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videos narrated by author of the textbook Dr Zimbardo
The Self
Short Videos
Freud In Our Mist (Newsweek 3/27/06)
PERSONALITY
Have you ever answered a series of questions in order to have your personality analyzed? Chances are you may have been pleased with the resulting personality analysis. Many questionnaires published in magazines and else where do not meet the criteria established by psychologists for effective and useful self-report inventories. Moreover, when evaluating such personality feedback, it is important to be aware of the Barnum Effect—the tendency to accept general personality feedback as specific to ourselves.
If we asked you to describe someone you know well you are likely tousle words such as outgoing and responsible that are called traits. Traits summarize and characterize an individual’s behavior. However, psychologists have number of questions about traits. They want to identify which of the thousands of trait are the most important. The current consensus is that five major traits are used in all cultures and languages: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. A key question personality psychologists study is just how consistent is behavior.
Biological factors, especially heredity, offer one possible explanation for the development of traits. As has been previously explained, heredity plays a significant role in development and the same can be said for personality. For example, we know identical twins, whether raised together or apart, tend to exhibit similar personalities.
Sigmund Freud, the most prominent personality theorist, focused on several basic concepts; instincts, the role of the unconscious, and the structure of the mind into components called the id, ego, and superego. According to Freud, as we develop we proceed through several stages during which our instinctual urges conflict with society’s expectations. How we deal with these primarily unconscious conflicts shapes our personality at an early age.
Learning theorists have a simple answer tithe question of why there are differences in personality—differences in individuals’ learning histories. Albert Bondurant Julian Rotter added cognitive elements to the learning based theories of personality.
The humanistic theories of personality focus on individual’s subjective experience. Their optimistic view of human nature is reflected in concepts such as self actualization or the need to develop one’s full potential.
Each of the theories of personality has strengths and weaknesses in their methods and the adequacy of their explanations of certain facets of personality.
Copyright 1997 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.
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