurements of personality available through varied media and in different formats. Horoscopes, personality and intelligence tests, amongst others, are all part of our own way to view the world and to place individuals on common ground. It seems almost natural to categorise ourselves and others in an attempt to make sense of the world. Perhaps this evidence indicates that Kelly’s argument is particularly accurate: in a social setting, aren’t we all scientists?

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