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PERSONALITY-a psychological
perspective
Introduction
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Historical Development of personality theories It is interesting to note that people have been interested in "Personality" from very early times. In the second century BC, physician Galen outlined three dimensions of personality, Cognitive or intellectual, Conative or intentional and Affective or emotional. In the middle ages, the theory of Humours was introduced which was based on the physiological determinants of persoanlity. It said that the body contains various "Humours" or fluids and different personality types like sanguine, depressed etc. arise from them An alternate theory was put forth by Gall at the beginning of 19th, century and later modified by Spuerzheim and. others This theory stated that human mind contained various faculties. These faculties could be highly developed or less developed and had their origin in different areas of human mind. Sheldon, another psychologist of his time
based on experiments on 4000-college students developed Somoto types in
the 20th century. This can be explained by showing the figures. Imagine:
*People with very thin bodies, weak somatic structure and highly developed
viscera (Ectoomorphic) They are pessimistic, unsociable and reserved.*People
having balanced somatic structure and viscera (Mesoomorphic). They
crave for muscular activity, self assertive and adventurous and. *People
with fleshy heavy build weak viscera and somatic structure (Endomorphic),
They are easy going sociable and affectionate There are exceptions of course
so let us not judge people from this angle alone.
Eminent psychologist Sigmund Freud developed his theory of personality called Psychodynamics theory and made tremendous contribution to the development of modern psychology. This theory states that we are driven by unconscious motives and by movement of unconscious forces within our mind. People experience conflict as basic instincts of sex, hunger and aggression come up against social pressures to follow laws, rules and moral codes. His disciples, Karl Jung and Adler, followed him and contained their work consolidating the work of their teacher, besides their own contributions. The famous concept of Id, Ego and Super-Ego
brought a revolution in the field of human psychology. These can be very
briefly states as under.
For example, a person who sees his friend wearing a very expensive wristwatch costing several thousand rupees is motivated by his Id, to steal or snatch the watch. His inner Ego, tells him it is wrong and the dictates of society tell him it is crime and punishable act. Recent developments
Here a brief mention of the role theory
(PAC) and based thereon the four life positions pioneered by Eric Bern
also seems appropriate. These are
Ego-defense mechanism
Ego-defense mechanism in Freud's model of the mind states that the unconscious parts of the mind are continually trying to break through to dominate the consciousness, but they are held back by the ego. The ego, therefore, experiences three courses of threat: those from Id, those from the super-Ego and those from reality itself. In order to cope with these, it uses different mechanism like denial, oppression, repression, and distortion of ideas that come from reality. There are other concepts that supplement this phenomenon, Sex role identification, refutability, sexual development, synchronicity, the individual family and socity, productivity factor, negative personality orientations are some of them. Discussion on these aspects requires a full-length training program. However, the concept of Introversion and Extroversion cannot be ignored even in a preliminary discussion o personality. Hans Eysenck explained these two terms in a model that also talked about emotional stability and instability. More recent development is the five-factor theory that revolves around extroversion, agreeableness, consciousnesses, emotional stability and openness to experience. Introversion means people looking within themselves and extroversion means people looking beyond themawlves. Eysenck advocated that introvert and extrovert dimensions emanate from physiological factors that develop a mindset. This means that incoming information tends to excite more nerve cells, and excitation does not die away so quickly. The consequences of this physiological difference, i.e. being introvert or extrovert Eysenck argued, are that Extroverts can quickly become bored and will tend to seek out novel source of stimulation as they depend more on the outside world. This difference shows how readily the individuals would become conditioned to particular stimuli. This statement would perhaps gain meanings when you look at the figure attached. Another school of thought named behaviorists believe that we should focus on observable behavior rather hypothesized, unconscious forces mad that we should stud the situational aspects of behavior It is interesting to note that John B. Watson the father of modern behaviorism rejected the notions of mind and personality altogether, He asserts that he could train a child to become a professional or a criminal by controlling the child's environments. Another important concept of personality is the type "A" and type "B" personality. This is concerned with how people respond to stress. People having "B" type personality are much relaxed compared to the "A" type who are quick to respond, impatient and have quick responses to stimuli. They are also concerned with completion of their task as type "A" but they are less competitive, sit back as obstacles to be overcome instead of taking them as challenge or race. If they do not complete a job on a day, they accept that it will be done the day after. They do not take their career problems and stresses to home. They live easy lives compared to type "A". Let me add, for more clarification type "A" individuals become much more stressed when they find that they are not able to control situation, and make number of attempts to gain control when facing difficulties, Despite a deliberate attempt to avoid technical details and theories of personality much jargon has entered this brief introductory talk Let me sum up by saying that one's personality is not simply one's appearance or physical features like height, weight, colour of skin, voice, colour of hair/eyes and body language but a in addition to all this his attitudes, beliefs, values, education, thinking, perception of surrounding environment, vision, family background, past exposures, profession, locale and ecology, hopes ands aspirations all count towards formation of one's personality. There are some 16 factors involved in personality
structure. These as under
Bibliography.
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