Personality

Psychology Optional
Personality
My Notes by Soubhik Sen
Syllabus
 Definition and concept of personality
 Theories of Personality
 Psychoanalytical
 Socio-cultural
 Interpersonal and developmental
 Humanistic
 Behaviouristic
 Trait and Type approaches
 Measurement of personality
 Training for personality development
 The Indian approach to Personality.
 Latest approaches like big 5 factor theory
 The notion of self in different traditions
Concept and Definition of Personality

Personality as a word originates from Greek-Persona which implies “a mask”. Persona was the
mask which used to be carried by the ancient Greek dramatacians when they played different roles.
The artists performed the character represented by the mask they carried. However, the modern
usage of the word personality has a wide range of meanings.
In most general terms it implies the impression that one makes about himself upon others. In other
words personality is what one appears to others. One’s impression makes his identity.
People gather impression about individual by observing his behaviours. Behaviours are
manifestations what one is from within and therefore reflects one’s true nature. When people
display certain characteristic patterns of behaviour they create some impression upon others. If the
impression so created is appreciated by the public at large then the person is said to have good
personality otherwise bad.
Gordan Allport (1937) provided a comprehensive definition of personality by integrating biosocial
definition with biophysical definition. The biosocial definition shows a close correspondence with the
popular use of the term as it equates personality to the social stimulus value of the individual. It is
the reaction of other individuals to the subject that defines the subject’s personality. One may even
assert that the individual possesses no personality but that provided by the response of others.
Allport objects vigorously to the implication that personality resides only in the “responding-other”
and suggests that a biophysical definition that roots the personality firmly in characteristics or
qualities of the subject is much to be preferred. According to the latter definition, personality has
an organic side as well as a perceived side and may be linked to specific qualities of the individual
that are susceptible to objective description and measurement.
Definition
Simply defined – It is the way one appears to others. Derived from Latin ‘persona’ meaning mask,
which one bears on his/her face. The definition provided by Gordon Allport. “Personality may be
defined as a dynamic organization of all those psycho physical systems within the individual that
determines his characteristics thought and behaviours.”
RAU’S IAS STUDY CIRCLE | PSYCHOLOGY OPTIONAL 1

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Personality therefore is dynamic and not static. Hence, it changes from time to time allowing for
better adjustment of an individual to his environment. Hence, there is scope for its development
through various life experiences as well as training life experiences as well as training programmes.
Personality is organization of psycho physical system which implies that our psycho physical
systems are ordered and organized into various hierarchies. They are not chaotic. Psycho physical
system means the psychological as well as the physical attributes of a person.
The word determines implies that our psycho physical systems which motivate us to react in a
particular way in a particular situations. Such reactions are therefore manifestations of our internal
attributes like emotions, attitude, traits, etc. in interaction with our physical abilities.
The behaviours so resulting are unique or characteristics to the reacting individual. This uniqueness
provides the individual with an identity. Behaviours may be overt or they can be mentally
performed like thoughts.
Allport being dispositional theorist maintained the due positions of the internal traits or pre
dispositions which frequently get manifested in the behaviours may be in different manners.
APPROACHES & THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

The complex nature of personality has enlisted multidimensional explorations, researches &
approaches for the study of personality. Each approach differs from the other in its answering
questions like-
‘WHAT’ - (Behaviouristic Approach)
‘WHY’ - (Psychoanalytical approach)
‘HOW’ – (Humanistic approach)
Numerous theories have come out for explaining personality in due course of time. The theories
that share a common or a particular scheme of explanation are grouped under an approach.
PSYCHOANALYTICAL APPROACH
Psychologists sharing this approach attempted to identify deep Psychological forces, which are
responsible for development, maintenance and change of personality.
However, Psychologists differed with each other over the issue of forces which they identified.
Accordingly, two groups emerged—
(i) One led by Sigmund Freud (postulated psychoanalytical theory) who considered instinctual
tendencies to account for behaviour.
(ii) The other group called Neo-Freudians like Sullivan, From Horney, Adler and others who held
cultural tendencies instead of instinctual as cause behind behaviour.
Towards the end of the 19th century, it was clear that there are mental disorders with psychological
as well as organic basis. The answer to how such disorders come about was systematically
answered by SIGMUND FREUD in his Psycho Analytical Theory.
Sigmund Freud was Viennese physician. He was highly influenced by
(a) Charles Darwin’s Survival of Fittest.
(b) Jeremy Benthem’s Concept of Hedonism.
(c) Hermann Von Helmholtz’s Concept of Law of Conservation of Energy.
(d) Cannon’s Concept of Homeostasis.
According to Freud, psychoanalysis is a dynamic system of Psychology that seeks to explain the
root of human behaviour in unconscious motivation & conflict.

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Freud had a biological approach towards personality as he believed that motivating forces behind
human behaviors stem from biological instincts of sex & aggression.
Such forces also give rise to conflicting situations in the process of development of an individual. He
called the life instinct “LIBIDO” & death instinct as “MORBIDO”.
Libido, according to Freud, is basically sexual energy which gets modified during the development
process of the individual in all forms of love, affection, will to live as well as its original form i.e.
sexual activity.
Libido has two components :
(a) EROS – Instinct towards self preservation
(b) THANATOS – The instinct for destruction & death. When fused with pleasure it gets inward or
outward directed drives for pain.
The inward direction generates tendencies of suicide while outward direction generates tendencies
of homicide.
In the earliest stage, libido is called polymorphous perverse as it is capable of shifting positions.
The process of development proceeds through discrete stages, which are called psychosexual
stages by Freud.
Psychosexual Stages
An individual is born with libido which is seated in that division of his mind which is called ID. It is
governed entirely on pleasure principles which demands instant gratification.
The first source of satisfaction is the oral region where pleasure is obtained by sucking of thumb &
breast, chewing, babbling, biting etc. This marks the ORAL STAGE.
The child derives pleasure with oral activities.
The stage lasts for 18-24 months until the process of weaning interferes with libidinal release
(giving satisfaction) and the infant’s libido gets directed towards the anal region (as it is
Polymorphous perverse).
If excessive amount of libidinal energy is tied to a particular stage, fixation results. Fixation can
result from both too much & too little gratification. In both cases it is harmful. An orally fixated
person has considerable amount of libido yet to be released from mouth. Hence, he/she over uses
her mouth. The person therefore might turn out to be an abuser, good orater, smoker etc. at a
later stage of life. At the same time of overgratified, the complete transfer of libido to the Anal
region does not takes place and the person continues deriving pleasure using mouth.
In the ANAL erotic stage, the child obtains satisfaction from the activities of lowering bowels or
playing with the faces. Anal satiation is eventually frustrated/truncated by toilet training (i.e.
mastery over one’s elimination functions).
Freud believed that toilet training is the first instance in which parent makes demand from the child
& the child now considers the realistic consequences of his actions i.e. of approval or disapproval.
Child realizes that all its behaviors shall not be subject to approval and therefore he has to rise up
to the expectation of the society in order to become a part of it. But to learn about the
consequences following his/her behavior some efforts have to be made which in turn requires some
energy. This energy comes from the ID and forms the EGO(a new structure of his/her personality)
The child now begins to consider the external reality or consequence in the expression of ID
impulses. Ego therefore functions like a counterforce against ID impulses and works to delay,
postpone or repress it. The anal stage disrupted by toilet training gives way to the PHALLIC STAGE.
The duration of anal stage may be 42 to 48 months.

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In phallic stage, which persists till about the age five to six years, children learn about the
existence of two sexes in the world i.e. male & female. Also, they start developing incestuous
wishes for the oppositely sexed parents. Freud describes two different situations in case of boys
and girls.
In the case of a boy: Ego has already come into existence, which can judge the realistic
consequences. He realizes that any indulgence in open rivalry with his father for the hand of his
mother will lead to his castration by his father who is stronger and posseses the mother.
So, he can no longer remain his father’s rival for the possession of his mother. Therefore, a
situation of conflict arises between his incestuous wishes of ID & castration anxiety of EGO; This
conflict is called ODEIPUS CONFICT OR COMPLEX OR NEUROSIS. The term ‘Odeipus’ signifies a
character in ancient greek plays, who killed his father to marry his mother.
In case of a girl: The girl recognizes herself as being different & inadequate from the boy’s in terms
of possesing physical organs. Here the sense of inferiority stemming from anatomical deficiency
translates itself towards strong liking for the father and envy towards the mother (penis envy) as
she possesses the father to satisfies her inferiority. This is ELECTRA COMPLEX.
Resolving the conflict : Identification with either of the parents by modeling or acquiring abstract
values morals & attributes of the parent leads to resolving the conflict. The children believe that
being like their parents shall bring them similar partners which they wished for.
DEVELOPMENT OF SUPER EGO

During identification process, children internalize the value norms & moral teachings of the parents
to resolve their conflicts. They come to know what they should be or what is being ideal. These
internalizations form the super ego of the individual.
Criticism :
Freud was criticised of gender prejudice on the following accounts:
1. Superego of boy is stronger than of a girl due to more satisfactory resolution of Oedipus
conflict by the boy.
2. Inferiority complex suffered by girls with respect to boys due to anatomical or biological
deficiency.
3. Penis Envy towards the mother.
LATENCY is the 4th stage that persists through puberty. It involves channelizing the sexual &
aggressive urges through appropriate activities & interest.
Ex: sports, academics, arts, hobbies etc.
The final stage is GENITAL stage. According to Freud, it begins with puberty & continues till rest of
the life. Individual receives gratification of sexual urges through appropriate means. Individual
receives social sanction to enter into marital relationship and gratify himself sexually.
During the process of development, individuals acquire three components to his personality. They
are:
ID – Desire
Ego – Reason
Superego – Conscience
Freud called them as structure of personality

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Structure of Personality
ID: It consists of all innate, primitive urges like bodily needs, sexual & aggressive impulses.
It lies totally in the unconscious part the brain. It demands gratification either through behaviours
or wishful thinking.
Ego: It refers to self or individual’s conception of himself. It represents the superficial
portion of the ID or primitive infantile mind that develops out of the ID in response to stimulation
from the infant’s physical & social environment. It is based on realistic principles. Its function is to
mediate between demand of the ID & norms of the superego. It serves both the masters - ID &
Superego. The energy for functioning is received from ID itself. However, it functions as a counter
collective force against ID in order to delay, postpone or stop its behavioral manifestations. It also
acts as a rationalizer against the punishments provided by super ego.
Ego prevents the manifestation of irrational & inappropriate ID impulses till the time & manner
when it is socially acceptable.
Superego : It is a part of personality that develops due to the incorporation of moral
standards & prohibitions from the parents. It generates feeling of guilt in an individual if his ego
fails to check his inappropriate ID impulses. This way it punishes the ego for its failure.
INTRA PSYCHIC STRUGGLE

The mutually contradictory functions of ID, Ego and Superego gives rise to intrapsychic conflicts
which lead to development of anxiety and avoiding such anxious situations through various defense
mechanisms. Each component of personality – ID, Ego & Superego attempts to influence the
person to act in accordance with his preference.
ID’s – Animal Instincts
Super Ego’s – Abstract morals & values
Ego’s – Recognition of reality constraints
When unacceptable Id impulses near the conscious level, the ego experiences anxiety. It fears that
Id impulses might get out of hand. Hence, to conceal his animal face, ego acts as an counter force
called counter cathectical force. In cases, when ego fails to channelise the Id routed urges in
socially acceptable manner the superego may develop moral anxiety. To prevent such anxieties ego
employs defense mechanisms. Which, if over used leads to gross distortion of personality. Ego also
attempts to release the Id impulses by trying out certain plans. This is called reality testing. It may
be done by means of certain behaviors or thoughts. The other mechanism by which hidden
unconscious wishes make their way out into consciousness is through dreams and slip of tongue or
pen called “Freudian Slips” (when one utters or writes which was not consciously intended).
To counter the anxiety, Ego might resort to any of the following defense mechanisms.
Defense Definition Example

Mechanism
1. Repression Forgetting or pushing from the An adult who cannot recall being abused
conscious the unacceptable thoughts as a child.
to unconscious.
2. Rationalisation Providing an implausible excuse to A young woman explains that she ate
justify one’s unacceptable impulse or the entire cake so that it wouldn’t have
actions. spoiled due to summer heat.
3. Displacement Redirecting an emotional response Man who takes out his frustration with
from a dangerous object to safer his boss on his wife.

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one.
4. Projection Attributing one’s unacceptable A man who feels strong hostility with
impulse or action to others. neighbors perceives the neighbors as
being hostile to him.
5. Regression Responding to a threatening Student throws a temper tantrum when

situation in a way appropriate to an his teacher refuses to raise his grade.
earlier stage of development.
6. Sublimation Unacceptable impulse is transformed Child unable to satisfy the desire to

into socially acceptable manner. handle the faccal matter in anal stage
becomes a gardener.
7. Denial Preventing threatening material from A Parent who cannot accept the death of
entering consciousness. his child denies it.
8. Undoing Engaging in repetitive action that Lady Macbeth who after the murder of
symbolically atones for some Macduff felt guilty and repeatedly
unacceptable impulse. washed her hands.
9. Rationalisation Provided justification for raw actions Mother after having eaten the entire
to gain social acceptance cake, justifies her act as the cake was
spurious so she didn’t left it for children.
This constant struggle between the three plays a very important role in personality and in many
psychological disorders. The struggle is often visible in everyday behaviour that is known as
Freudian Slip.
LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Freud identified three levels of consciousness in human mind as:
1. Conscious: Most of the mind lies below the threshold of experience. Above this boundary is the
realm of conscious. This includes our current thoughts, whatever we are thinking about or
experiencing at the moment. It is also called our awareness. It keeps us informed about the
situations and consequences of our activities. Hence, makes us behave in a reasonable manner
consistent with the situation.
2. Preconscious: Beneath the conscious realm is the much larger preconscious. This contains
memories that are not part of current mind but readily be brought to mind if the need arises. These
are memories of recent past which are unavailable in awareness currently as they are not so
relevant.
3. Unconscious: Beneath the preconscious, and forming the bulk of the human mind, is the
unconscious – the thoughts, desires and impulses of which we remain largely unaware. Freud
believed that much of the material was once conscious but has been actively repressed – driven
from consciousness to unconscious because it was too anxiety provoking. Such memories contain
forbidden thoughts and raw wishes which causes anxiety if exposed in society.

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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORY:

Freud was perhaps, the first theorist who emphasized the developmental aspects of personality and
in particular stressed on the decisive role of early years (infancy and childhood) in formation of the
basic character of a person. His concepts of defense mechanism and their role in guiding and
controlling their behavior has been accepted by all the contemporary theorists. Freud was one of
the few early psychologists to conceive human beings as energy complexes and to talk about the
role of unconscious in the development of personality.
Thus, we can attribute Freud of giving a comprehensive theory of personality that can explain wide
variety of behavior. Nevertheless, along with its popularity, the theory generated widespread
criticism on the following accounts-
 Though Freud had greatly focused on Oedipus Complex and its role in personality
development, anthropologists like Malinowsky, through their studies on simple societies have
shown that it does not apply universally. Also, the degree of mother child attachment in Indian
society cannot explain the complexes in phallic stage as the children have enough love &
affection from their parents.
 Freud is also criticized on the ground that he studied the mentally abnormal patients and
extended the results of his study to normal human beings.
 He has overemphasized on the unconscious and underplayed the social factors in personality
development.
 Freud has not provided any quantification or empirical evidences, which make it impossible to
weigh the statistical significance and reliability of his theory.
 The theory is overly deterministic and mechanistic.
 The critics of Freud objected to his accepting at face value what a patient narrates without
attempting to corroborate it external evidences.
 The concept of penis envy as suggested by Freud has been argued many of his critiques
pointed out that if at all there exists sense of inferiority within girls, it was due to social
aparthide and preferable treatment of parents toward boys rather than any biological
deficiency.
 Further, weak super ego or marility development in women was criticised widely
For these reasons, most psychologists do not currently accept Freud’s theory of personality. Yet
several of his insights – especially his ideas about levels of consciousness and about the importance
of anxiety in psychological disorders have contributed to our understanding of human behavior and
personality. So, although his theories don’t measure up to the rigorous standards of science as
required by modern psychology, there is no doubt that Freud has a profound and lasting impact on
modern thought.
The Neo – Analytical Approaches to Personality

The Neo-analytical approaches comprise a group of theorist, whose differences with Freud rose
over certain basic tenets of Freud’s theory. But, nevertheless, their framework of ideas and
understanding of personality is similar to Freud i.e., They have adopted an analytical approach. The
major line of differences were as follows :-
1. Freud’s over emphasising the unconscious and undermining the conscious forces.
2. Biological orientation of Freud, that led him to believe that Man is primarily a pleasure seeking
organism and personality is instinctual.
3. Freud’s indifference towards social motives of individual.
4. His pessimistic views like psychic determinism.

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5. The emphasis on sex and aggression.

6. His concept of Penis envy and sense of inferiority in girl child because of anatomical deficiency
with males.
7. His neglect over the issue of cultural influences and variations in human personality.
8. His static view about personality as an outcome of past childhood experiences, neglecting the
role of current anxieties anal stressors in life.
Discussion point
Neo – Analysts – Expanding the horizons of Psychoanalysis to psychodynamic.
Carl G. Jung – was born in Keswill, Switzerland. His theory can be traced out from thoughts and
experiences of his childhood. There were two prominent themes that prevailed over little Jung’s
childhood thoughts, which later served as basis of his theory.
First it was, his belief that he was, in fact, two different personalities – He was both (a) A child, that
he outwardly appeared to be (b) And a wise and cultured gentlemen of the previous century.
He would often sit on a large stone in his garden and focus alternatively to two different ideas. That
he was a boy sitting on a stone and that he was a stone being sat upon by a boy. His ability to take
the perspective of the rock gave him the idea that he might actually have more than one from of
being. This notion seemed to solidify when the father of a friend scolded him for a misdeed. As he
was being scolded, he suddenly felt indignant and had the thought that he was an important and
distinguished person who should be respected.
At the same time he was also aware that he was a naughty child, presently being reprimanded by
an adult. It was with this instance that Jung fully realized his dual personality. He realised that he is
familiar to objects and persons from distinct past even being a child.
Second, theme was that, for Jung the dreams he often experienced was not unimportant
coincidence. But, for him were valuable communications of information from the realm of
unconscious.
Collectively, these two childhood beliefs were translated into his theory of personality. While the 1st
resembled his concept of Archetypes the 2nd figured in his idea of collective unconscious.
Jung’s theory – His analytical psychology led him to identity the structure of personality.
Structure of personality – The total personality consists of a number of differentiated systems. The
principle ones are ego, the personal unconscious and collective unconscious, which is analogous to
Freud’s scheme to three parts of mind – Conscious. Subconscious and unconscious. But the analogy
can be drawn only in terms of the framework and not in terms of meaning that both (Jung and
Freud) attached to them.
The other systems, were the Archetypes, contained in the collective unconscious like Animus and
Anima, Persona and the Shadow. In addition to these interdependent systems, there are the
attitudes of introversion and extraversion and the functions of thinking, feeling and sensing etc.
Finally, there is the self, which is the center of whole personality.
Structures
The three parts of mind (After Jung)
a) Ego (Conscious)
b) Personal Unconscious
c) Collective Unconscious

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a) Ego : The ego is the conscious mind. It is made up of conscious perceptions, memories;
thoughts and feelings. It is responsible for one’s feeling of identity as an individual and from
his/her point of view. It is regarded as being at the center of consciousness. His concept of
ego is similar to that of Freud.
b) The Personal Unconscious : It is a region adjoining ego. It contains thoughts and feelings
that are not currently part of conscious awareness. Thoughts from the personal unconscious
can be accessed, however, and there is great deal of exchanges between ego and personal
unconscious.
Personal unconscious harbors two kinds of thoughts and urges.

1. Thoughts and urges that are simply unimportant at present. For example, when you are in
psychology class, you are not thinking about the last nights dinner.
2. Thoughts that have been actively repressed and suppressed because of their ego
threatening and anxiety provoking nature. For example, one might harbor deep
resentment and animosity towards a sibling because of extensive past rivalries, and yet
continue belonging to a family in which love for family is of paramount importance. This
individual might repress his/her resentments because they are threatening to his/her
ability to view himself/herself as a good person.
Jung saw the personal unconscious as containing both past (retrospective material) and future
(prospective material). He found that his patients experienced dreams that were related to future
events, and issues. They did not see the future, but simply sensed things that were likely to
happen.
Role of Personal Unconscious: Finally he believed that personal unconscious serves to compensate
and balance the conscious attitudes and ideas. That is, if a persons conscious views are very one
sided, the personal unconscious may accurate the opposing viewpoint through dreams or other
means, in an attempt to restore some sort of equilibrium.
c) Collective Unconscious: Perhaps most controversial. It comprises a deeper level of
unconscious and is made up of powerful emotional symbols called archetypes. These images
are common to all people and have been formed from the beginning of time. They are
transpersonal rather than personal or individual. The collective unconscious is the most
powerful and influential system of the psyche and in pathological cases overshadows the
ego and the personal unconscious.
The collective unconscious is the store house of latent memory traces inherited from one’s
ancestral past, a past that includes not only the racial history of humans as a separate species but
also their pre-human ancestry. The collective unconscious is the psychic residue of human
evolutionary development, a residue that accumulates as a consequence of repeated experiences
over many generations. For example, rising and setting of the Sun, the changing seasons, the
repeating interpersonal relationship like mother child relationship, the repeated dangers like –
poisonous snake etc. It is almost entirely detached from anything personal in life of an individual
and is seemingly universal. Therefore, all human beings have more or less the same collective
unconscious Jung attributes the universality of collective unconscious to the similarity of the
structures of the brain. Hence, archetypes are memories which make us familiar without practice
about certain phenomenas that have remained omnipresent through out the human existence.
Racial memories or representations are not inherited as such, rather we inherit the possibility of
reviving the experiences of the past generations. They are pre depositions that set us to react to
the world in a selective fashion. For example since, human beings always had mothers, every infant
is born with a pre-disposition to perceive and react to a mother. Now, the individually acquired
knowledge of mother is a fulfillment of an inherited potentiality that has been built into the human

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brain by the past experience of the race. Just as humans are born with capacity for seeing the
world three dimensions and develop this capacity through experience and training so, humans are
born with many capacities and pre-dispositions such as thinking, feeling, perceiving the world
according to definite patterns. Such pre-disposition become actualized by individuals experiences.
The collective unconscious is the racial foundation of the whole structure of personality. The ego
and personal unconscious are erected upon it. The form of world into which an individual is born is
already inborn in him as a virtual image. These virtual image become concrete ideas by identifying
itself with objects in the word that corresponds to that image.
Two unconscious region i.e. personal and collective can be of immense service to humans. It
houses all those possibilities that are locked away from the conscious mind or ideas that were
overlooked or forgotten by the conscious mind. It also contains the wisdom of uncounted centuries
that are laid down as the archetypes.
Hence, if the wisdom of unconscious is ignored by the ego, the unconscious may disrupt the
conscious rational processes by seizing hold of them and twisting them into distorted forms.
Symptoms, phobias, delusions and other irrationalities stem from neglected unconscious process.
Comparision and Contrast between Radical behaviorism and Neo-Analitical theories (Both being
critiques of Freud’s Psycho-analysis)
The Radical Behaviorism of Skinner Vs. Psychoanalytical and Neo-analytical theories.
S.No. Psycho analytical Concept Behaviorist Reinterpretation
1. Freud’s notion of Id as the Skinner asserted that this is simply human’s innate
instinctual energies forming the susceptibility to reinforcement, which is product of
undifferentiated core of evolution.
personality.
2. The internal personality structure These are learned responses to the practiced situations
termed the ego which responds to of everyday life i.e., there are different set of behaviors
the world according to the reality for different environmental situations.
principle.
3. The superego that internalizes the Learned behavior from the punitive practices of the
social rules and helps protect the society, which control the behavior not allowed by
ego, from overwhelming Id parents and society, unconscious wishes for skinner
impulses simply means that people are not taught to observe it
and talk about it.
4. The ego defense mechanism of We learn to avoid behavior that is punished, and by not
repression, that pushes engaging in it, we avoid conditioned aversive
threatening thoughts and motives stimulations.
back into the unconscious.
5. Jung’s notion the collective Skinner says that adaptation is the evolution of certain
unconscious of archetypes which universal characteristics of the human species and the
are deep universal emotional parallel cultural evolution of helpful behaviors. There is
symbols. this sameness or universality of things that are
reinforcing, and a commonality of behaviour that
societies need to control.
6. Personality exists within the Only potential personality exists. Personality is no more
individual. that group of behaviours that occur. The behaviors that
occur rather depend upon the nature of the

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environment.
7. Freud was a psychic and radical Skinner as a radical behaviorist denied free will for
determinist who believed in the behaviors. But, asserted that causes should be traced
existence of causes for behaviour. in the surrounding environment.
But the cause lie within, that
compel the behaviors.
8. Neuroticism stars from Neuroticism exists because such behaviours like

unconscious urges and their avoiding stressful situation or problem acts in someway
interplay with the conscious. as reinforcements.
9. Fear and Anxiety have an innate Fears and learned and are secondary.
source and are primary.
10. Stressed on structures of Stressed upon functions that are performed by the
personality. behaviours i.e., whether they bring +ve or –ve
consequences.
Psychoanalytical theory and cross cultural issues

Although Freud explored the unconscious in exquisite detail, he was relatively unconcerned about
possible cultural variations. He argued that the same basic psychodynamic forces underlay all
cultures, especially the dynamic surrounding Oedipus complex. In his book Totem and Taboo, Freud
(1952) traced the origin of civilization to the time when brothers came together and murdered the
primal father of the tribe, co-opting his power and his wives. Freud believed that this would have
left traces in all civilization in form of cultural taboos, such as taboos against incest. Similarly,
religion was seen as arising from psychodynamic forces.
According to Jinton (1945) each society produced a same personality type. Hence, denied the
existence of any such psychodynamic force which could be universally present. In fact, he believed
that people’s personality is culture induced. Hence, persons may differ amongst themselves in
terms of food habits, drinking behaviour, child rearing practices etc.
But, Freud argued that what is culturally induced is not personality, but only habits. Personality
should right fully refer to individual variations within a culture.
On the light of aforesaid arguments, cross-cultures studies in personalities were invited. The
anthropologist began, to use projective test like the Rorschach, which uses inkblot pictures which
are not language specific and hence are valid in all cultures. But, unfortunately a breakthrough is
yet to be achieved due to the problems which plague the cross cultural studies with methodological
flaws and false assumptions (Lindgay 1961). For example, such tests were inherently based with
searching for basic deep seated personality traits that characterize a culture. Further if projective
clinical measures of psychopathologies are used in cross-cultural research, the whole foreign
culture may wind up being labeled pathological.
However, prospects for research in this area are enormous with newer techniques that are more
sensitive to unique features of each culture.
Socio-Cultural Approach/Interactionist Approach
Freud’s psychoanalytical theory advocates that human nature consists of bio-psychological
components such as libido and its complexes, which express themselves in definite behavioral
stages independently of the socio-cultural environment of the individual By and large. Freudian
school believed that cultural differences existing among individual are superficial and what was
most significant to personality was that all humans were led along similar developmental routes
(i.e. psychosexual stages) by their common hereditary endowment.

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The universality of oedipus complex has been subjected to wide criticism by a number of
anthropologists like Ruth-Benedict, Margaret Mead, Linton Kardiner (Psychoanalyst) etc.
This new group carries out extensive field studies which throw light on relationship existing
between personality and culture. Hence, their school was known as Culture and Personality School
of Thought. The followers of this school emphasized on adaptational rather than instinctual aspects
of Freudian theory.
Major Proponents of Culture-Personality School

a) Margaret Mead: It is an obvious fact that an individual is born in a pre-existing cultural
environment which plays a significant role in individual personality formation in the course
of time.
Mead studied the role played by the culture on personality formation among three primitive
groups of New Guinea namely, Mandugumor Arapesh and Tschambali. Although these tribes
were living in the same geographical region but had marked personality differences
amongst them, owing to differences in their respective cultures.
b) Ruth Benedict. Impact of Personality over Culture.
Ruth was an American anthropologist who believed that culture is a personality writ at
large. Man has created culture to meet his needs, both biological as well as psychological
and this culture is transmitted through generations. The inheritance is carried forward by
individuals. Hence, individual’s personality dimensions write the story of culture, such as
creative art, its growth. Therefore, in a sense, culture is a gift of personality.
In her famous book “Patterns of Culture” Ruth has shown that culture is analogous to an
individual. She viewed culture to consists of cultural configurations integrated under the
domination of single general master pattern much like consistent patterns of thoughts and
actions in an individual.
c) Linton and Kardiner: There exists Reciprocal relationship between culture and personality
They believed culture and personality to assist each other as well as get influenced by each
other. Linton is the view that each society has a basic culture by which all its member
undergo similar process of socialization and hence have similar beliefs, customs and
traditions. As a result, a common pattern of behavior of the members belonging to that
group is evident. These common characteristics in turn reveal and maintain the basic
culture of that society.
These socio-cultural doctrines gradually eroded the foundations with psychoanalytical view
and many of the followers of Freud broke their allegiance from classical psychoanalysis.
They were dissatisfied by the myopic view of Freud who did not place any importance to the
socio-cultural impact. So, refashioning of psychoanalytical view among the new lines of
orientation began to be developed. Among those who provided psychoanalytic view with
20th century socio-cultural out look were: 1.ADLER 2.FROMM 3.SULLIVAN 4.HORNEY.

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NEO FREUDIANS
ADLER’S INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY
Adler, as early as 1911, came up with his socio-psychological outlook and differed with Freud over
the issue of instinctual urges. He suggested that human behavior is governed by social urges.
He denied Freud on the issue of emphasis over the role of unconscious and at the same time
questioned Jung on the issue of nature of unconscious.
ALFRED ADLER:
Adler, as early as 1911, came up with his socio-psychological outlook and differed with Freud over
the issue of instinctual urges. He suggested that human behaviour is governed by social urges.
He denied Freud on the issue of emphasis over role of unconscious and at the same time
questioned Jung on the issue of nature of unconscious.
 Adler emphasized on the role of conscious in personality formation. Due to this approach, Adler
has been recognized as an Ego-psychologist.
 Adler recognized the idiosyncrasies (i.e. uniqueness) in personality. He considered each person
to be a unique configuration of motives, traits, interests and values. In this context, he put
forth the concept of style of life.
 Style of life, according to Adler, is self consistent and unified personality structure which
determines the functions of personality. Each person has a unique style of life which is guided
by his social interests.
 Adler considered humans to possess creative power which makes their lives free.
 He also held that it is psychological sense inferiority inside an individual which generates
striving for superiority in the quest to overcome inferiority, the individual compensates by
manifestations through his behaviour.
Ex- Wilmer Rudolf had polio-became Olympic record holder, Napoleon short statured person
conqured the whole world.
Adler called his theory Individual Psychology because he firmly believed in the unique motivations
of individuals and the importance of each person’s perceived niche in society. Adler emphasized
upon the role of conscious which perceives the environment, particularly the social environment in
which the individual is placed. Therefore, each person will view himself with a social reference. The
environment therefore will set the context for our social identity. Society itself is so heterogeneous
at micro-level that each person is placed at different contexts such as different families, different
communities, different socio-economic status, different age etc. Hence, the social challenges faced
by us and the social goals we choose in our lives are different for different persons. Even members
of the same family might have separate social motives. Therefore, each person in the society
develops a unique way of living which Adler called the Style of Living. Since all of us are unique,
hence to understand the motives of a person, he has to be considered as an individual with unique
motivation, unlike Freud, who considered universal in conscious motivation to account for
personality. Perhaps this is the reason why Adler is called the ‘Father of Individual
Psychology:
Striving for Superiority
For Adler (1930), a central core of personality is the striving for superiority. When people have an
overwhelming sense of helplessness or experience some event that leaves them powerless, they

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are likely to feel inferior. If these feelings become pervasive, an inferiority complex may develop.
An inferiority complex takes normal feelings of incompetence and exaggerates them, making the
individual feel as if it is impossible to achieve goals and therefore hopeless to try. Take the case of
David, who has never done very well in school. He’s not a terrible student, but beside the honor-roll
records and academic accomplishments of his two siblings, his record looks paltry. Over time, he
has developed an inferiority complex – an uncomfortable sense of being dull, even inferior to his
brother and sister.
An individual struggling to overcome such a complex might fabricate a superiority complex as a
way of maintaining a sense of self-worth, and in fact this is what David has done. If you were to
meet him for the first time, you wouldn’t guess that there was an “inferior” bone in his body. He
appears to have a very high opinion of himself – always bragging and quick to argue that his
solution to a problem is the right one. If you look a bit deeper, thought, you see that this
exaggerated arrogance is really an overcompensation for what David believes he lacks ; he has
developed a superiority complex as a way of counteracting the inferiority he feels. He is trying to
convince others and himself that he is valuable after all. Unfortunately for David, superiority
complexes are usually perceived as obnoxious by others, and he is therefore likely to be treated
with reserve or even distaste when he exhibits his overbearing attitude. This rejection in turn might
increase his inner feelings of worthlessness, leading to even more aggressive compensation – and a
maddening spiral has begun.
The Evolution of Adler’s Theory

Adler’s theory underwent a series of changes as his thoughts about human motivations changed.
The first concept he described was that of organ inferiority – the idea that everyone is born with
some physical weakness. It is at this “weak link,” says Adler, that incapacity or disease is most
likely to take root, and so the body attempts to make up for the deficiency in another area. He
contended that these infirmities (and perhaps more important, individual reactions to them) were
important motivators of people’s life choices.
A short time later, Adler added the concept of the aggression drive to his model. He believed that
drives could be either directly effective or reversed into an opposite drive (similar to a Freudian
defense mechanism). Aggression was particularly important to Adler because he believed it was a
reaction to perceived helplessness or inferiority – a lashing out against the inability to achieve or
master something.
Adler’s next step was what he termed the masculine protest. He did not mean, however, that only
males experienced this phenomenon. During that period in history, it was culturally and socially
appropriate to use the words femininity and masculinity as metaphors for inferiority and
superiority. Adler believed that al children, by virtue of their relatively powerless and dependent
position in the social order, were markedly feminine and that both boys and girls experience this
masculine protest, in an effort to become independent from and eventually equal with the adults
and people of power in their little worlds. Masculine protest is an individual’s attempt to be
competent and independent – autonomous, rather than merely an outgrowth of one’s parents.
Sometimes, striving for superiority can be healthy, if it involves a positive assertiveness.
A related aspect or concept important to Adler was termed perfection striving. His belief was that
people who are not neurotically bound to an inferiority complex spend their lives trying to meet
their fictional goals. (This is some times termed “fictional finalism”). These goals vary from person
to person. The belief in the reality of such fictional goals is sometimes called as “as if” philosophy.
Each of us has fictional goals. For example, one of Cleo’s fictional goals is to have a “perfect
career”. She envisions herself sailing through school with good grades, completing a prestigious
internship, and being invited to join an international company with a pleasant working
environment, enviable pay, and a chance to travel. Of course, she will also be very successful and

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efficient in her job, pleasing all of her superiors and amazing them with her great talent. In reality,
Cleo is not “sailing” through school ; she is working very hard to maintain her high GPA. It remains
to be seen whether she will get a prestigious internship or just a run-of-the-mill job, and whether
she will climb the corporate ladder or be a bench player. But having these fictional goals gives her
focus and motivation, and envisioning her sparkling future is its own small reward. If she set her
sights lower, it is likely that she would never achieve any of these dreams. But instead she is
aiming high, and although she will doubtless encounter some disappointments, she will probably
make many of her wishes come true.
Adler was very concerned with individuals’ perceptions of social responsibility and their social
understanding. Building on Freud’s attention to love and work, Adler identified three fundamental
social issues that he believed everyone must address : (1) occupational tasks – choosing and
pursuing a career that makes one feel worthwhile ; (2) societal tasks – creating friendships and
social networks ; and (3) love tasks – finding a suitable life-partner. He also believed that the three
were intertwined ; that is, experiences in any one arena would have influences on the other two.
The Role of Birth Order

By focusing on social structure and making astute observations (both of others and of his own
childhood), Adler came to believe in the importance of birth order in determining personality
characteristics. First-born children live for a time as the favored child because they are “only
children.” They later must learn to deal with the fact that they are not the sole focus and that
parental attention must be shared with the other sibling(s). This rather rude awakening may create
the tendency for independence and striving to regain status, or the first-born may become a
socially oriented pseudo-parent, helping to nurture siblings and others. Second-born children are
born into a situation of rivalry and competition. Adler himself felt a great sense of rivalry with his
older brother, and his inability to compete on a physical level because of his ill health led to
subsequent feeling to inferiority. Although this may be useful in that it pushes the second child
toward greater achievements, repeated failures have the potential to be quite damaging to the self-
esteem. Last-born children are usually more pampered than any of the others. They will remain
forever the “baby of the family”. Adler believed that the overabundance of sibling role models
might lead this child to feel overly pressured to succeed in all areas, and the likely inability to do so
might result in a lazy and defeatist attitude. The last born may also become a deviant in his style of
living in his effort to create a separate identity of his own.
These ideas about birth order and personality (which actually derived in part from the earlier work
of Francis Gallon) have generated a tremendous amount of research ; among the many findings,
first-borns are indeed more likely to go to college and to achieve success as scientists (Simonton,
1994). But later-borns may be more likely to be creative, rebellious, revolutionary, or avant-garde.
The book Born to Rebel (Sulloway, 1996) proposes that revolutions in science, religion, politics, and
social movements are very disproportionately driven by later-borns. On the basis of a broad review
of the biographies of 6000 people prominent in Western history, Sulloway concludes that while
first-borns show a pattern of high achievement, they are overwhelmingly less likely to propose or
support revolutionary view points than later-borns.
Adler’s Personality Typology
Adler tried to cast his ideas into the classic Greek notion of temperamental humors underlying
personality. Adler renamed the four components of his typology: (1) Ruling Dominant (aggressive
and domineering), (2) Getting Leaning (takes from others, somewhat passive), (3) Avoiding
(conquers problems by running away) and (4) Socially Useful (meets problems realistically ; is
cooperative and caring). This orientation was thought to grow out of early experiences. Adler wrote
that a body that is ill-suited to its environment will be felt by the mind as a burden. Children who
have suffered from such “imperfect organs” are challenged to try to overcome their limits, either in
an active way that is not social (becoming domineering), in an active way that is social

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(cooperation), in a passive way that is not social (taking what others dish out), or in a passive way
that is depressed (running away from problems). For many challenged children, the mind becomes
overburdened and they become self-centered (egoistic). The road to physical and mental health
involves overcoming this self-centeredness. As with most grand theories, it has proved very difficult
to establish a simple, empirical validation of this typology.
Some of Adler’s conceptions concerning the great importance of social situations were further
developed by Harry Stack Sullivan. Adler also paved the way for thinkers like Erich Fromm, who
accepted both the basic, biologically driven side of personality and the severe societal restraints on
personality, but who also tried to reconcile these forces with ideas of creativity, love, and freedom.
Perhaps Adler’s greatest gift to personality psychology was his insistence on the positive and goal-
oriented nature of humanity. He leaves us with a picture of people striving to overcome their
weakness and to function productively – in other words, people contributing to society.
Following Adler, Karen Horney also took issue with key tenets of Freudian theory. Most important,
she erred in making physical anatomy the basis of psychological differences between women and
men. She argued that Freudian assertion of feminine psychology, especially his contentions that
women are motivated by driving force of “Penis Envy”, were illogical and based on 19 th century
conservative Viennese culture. She shifted the focus from instinctual theory to cultural stereotypes
existing in the society. She adopted a more socio-cultural orientation to explain unconscious
motives and conflicts.
Karen Horney: Psycho social approach

Born in Hamburg, Germany (1885), spent most of her life consumed with doubts about her self
worth and attractiveness. She was a victim of cultural stereotype an authoritative environment
towards women (specially). She compensated by becoming an excellent student. “If I could not be
beautiful. If decided I would be smart” – Rubins 1978.
Horney dismissed Freud’s claim that there are universal psychosexual stages of development and
the child’s sexual anatomy dictates the course of personality development. Instead she argued that
social relationship between the child and the parents are decisive factors in personality growth.
According to her, childhood is characterized by two needs:
1. need for satisfaction ; and
2. need for safety
She emphasized the role of safety needs. A wide range of parental behaviours may frustrate a
child’s need for security. Eg. Indifference unfair punishment, redicul of creative behaviour over
protection, and obvious preference for a sibling. The consequence of such parental mistreatment
creates within a child an attitude of basic hostility.
The child is now caught between dependence over parents and resentment towards them, a
conflict which replaces Oedipus conflict of Freud. In effect, the insecure child is motivated by
feelings of helplessness, fear, guilt which be represses, as a defense mechanism in order to
survive. The basic hostility is eventually generalized to everyone and becomes basic anxiety.
Horney identified coping strategies to reduce the basic anxiety and make life more bearable. She
called these strategies neurotic trends.
1. Moving towards people: The compliance type
It is governed by irrational belief that “if I give in, I shall not be hurt” The sense of insecurity,
helplessness gives the reason for child to be submissive in his relationship with others. The
individual becomes unassertive and unauthoritative in the process of compliance. However,
compliance may mask repressed needs to be aggressive.

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2. Moving away from people: The Detached type

Governed by belief that “if I withdraw nothing can hurt me”. Horney believed people adopting this
strategy are detached type because they tend to withdraw from the stressful situation. They do not
get emotionally involved with others, whether in romance, work or recreation.
3. Moving against people: The Hostile type
Have delusional belief that, “I have power and no one can hurt me”. People adopting hostile
strategies assume that others are aggressive and that life is a assume that others are aggressive
and that life is a struggle against all. Thus, any situation or relationship is looked at from
perspective what I can get out of it? Individual’s main behaviour is aimed at attaining power and
control over others.
According to Horney, each strategy is conflicting with each other for both healthy and
neurotic persons. But, a healthy person judiciously mix each strategy and person from one to
another as the situation warrants. While a neurotic adopts only one strategy to cope up in all
situation irrespective of whether it is appropriate or not. Hence, they have highly inflexible and
Rigid behaviour.
INTERACTIONIST APPROACH TO PESONALITY

If personality represents enduring pattern of behaviors, then one must speculate for the reasons of
inconsistencies in the behavioral pattern that takes place from situation to situation. For instance,
one might consider himself to be basically honest but knows that he might not be perfectly honest
in all situations. If one is found cheating in exam, in one instance, will never accept that he is
cheater throughout.
Such ideas led researchers in 1930-1960 to wonder about the general importance of personality.
How can we talk about personality, if person’s behaviors change from situation to situation? The
founder of modern personality psychology grappled with the same problem. For Kurt Lewin (1935)
B=f(P,E), that is, behavior is clearly function of personal characteristics and immediate social
situations, Gordon Allport (1961) addressed the dilemma and concluded that part of each behavior
pattern represent an unvarying, underlying predisposition but that the propensity to act is realized
in different ways in different situations. And for Henry Murray it is needs that motivates the
individual from inside and environmental `press’ (for example family conflict) affected the
individual from outside. Hence, need for aggression may be translated into action if a press for
behaviour is present in form of family conflict,
Thus, the idea that personality and the situation interacts and affect behavior is an old one. People
express their personality in different ways in different situations. Persons – situation interactionist
approaches attempt to explicitly consider the social situation.
INTERPERSONAL APPROACH: HARRY STACK SULLIVAN

For Sullivan personality is inextricably tied to social situations. He defined personality to be
“relatively enduring pattern of recurrent interpersonal situations that characterize a persons life
(Sullivan 1953), Sullivan’s approach therefore is sometimes known as the (interpersonal theory to
psychiatry). It focuses on the recurring social situations that we face. For him, just as we look in a
mirror to adjust our clothing, we look in the mirrors of friends for feedback about our values
personal strengths and weaknesses. This notion it’s derived from the sociological idea of social self.
Therefore, significant psychosocial threats to well being are loneliness, isolation, and rejection. Note
that all these threats are inherently social. It makes no sense in speaking about rejection unless
some group is doing the act of rejecting. Hence , a significant aspect of ones personality attribute is
his/her experience with the social involvement during interpersonal interactions.

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This approach therefore is a mid-way between inner emphasis of psychoanalysis and the outer
emphasis of Behaviorists. For him we actually become different people in different social situations.
In each social situation we imagine how others think of us and respond accordingly. Sometimes
people move to a new town to make a `fresh start’ they try to present a new image of themselves
to new friends, new neighbors etc. This can be successful provided they do not fall back in
recreating old pattern. Therefore, the situation elicits the personality. For example when a college
students, returns home on vacations and meets the old school friends, he may responds in the
same old way as his high school friends expected from him. He may however have a different
personality for the new college friends. Therefore, Sullivan framed the idea that a person does not
have a single, fixed personality and that it is illusion of individuality. In a sense, we may have as
many personalities as we have interpersonal situations.
Since, personality is primarily a function of social expectations, Sullivan blames the society (not
internal neuroses) for most of the individual’s problems. Society is seen stifling the creative growth
need of the individual. If the society provides a positive interpersonal relation it could help the
individual to develop healthy personality and overcome most of this anxieties and associated
problems. Thus, for Sullivan the focus of study should be on interpersonal situation and not on the
person.
Basic conception of Sullivan’s theory of personality

The Structure of personality – Sullivan insisted that personality is a purely hypothetical entity. It is
an illusion’ that can’t be studied apart from interpersonal situations. The unit of study is
interpersonal situation and not the person. The organization of personality consists of interpersonal
events rather than intrapsychic ones. Personality only manifests itself while the person is behaving
in relation to one or more individuals. These people need not be present in reality, they may even
be imagined. Therefore, thinking, perceiving, remembering, imagining etc. are all psychological
processes which are interpersonal in character. Sullivan considered personality to be a dynamics
center of various processes that occur in a series of interpersonal fields. The principal processes
which form some aspect to this personality are as follows:
a) Dynamism – It is the smallest unit that can be employed in the study of the individual. It is
defined as the relatively enduring pattern of energy transformations, which recurrently
characterize the organism in its decision as a living organism. In simple words, energy
transformation (i.e. dynamism) is any form of behavior that reduces tension. The behavior
may be overt or covert like thinking fantasizing, imagining etc. Dynamism is a pattern of
behavior that is enduring and recurring. It is therefore same thing as a habit – usual ways
of tension reduction. Any habitual reaction towards a person or group, whether it be in form
of a feeling, an altitude or an overt action, constitutes a dynamism. For example – A child
who is afraid of strangers has a dynamism of fear. A man who tends to seek out lascivious
relationship with women has dynamism of lust. All people have certain basis dynamisms but
the mode of expression varies in accordance with the situation and life experience of the
individual. Dynamism is always associated with tension reduction. There are mainly two
sources of tensions.
1) Tensions that arise out of needs of an organism.
2) Tension that result from anxiety.
(1) Needs related tensions:- Needs are connected with physiochemical requirements of life for
example – hunger, thirst, oxygen etc. These are general in character. The needs may also be
specific in natures for example infants needs to suck makes it suck not only for feeding itself but
also simple for tension reduction in the oral region whence the infant sucks its thumb. Such
dynamism may employ any particular part in the body like mouth, genital, hands etc. by means of
which an individual interacts with its environment. Needs arrange themselves in a hierarchical
order, those lower down on the ladder must be satisfied before those higher on the ladder can be

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accommodated. End result of tension reduction is experience of satisfaction. Therefore tensions

may be regarded as need for particular energy transformation that will dissipate the tensions. And
if there is a prolonged failure to satisfy the need; the consequence is a feeling of apathy that
produces general lowering of tensions.
(2) Anxiety related tensions: Anxiety related tensions lead to personifications. A personification
is an image that an individual has of himself or herself or that of another person. For example a
baby develops a personification of a good mother by being nursed and cared for by her. Any
interpersonal relationship that involves satisfaction tends to build up a favorable picture of the
satisfying agent, on the other hand, baby’s personification of a bad mother results from
experiences with her that evoke anxiety. Both the personifications form a complex personification
together. Personification are also generalized for example – A person who personifies his or her
father as a mean and dictatorial man may project the same to over older men like teachers, police
officers, employers etc. Similarly one may have personifications of self such as good me or bad me.
Personifications shared by a number of people are called stereotypes. Common stereotypes are –
absent minded professor, the unconventional artist, and the hard headed business executive.
Sullivan believes that anxiety is the first great educative influence, in living. It is
transmitted to the infant by the mothering one, who is herself expressing anxiety in he looks, tone
of wise etc. To avoid or minimizes the potential anxiety, people adopt varied types of protective
measures and supervisory control over their behavior. One learns, that one can avoid punishment
by conforming to parents wishes. These security measures form the self system that sanctions
certain forms of behavior (the good me self), forbids other forms (the bad me self) and excludes
from the consciousness still other forms that are too alien and disgusting to even be considered
(the not me self). Through these processes the self-system acts as fitter for awareness. Therefore,
there is selective attention paid to such experiences, which do not evoke anxiety. And anxiety
evoking events and feelings are refused to be registered. Therefore that self system is the content
of consciousness that harbours self respect, prestige etc. and directs the behavior in a perfection
manner. Sullivan held the society responsible for the irrationality within self system. With more
liberal and rational modern society the self system of an individual would became more objective
and elaborate.
Cognitive process:- Sullivan’s unique contribution regarding the place of cognition in the affairs of
personality is his three fold classification of experience. According to Sullivan, experience occurs in
three modes: (1) Prototaxic (2) Parataxic and (3) Syntaxic.
Prototaxic experience “may be regarded as the discrete series of momentary states of the sensitive
organism”. This type of experience in similar to the raw sensations, images and feelings that flow
through the mind of a sensate being. They have no necessary meaning for the experiencing person.
This mode of experience is found in the purest form during the early months of life.
The parataxic mode of thinking consists of seeing causal relationship between events that
occur at about the same time but are not logically related. Sullivan believed that much of our
thinking does not advance beyond the level of parataxic. All superstitions, for instance, are
examples of parataxic thinking. Paratiaxic thinking has much in common with the process Skinner
called superstitious behavior.
The syntaxic mode of thinking consists of consensually validated symbol activity, especially
of a verbal nature. A consensually validated symbol is one that has been agreed upon by a group of
people as having a standard meaning, words and numbers are the best example for such symbolic.
The syntaxic mode produces logical order among experiences and enables people to communicate
with one another.
Eg. Use of maths formulas wherever they are applicable.

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Inter Personal Approach

1. Interpersonal relationship and development of Personality: According to Sullivan, every
biological organism looses its biological entity and becomes a social beings, as it proceeds through
the various stages of involving different patterns of interpersonal relations Sullivan represents the
synthesis of Freud & Rogers while describing the development of personality.
The process of transformation of a biological organism to a social being is called
socialization and socialization starts at home. The first instances of interaction of a child are mainly
with his parents who initiate the process of socialization. Later with adolescence & gradual
emancipation from parents, peer relationship becomes increasingly important. In the young
adulthood, intimate relationships are established, culminating typically in a marital set up. Failure
to progress satisfactorily through the various stage of development paves way for later
maladjustments.
Interpersonal Relationship with parents: Parent comprises of mother and father. Mother is a
supportive leader because she supports the child by meeting his needs, cares for him and loves
him. Due to this interdependence, a bond develops which is called attachment. When mother
responds secure attachment. This security leads to development of trust in the personality. When
the mother is of selfish nature or not able meet the demands of the child, the child becomes
insecure which leads to the development of his suspicious character. (Paranoid).
Father is the permissive leader he comes into play later on, after the mother – Child interaction has
been established Father is also instrumental in shaping up the process of attachment in the child.
2. Interpersonal relationship with peers & significant other: Sullivan emphasized on the role of
early childhood relationship in shaping the self concept which he thought to be constituted largely
of the reflected appraisals of significant others. For example : if a little boy perceives others or
rejecting him or treating him worthless, then he is likely to develop a negative self image that leads
to maladjustments. Whereas a child who gets positive feedbacks and repeated appraisal, develops
self confidence and becomes capable of his attachment to any kind of group. This increases the
sociability of the child or friendliness in the child.
The pressure of socialization process and continuous appraisal by others, leads a child to label
some personal tendencies within him as `good bad’ and `bad me’. It is the `bad me’ that is
associated with anxiety. This anxiety is higher in those young girls who are reared in a very rigid
and conservative social set up. (Explain) With time, the individual develops a self system, which
serves to protect him/her from such anxiety through the use of ego defense mechanism. Often, if
an anxiety arousing tendency is too severe, the individual perceives it as `Not Me’ totally screening
it out of his/her consciousness or even attributing it so someone else. Such actions lead to
incongruity between reality and individual perception, which results in maladaptive behaviour.
The dynamism in the personality was accorded for by the concepts of Social Exchange, roles and
games.
There are three ways of viewing our relationships with other and are helpful in understanding both
satisfactory and hurtful interactions.
i) Social Exchange View: It was largely developed by THIBAULT & KELLEY. It is based on the
premise that the purpose underlying the formation of relationship with each other is of satisfying
our needs. Each person in the relationship wants something form the other and the exchange that
results is essentially a trading or bargaining one. It, at any instance a person feels that he has
entered into a bad bargain. (i.e. rewards are not worth the cost incurred), then there are two
possibilities :
a) He may attempt at working out some compromises or
b) Terminate the relationship altogether.

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ii) Social roles: This view to interpersonal relationship brings about the importance of roles
that the society presents to an individual. For example: one can occupy the position of a teacher
and perform the role of teaching. Roles are important as they bring organization and cohesiveness
in the society. While each individual leads to a personal interpretation of the role, there are usually
limits to the scripts beyond which the person is not expected to go. Hence, how will he plays the
role is contingent on the degree of compatibility that exists between his interpretation of the role
and the societal expectation.
Similarly, in the case of intimate interpersonal relationship between two persons, each holds certain
role expectations in terms of obligations, rights, duties etc. that the other person is expected to
meet. In case of failure to meet the expectation, the relationship suffers strain and discomfort. For
example: Husband and wife relationship, if both have different conception as to what a “husband”
or a “wife” should be like, the problem is likely to set in and weaken the interpersonal relations.
iii) Games: ERIC, BERNE has focused at the `games’ people play in interpersonal relationships.
According to him, such games are not consciously played but rather involve a sort of role playing
which people are either entirely or partially unaware of such games are presumed to serve
following purposes:
a) They act as stabilizers to help maintain the relationship.
b) They can protect us from undesirable situations and enable us to overcome disappointment.
c) They can act a substitute for true intimacy in daily life intimacy for which may people are
unprepared. (Example) Games in no way can be good substitute to authentic relations and
if over relied upon may turn out to be dangerous.
Interpersonal accommodation in Interpersonal Approach

Interpersonal accommodation is a process whereby two persons evolve a pattern of communication
that enables them to attain goals, meet mutual needs and build a satisfying relationship. People
communicate in many ways – Verbal and non-verbal and individuals in a relationship use many
cues in order to interpret what is really being said. In case of family interactions, at emotional
level, faulty communication is more common which causes strain in interpersonal relationship. If
individuals who are in close relationship have unresolved misunderstanding, then it is likely that
they will have trouble in communicating clearly and openly to others. (Example) Final phase of
failing marriage is often marked by almost complete inability of communication between the couple.
Other than communication, interpersonal, accommodation has number of other adjustive demands
such as:
1. Methods of resolving conflict
2. Meeting the situational demands (Example) Sullivan thought that interpersonal
accommodation is facilitated when the motives people in a relationship are complementary.
The clarity of communication is a must for any relationship to strive. Greater the clarity,
greater the reciprocity of mutual relationship. Further , for strong interpersonal ties the presence of
super ordinate goals is a must and these goals emerge only when communication is smooth and
any misinterpretation is avoided.
BEHAVIORISTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

The theoretical approach that ignored mental constructs & viewed personality to be symbolic
construct or one’s behavior repertoire (i.e. set of behavior that an individual is capable of
exhibiting) was called as Behaviouristic Approach.

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Behaviourism was introduced by John Wastson in 1913 with the intentions of making it more
scientific based only upon the observables. With the goal to predict & control behaviour. It viewed
man as a natural being who is subject to manipulations by the stimulants operating in his
environment.
Nomotheism replaced the Idiographic approach in the program & in the due course; two important
groups of Behavioirists emerged:
I. Radical behaviourists: They were those who accorded no importance to the mental
constructs & were hardliners. The pioneers of this school were :-
1. Pavlov 2. Skinner 3. Thorndike etc.
II. Reciprocal behaviorists: They were the cognitive learning theorists or social learning
theorists who gave due consideration to the role of human mental processing in acting as
an mediating variable between stimulants and responses. The champions of this field were
:-
2. Dolland & Miller
3. Bandura
4. Rotter etc.
The basic premises of behaviourial approach to personality are:

1. Manipulable determinants of human behavior lie outside the person in his environment.
2. Man is reactive in nature & not proactive. This helps in seeking futuristic view to human
behaviour, thus accommodating the scope for predications.
3. Human behaviours are rigid and inflexible. This suggests that man is left with no choice other
than to behave in compliance with the environmental stimulus.
4. They assume that behaviour follows a set of basic principles that hold across the species of
animals.
5. Human behaviour is essentially learned & therefore can be unlearned or relearned.
6. In sharp contrast to traditional personality theory which holds individual difference to be the
focus of study while the situational variables are the artifacts, behavioursts consider individual
differences to be troublesome artifacts in the design that leave variables uncontrolled.
7. Some behaviours appear to be stable from situation to situation. This notion is advocated by
Trait theorists. Behaviourists account for by it assuming that situations in question may be
identical.
BEHAVIOURIST VIEW ON PERSONALITY:

In contrast to Freud’s concept that personality is an outcome of continuous conflict between Id. Ego
& Superego. Behaviourists believed personality to be largely an expression of behaviour repertoire
i.e. set of behaviour on individual is capable of displaying.
There are the patterns of behaviour which the individual learns in coping with the environment. We
all have distinct life (learning) experiences, which impact the component of uniqueness to our
personality.
Some behavioural patterns are learned through:
1. Direct experiences or conditioning.
2. Learning by observation also called as cognitive and social learning or modeling.

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1. Learning by Conditioning: It is based on the assumption that many behaviours that make
up personality are conditioned or learned. Also the current conditions is in an individual’s
environment help to maintain these behaviours.
PAVLOV was one of the earliest contributors who came up with the concept of classical
conditioning. It is the process in which originally neutral or indifferent stimulus repeatedly paired
with a reinforces or unconditioned stimulus, comes to elicit a response reinforces are also called
respondents as they initially elicit the responses automatically or reflexively. This type of
conditioning is called S Type Conditioning. For example : A dog salivates in response to a bell
(originally neutral stimulus) when paired with food (reinforcement). This suggests that human
behaviour are a set of reflexive responses to conditional stimulus.
Pavlov also explained the cause of abnormal behaviour to be the result of
i) Failure of discrimination
ii) Inappropriate generalization
i) Failure of discrimination. It was accorded for by the experimentation with the dog who was
initially made to learn how to discriminate between a circle & an ellipse – Later, the ellipse was
gradually shaped in a circular form so that the dog failed to discriminate between the two. As a
result the dog developed Èxperimental Neurosis’ which was reflected in his aggressive & abnormal
behaviours.
The experimentation with the dog was extended to account for the maladaptive human
behaviour & disorders. For example :
1. Faulty discrimination leads to manic-depressive reaction in experimental group.
2. A young delinquent fails to discriminate between responsible & responsible behavior.
3. A schizophrenic bizarre discriminations. Abnormal behavior could also result due to
inappropriate generalizations as in the experiment with little Albert. He was conditioned for
irrational fear at the sight of a white rat which later on generalized to include other furry
objects & animals as well.
Ex.: A women who has been deceived or emotionally hurt by a man concludes that men are not
trust worthy.
The understanding of personality was carried forward by SKINNER who used Thorndike’s LAW OF
EFFECT to explain it.
Instrumental Conditioning: The Law of effect suggest that responses that have rewarding
consequences are learned where as responses with aversive consequences are extinguished. By
instrumental Conditioning, Skinner was able to show how voluntary responses can be acquired by
judicious mix of reinforcement & punishment. He was also able to account for learning of complex
behaviours of animals through the process of shaping and chaining. For ex.: The same process is
used by a piano learner in which he uses both his hands simultaneously after learning to play with
individual hands.
The work of Pavlov & Skinner have high practical applicability as it has been employed in the
treatment of various abnormalities. Ex.: MARY COVER JONES experimented with little boy Peter &
demonstrated that phobias can be unlearned through the process of de-conditioning.
The works have also been applied for development of personality.

III. Learning by observation or Social learning or Modeling
The radicals invited controversy on the issue of situational specificity called person-situation
controversy. The trait theorists advocated consistency of personality so that a person could be

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characterized by his enduring traits. Behaviourists were criticized of providing a person less view of
personality:
This criticism encouraged BANDURA & ROTTER to improve upon the radical stand by putting forth
social learning theories. According to them a person’s action in a given situation depends on:
a) The specific characteristic of the situation
b) The individuals appraisal of the situation
c) Vicarious observations of someone else being punished or reinforced.
While skinner holds that there can be no learning without reinforcement. Bandura says that there
can be no reinforcement without prior cognition. Learning is cognitively mediated and not due to
consequence of environment alone. He suggested that behaviour does shape up by consequences
as a whole and not in parts.
Bandura differed from Skinner in suggesting the existence of self produced reinforcement along
with external reinforcement. This concept of self produced reinforcement was close to humanistic
approach, which regards behaviour to be guided by values. This self produced reinforcement gives
rise to a self set standard of behaviour that people fix for themselves. They act in compliance of
these standards and are likely to ignore external reinforcements if they don’t comply with these
standards.
Ex.: 1. Honesty is a self produced reinforcement
2. Reading a novel before exams.
3. Exercising regularly etc are other examples`.
Humanistic Theories
Abraham H. Maslow: Originating from the existential model, Maslow’s theory has been enjoying a
central position amongst the humanistic theories of personality.
Maslow(968) believed that people are motivated to seek personal goals that make their lives
rewarding and meaningful. Infact, maturational processes lie at the very core of his personality
theory.
Maslow depicted human being as a ‘wanting organisms’ who rarely reaches a state of total
satisfaction. The state of absence of any need, if at all exists, is at the best short-lived. As one
general type of need is satiated, another surfaces and commands a person’s attention and his
effort. The process goes on and the characteristics of human life is that people are almost always
desiring something.
Maslow proposed that all human needs are
innate or instinctoid and they are
systematically arranged in an ascending
hierarchy of priority or prepotency The order
Ne
of priority of the needs are: e ds
(i) Physiological need
(ii) Safety and security needs Ne
ed
(iii) Belongingness and love needs Self Esteem s
(iv) Self-esteem needs

Ne
(v) Self-actualization needs. e ds
Love & Belongingness
Underlying this scheme is the assumption Ne

ed
that lower order, prepotent needs must be s
Safety & Security
Ne
e ds
RAU’S IAS STUDY CIRCLE | PSYCHOLOGY OPTIONAL
Physiological 24
Maslow's need Hierarchy Pyramid

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relatively satisfied before the person can become aware of or get motivated by higher order needs.
Thus, physiological needs must be reasonably met before safety needs become salient, both
physiological and safety needs must be satisfied to some degrees before belongingness and love
needs emerge and press for satisfaction, and so forth.
For Maslow, this sequential arrangement is the chief principle underlying human motivation. He
said that farther up the hierarchy a person is able to go, the more individuality, humanity and
psychological health he or she will demonstrate. Although Maslow acknowledged some exceptions
where creative people have pursued the expression of their special talents despite hardships and
unsatisfied lower order needs. Also there are people who are willing to suffer hunger or thirst or
even die but would not renounce their moral values and ideas. E.g., Mahatma Gandhi – Satyagrah.
Maslow speculated that some people might get their hierarchies scrambled due to certain unusual
factors in personal history. For e.g., some people may place a higher priority on their esteem
needs, rather than on their love and belonging needs. However, in general, lower the need in
hierarchy, stronger it is.
A key notion in Maslow’s theory is that needs are not gratified in all or none manner.
Instead, needs overlap and a person may be motivated by two or more needs level at any one
time. According to Maslow, an average person has his/he needs met to the following levels-.5%
physiological, 70% safety and security, 50% love and belongingness, 40% self-esteem, 10% self-
actualization.
It should be noted that no matter how far up the need hierarchy a person has advanced; if a lower
level need is frustrated, the person will return to the unsatisfied level and remain there until that
need is reasonably satisfied.
 Physiological needs - They are most urgent, basic and powerful need as they are essential for
physical survival. They must be ratified to certain minimum level before the next higher
orders need attains importance. E.g., A chronically hungry person is not likely to strive to
compose music, pursue a career, or build a brave new world. Such a person is too pre-
occupied with getting something to eat.
 Safety and security needs - Once physiologicalt needs' are fairly well-satisfied, the person
becomes concerned about safety needs. These include need for stability; law and order,
predictability, freedom from threatening forces. E.g., Illness, fear and chaos.
These needs reflect concern about long-term survival.

Such needs, according to Maslow, are most evident in infants and young children because of their
increasing degree of dependency and helplessness. He observed that infants respond fearfully to
loud noises, illness, etc. A child with broken legs may temporarily experience fear, have night
mares and manifest a need for protection and reassurance not evident before accident. Certain
implications of safety needs:
1. Children have preference for same kind of depreciable or undisrupted routine.
If certain degree of routine or discipline is absent within the family, as in the case of
parents who adopt unrestricted permissive child rearing practices, the safety and
security needs of the child get frustrated. Not going to bed at a certain time or not
eating at regular intervals causes confusion and fright in the child. Factors like parental
quarrellings, separations, physical assaults, death within family are particularly harmful
to the child's sense of well-being.
2. The preference for fixed tenure and financial protection in the case of selection of job
maintaining savings account and insurance, etc. may be considered to be motivated by
safety needs.]

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3. To some extent, even the religious beliefs stern may help a person to organize his/her
world and people in it into coherent and meaningful whole. This makes the person feel
secure.
4. Maslow talked about neurotic, safety needs which find specific expression in search for
protection or stronger system on whom they may depend. E.g. obsessive compulsive
type.
 Belongingness and love needs

The person operating at this level longs for affectionate relationships with others, for a place in
his/her family or reference group. Consequently, group application becomes the dominant goal for
a person. He frequently feels pangs of loveliness, friendliness and rejection in absence of loved
ones.
E.g., Students who attend college far from home fall prey to belonging needs, striving to be
accepted and recognized by peers. :.
The adolescent seeks love in form of respect and acknowledgement of his/her independence as a
self-governing person and gravitates towards athletics, music, academic and other closely knit
groups.
The young adults want love in the form of sexual intimacy i.e. to be involved in romantic
relationship with a member of opposite sex.
Maslow has identified two kinds of adults love:
a) Deficiency or D - love
b) Being or B –love
D - Love - is the love out of need for something we lack, such as self-esteem, sex, or someone to
keep us from being lonely.
B- Love - is based on valuing the other person as a person, as an end in himself or herself without
any desire to change or to use that individual in any way. Maslow expressed this as loving the
'being' of the other despite his or her imperfections. It is non-possessive, non- intrusive and
concerned, primarily with fostering in the other person a positive self-image, self-acceptance, a
feeling of love worthiness, all of which permit the individual to grow. Being loved and accepted is
instrumental to healthy feelings of worth. No being loved generates futility, emptiness and hostility.
 Self-esteem needs
When our needs for being loved and for loving others have been reasonably gratified, their
motivating force diminishes, pausing way for self-esteem needs. Maslow divided these into two
basic types: Self-respect and respect from others. The former includes such concerns as desire for
competence, confidence, achievement, independence and freedom. Respect from others entails
such concerns as desire for prestige, recognition, reputation, status, appreciation and acceptance.
Satisfaction of the self-esteem needs generate feelings and attitudes of self-confidence, self- worth
capability and sense of being useful and necessary in the world. In contrast, frustration of these
needs leads to feelings and attitudes of inferiority, ineptness, weakness, passivity and dependency.
Maslow emphasized that healthy self-esteem is based on earned respect from others rather, than
fame, social status, or adulation, Esteem needs on ... than on demonstrated ability, achievement
and adequacy. Self-esteem must be founded on our actual worth, not on external factors outside
our control. Maslow suggested that esteem needs tend to reach a plateau in adulthood and then
diminish in intensity during middle years. The reasons for this are two fold. First, adults usually
acquire a more realistic appraisal of their true worth and value, so that the esteem needs no longer
continue as significant forces in their lives. Second, most adult have experienced. an adequate

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amount of esteem gratification. These reasons may account in possible for Maslow's claim that true
self Self-actualization actualization occurs only in the years following middle age.
 Self-actualization needs
Maslow characterizes self-actualization as the person's desire to become, everything that he or she
is capable of becoming. The person who has achieved this highest level presses towards the full use
and exploitation of his or her talents, capacities and potentialities. In Maslow's words, "what
humans can be, they must be.”
Self-actualization need not take the form of creative and artistic endeavuors. A parent, an athlete,
a student or teacher, or an ardent labourer may all be actualizing their potential in doing well what
each does best. It is at this upper most level of Maslow's need hierarchy that individual differences
are the greatest.
Carl Roger (1902):

He had a phenomenological perspective to personality: His position in the logical continnum of
phenomenology can be discovered by the following assumptions he made:
a) Internal frame of reference: A person’s senses do not mirror the world of reality directly;
rather effective reality is the reality as observed and interpreted by the reacting organism. He
called it psychological reality, which exists within a person’s internal frame of reference or
subjective world, including everything in his awareness at any point of time.
In order to answer why a person behaves, thinks, feels in a way he does one needs to get inside
his personal world of meaning.
Skinner believed that regularities of behaviour could be explained in terms of responses to

objective stimulus situation. While Roger held that it is the interpretation of the stimulus situations
and its personal meaning that governs the behavior.
b) Ahistoric view: Ahistoric view of Roger was in total defiance with Freudian notion that
behavior is derivative of historical aspect. Roger denied past experience to be the primary factor
underlying personality.
He rather held that it is the present interpretation of the past experiences rather than factual
existence, that influences our current behaviour.
He also believed that ongoing behaviour is strongly influenced by how people foresee their future.
E.g. If a young woman regards herself as socially unskilled due to experienced difficulties with men,
her present dilemma is not so much due to past failure but due to her perceived anticipation of
future failures. She is governed by self fulfilling prophecy, namely, she would be unable to charm
men because she lacks social skills. Hence, Roger preferred personality to be studied in
present/future framework.
c) Positive view of human nature (self actualization): All behaviour is energized and guided by
a single, unitary motive which is called actualizing tendency by Roger.
Actualizing tendency represents the inherent tendency of the organism to develop all its capacities
in which serve to maintain and enhance the person.
Therefore, it is the primary motive of an individual to become his best self that his inherited nature
allows him to be. It is a life long process of becoming a fully functional person.

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Roger believed this tendency to be one central source of energy rooted in person’s physiological as
well as psychological processes.
1. Self actualization in context of physiological processes:

This inborn predisposition involves maintenance as well as enhancement of organism at an organic
level.
a) Maintenance: It maintains the organism by meeting the deficiency needs (air, food and
water) Ex. Hunger, acc to Roger, is not a separate drive or motive rather it is just one
specific expression of master motive/self actualization underlying human existence. It
serves to maintain the person.
b) Enhancement: By providing for development and differentiation of body organs and their
functions, its growth and continued re-generation.
2. Self neutralization in context of psychological process:
At psychological level, the individual has predispositions moves him in a direction towards
enhanced autonomy and self sufficiency.
Eg. Sex serves to enhance the person’s sense of creativity as it is tied with pro-creation; obtaining
a job promotion, getting good grades, striving to be independent helping poor etc. all makes a
person’s life enriching and satisfying.
Self actualizing does not merely aim at tension reduction but also involves tension increase.
Motives and drives do not account for goal directed behaviors but humanity is governed by growth
processes where in potentials and capacities are brought to realization. This urge of self
development is compelling therefore a person continues despite the pain and setback he/she may
have to endure.
Eg. A child learning to walk falls, buckles at knees, bumps his head and eventually learns to walk.
All life experiences are evaluated in terms of how well they serve the actualizing tendency Roger
used the term organism valuing process in this connection. Those experience which people perceive
to be self enhancing and promoting the sought after and assigned a positive value.
People derive satisfaction from such experiences. Conversely, experiences that are perceived to be
hindering actualization are avoided and valued negatively. The natural tendency is to approach
actualizing experiences and avoid those, which are perceived negatively.
Eg. Even an infant values food when he is hungry but when he gets satisfied, he gets disgusted
with it. At one movement he values stimulation (playing) while soon after, he values only rest.
Finally, Roger said that self actualization is never enough to abandon the motive altogether. There
are always more talents to develop, more skills to be enhanced and more pleasurable ways to
satisfy biological urges.
So, self actualization is a matter of degree.
3. Holistic view of Personality concept of self:

Rogers suggested that complexity of human behaviour can only be understood by reference to
entire person his/her unity cannot be derived by attempting to reduce it to component parts.
Person behaves as an integrated whole.
To be precise, he used the term self or self concept to define person’s conception of the kind of
person he or she is self is the single major component of personality unlike Freudian notion of
structured personality (Id. Ego. Superior)
Self concept reflects those characteristics that the person perception like I am intelligent, loving,
honest etc. Often, self concept reflects the role we play in life. A person’s self concept may thus

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include a conglomeration of self images such as parent, student, employee, athletic, musician, etc.
So, his self concept is composed of different sets of perceptions reflecting many specific roles in
each life contexts.
The self concept includes not only self images (perceptions) but also what we would like to be. This
is called ideal self. So ideal self reflects those attributes which the person likes to possess but does
not possess currently. Hence, it is most valued and aspired.
DEVELOPMENT OF SELF CONCEPT

Roger did not formulate specific timetable of critical stages through which self concept emerges. He
concentrated on the ways, individual evaluates his experiences that tend to promote the
development of a positive or negative self concepts.
Initially the neonate (infant) is not aware of himself or herself as a separate being as Ì’, `me’.
Therefore. Early in life self is non-entity.
Differentiation, which is a part of self actualizing process, gradually helps the child differentiate his
phenomenal field and accordingly the child beings to distinguish himself or herself from rest of the
world.
Once self is formed, it is governed by organismic valuing process alone. For eg. Hunger, thirst, loud
noise, cold, pain etc. are all negatively valued as they interfere with individual’s actualizing
tendencies i.e. Maintenance of biological integrity. Likewise, food, water, security, love are
positively valued because they favors the enhancement of actualizing tendencies.
The structure of self is subsequently shaped through the interaction with the environment;
particularly environment composed of significant others (parents, siblings, relatives). A child
becomes socially sensitive and with maturity in his perceptual abilities, his/her self conception
becomes increasingly differentiated and complex. Hence, person’s self concept is largely a product
of process of socialization.
NEED OF POSITIVE REGARDS: With emerging self concept, the child becomes, increasingly
prosocial and a social being. According to Rogers, the child will do anything even sacrifice his
organismic valuing process others.
A child behaves like a “nice little boy” in order to receive the regard in the form of love and
experiences in the form of love and affection from the parents. The child begins to value
experiences in terms of parental image of “meekness” rather in terms o his own organismic
reaction to them. He does not feel to discover how it feels to be called naughty when (say) he puts
a frog in his sister’s bed or steal a toy from his friend. This child’s behaviour seems to be guided by
likelihood of getting positive regards or in anticipation of positive regards from significant others.
POSITIVE SELF REGARDS: People who need to view themselves positively. It implies that positive
regards are sought from none other than his/her own self structure. Here, self structure behaves
like “significant social others”.
CONDITIONS OF WORTH: These specify the circumstances under which the children will experience
positive regards. Ex. – a child is loved only upon display of certain expected behaviour.
In course of time people develop inside them conditions of worth which restrict their behaviour.
They also distort the reality because even becoming aware of the forbidden reality can be
threatening. As a result of this defensiveness, they cannot interact fully with the environment.
UNCONDITIONAL POSITIVE REGARDS: Means a person is accepted and respected without any ìts’,
ànds’ or `buts’.
Ex – mother bestows her love for child unconditionally, no matter now objectionable repugnant his
behaviour is. Rogers suggests UPR (unconditional positive regards) as an ideal approach to child

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rearing. It does not imply indiscipline or lack of social constraints. It simply means child is valued
and loved for exactly what he or she is a precious human being. UPR, when experienced by the
child allows them to develop their own values and satisfaction in accord with these real experiences
independent of approval by others Rogers believed that unconditional positive regards lay the
foundation of a fully functional individual.
THREAT AND PROCESS OF DEFENSE: Experiences in accord with person’s self concepts are
symbolized accurately to the awareness (i.e. experience is permitted entry into awareness as it is)
such experiences are accurately perceived conversely. When incoming experiences conflict with the
self concept they are prevented entry into awareness.
According to Rogers, threat exists whenever there is any incongruity between self concepts and
actual experience. Ex. A person who views himself honest when acts in a dishonest manner, he/she
is in state of threat and may suffer confusion guilt or tensions. Hence, process of defense is the
behavioral response to threat where in the reality of experience is distorted in such a way as to
minimize the in congruence by defense the integrity or wholeness of self structure.
DEFENSE MECHANISM: Can be only of two types according to Roger- Denial and Perceptual
distortion
a) Denial-Non-acceptance of reality
b) Perceptual distortion also called teacher did not teach well.
FULLY FUNCTIONING PERSON: Individuals, who use their talents, realize their potentials and move
towards complete knowledge of themselves and the environment are moving towards becoming
fully functional person.
Five major personality characteristics of fully functioning individuals are :
a) Openness to experience – No defense (Explain)
b) Existential loving tendency to live fully in each moment without carrying any prejudice
from past. Hence, people become tolerant, flexible, spontaneous, adaptable, etc.
c) Organism trusting – Doing what one feels right Roger felt that it has good results in decision
making.
d) Experiential freedom – “I am solely responsible for my own actions and their
consequences”. It is subjective freedom and sense of personal power to become self
directed.
e) Creativity – Person involved in good life is the source of creative ideas, projects and actions.
He is constructive and adaptive to culture while at the same time satisfies his own deepest
needs.
Gordan W. Allport
(1897-1967)
Allport, Gordon W. (1897-1967), was an American psychologist known for his research in human
personality. Allport opposed the idea that an individual's personality is a bundle of physiological
drives and conditioned responses. Allport emphasized the gradual growth and unfolding of human
personality. He believed that a person is not a mechanical product of environmental forces, but a
unique force striving to develop his or her own potential. Gordon Willard Allport was born in
Montezuma, Indiana, U.S.A.
Theory

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One thing that motivates human beings is the tendency to satisfy biological survival needs, which
Allport referred to as opportunistic functioning. He noted that opportunistic functioning can be
characterized as reactive, past-oriented, and, of course, biological.
But Allport felt that opportunistic functioning was relatively unimportant for understanding most of
human behavior. Most human behavior, he believed, is motivated by something very different --
functioning in a manner expressive of the self -- which he called propiate functioning. Most of what
we do in life is a matter of being who we are! Propiate functioning can be characterized as
proactive, future-oriented, and psychological.
Propiate comes from the word propium, which is Allport’s name for that essential concept, the
self. He had reviewed hundreds of definitions for that concept and came to feel that, in order to
more scientific, it would be necessary to dispense with the common word self and substitute
something else. For better or worse, the word propium never caught on.
To get an intuitive feel for what propiate functioning means, think of the last time you wanted to do
something or become something because you really felt that doing or becoming that something
would be expressive of the things about yourself that you believe to be most
important. Remember the last time you did something to express your self, the last time you told
yourself, “that’s really me!” Doing things in keeping with what you really are, that’s propiate
functioning.
The propium
Putting so much emphasis on the self or propium, Allport wanted to define it as carefully as
possible. He came at that task from two directions, phenomenologically and functionally.
First, phenomenologically, i.e. the self as experienced: He suggested that the self is composed of
the aspects of your experiencing that you see as most essential (as opposed to incidental or
accidental), warm (or “precious,” as opposed to emotionally cool), and central (as opposed to
peripheral). In other words you know the most essential, valued and central parts of yourself.
Propium is the known part of one's self. It is observed by the knower i.e. the subject and
represents his views about his self. Hence, it is self-represented as an object, where Ì’ is the
subject or knower. The subject is the active observer who actively processes his experiences.
The propium is represented by 'Me' i.e. the observed. In other words, if self represents the
personality of the individual in totality, propium is the selfhood or empirical self.
The term propium was coined by Allport to represent 'self as known and experienced as warm and
central. It is the me part of subjective experience. Allport identified seven different aspects of
'selfhood' which are involved in the development of the propium from infancy to adulthood. He
called these aspects as propiate functions. They evolve slowly over time and ultimately get
consolidated whence they constitute the 'self as an object of subjective knowledge and feeling.
His functional definition became a developmental theory all by itself. The self has seven functions,
which tend to arise at certain times of one’s life:
1. Sense of body
2. Self-identity
3. Self-esteem
4. Self-extension
5. Self-image
6. Rational coping
7. Propiate striving

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1. Sense of bodily self

It is the first aspect of propium to evolve. During the 1 st year of life, infants become aware of
many sensations that emanate from muscles and tendons, internal organs, joints, etc. These
recurrent sensations constitute the bodily self. In turn, the infant begins to distinguish himself from
other objects: I(remains the anchor of self-awareness throughout the life, however, most adults
remain unaware about bodily self unless they suffer pain or illness. The importance of bodily self
can be understood from the following demonstration. Imagine spitting saliva into a cup -- and then
drinking it down! What’s the problem? It’s the same stuff you swallow all day long! But, of
course, it has gone out from your bodily self and become, thereby, foreign to you.
2. Sense of self-identity . .
The second aspect of self to unfold is the self identity. The process begins with language acquisition
when the child learns his name and recognizes himself for herself as distinct and constant point of
reference. He realizes that he/she is the same person inspite of great changes in growth and
interaction with the world that is taking place. Allport believed that self identity continuously
changes as other things like toys, clothes, goals etc. get associated to strengthen his self identity.
There comes a point were we recognize ourselves as continuing, as having a past, present, and
future.
3. Sense of self-esteem
During the third year of life, the child starts taking pride in his/her accomplishments. Self- esteem,
thus, depends on child's success in mastering tasks of the world. Parents frequently consider this
age as the age of negativism since the child resists any adult proposal as a threat to his integrity
and autonomy. Allport argued that parents should not frustrate the child's age to explore and
manipulate the environment, for this may lead to feelings of shame and anger in the child. Later by
age of 4-5 years, self-esteem acquires a competitive flavour. This, for Allport, is what the “anal”
stage is really all about!
4. Sense of self-extension
Approximately at 4-6 years of age, the propium gets elaborated through self-extension. Here, self
comes to include relevant aspects of not only physical environment but also his social environment
i.e. significant others. Children become jealous and possessive like. This is my ball, my dog, my
sister etc. are regarded as integral part of the self and are to be guarded against loss especially
against take over by another child. Certain things, people, and events around us also come to be
thought of as central and warm, essential to my existence. “My” is very close to “me!” Some
people define themselves in terms of their parents, spouse, or children, their clan, gang,
community, college, or nation. Some find their identity in activities: I’m a psychologist, a student,
a bricklayer. Some find identity in a place: my house, my hometown. ? If someone scratches my
car, why do I feel like they just punches me?
5. Self-image .
At around 5 or 6 years of age, the goals and aspirations of the child begin to reflect the aspirations
of significant others. The child comes to know what parents, teachers and relatives expect them to
be and in this way, he begins, to distinguish between the 'good me' and 'bad me' respectively.
However, the child has no clearly developed conscience and therefore, he is concerned about what
he wants to be, while what he ought to be is still germinal.

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6. Sense of self as a rational coper

Between 6 and 12 years of age, abstract reasoning and logic is applied in solving day-to-day
problems. But the child does not yet trust himself/herself to be an independent moral agent.
Rather, he dogmatically believes that his/her family, religion and peers are right. This stage reflects
intensive moral and social conformity. This is analogous to Erickson’s “industry.”
7. Propiate Striving
The adolescent knows that the future must follow a plan. Hence, he starts pursuing long range
goals having a sense of directedness and intentionality in striving for defined objectives. He imparts
a sense of purpose to his life. Allport viewed the realization of propiate strivings as requiring a
unified sense of selfhood. But as the self-identity is yet to be searched, only in adulthood when all
the aspects of self are consolidated does this occur.
In addition to the above seven aspects of propium, Allport suggested that there is self as a knower
which represents the subjective self or 'I’, which is aware of the objective 'me'. Self as a knower
represents the final stage in development of propium, that represents human capacity of self-
recognition and self-consciousness.
The culmination of propiate striving, according to Allport, is the ability to say that I am the
proprietor of my life -- i.e. the owner and operator!
FUNCTIONAL AUTONOMY
Basic to Allport's theories or the idea that personality is dynamic growing system i.e. it i motivated.
Allport offered his own analysis of motivation in the concept of functional autonomy of motives. It
simply means that adult motives are not related to past motives. Allport didn’t believe in looking
too much into a person’s past in order to understand his present. This belief is most strongly
evident in the concept of functional autonomy: Your motives today are independent (autonomous)
of their origins.
Past motives explain nothing unless they are also present motives. Thus, he disagreed Freud's
contention that 'the child is the father of man'. Thus, the personality is liberalized from the past;
the bonds to the past are historical and not functional.
Examples of Functionally autonomous motives
1. The skilled craftsman who perfects his product even though his, income no longer
depends on the extra efforts.
2. The miser who continues to amass money while living in poverty.
In both the cases, behaviour that was once motivated by need for money persisted in
absence of that motivation.
Hence, the behaviour has been functionally autonomous of past motives.

In 1961. Allport distinguished between 2 flavours of Functional Autonomy:
1. Preservative functional autonomy

It suffices to the feedback mechanism in the nervous system that are governed by simple
neurological principles. These are physiologically based motivational systems that once activated
continues for a time without further stimulation from the environment. E.g., A man who becomes
habituated to cycles of feeding, going to bed at same time each day, becomes restless if regular
interval of food ingestion or sleep is violated. This refers essentially to habits -- behaviors that no

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longer serve their original purpose, but still continue. You may have started smoking as a symbol
of adolescent rebellion, for example, but now you smoke because you can’t quit!
2. Propiate Functional Autonomy

Propiate functional autonomy is something a bit more self-directed than habits. Values are the
usual example. Perhaps you were punished for being selfish when you were a child. That doesn’t
in any way detract from your well-known generosity today -- it has become your value. It involves
person's acquired interests, attitudes and values. It is a higher system of motivation which makes a
person's strivings for values and goals. It is a master system of motivation that imparts consistency
to the person's striving of a congruent self image and a higher level of maturity and growth.
Allport's theory of Functional Autonomy contradicts principle of Homeostatsis since once the motive
becomes functionally autonomous, it becomes self-sustainable. While homeostasis implies cyclic
appearance of motives.
The process of propiate autonomy is governed by 3 psychological processes-
1. Principle of organizing the energy level - It states that propiate autonomy is possible
because the energy level possessed by the person is in excess of that required to satisfy
survival needs and demands for immediate adjustment. An example would be a retired
person who channels his energies into new interests and activities.
2. Principle of mastery and competence - For Allport, mature adults are intrinsically motivated
to master and extract meaning from the environment and to pursue future goals.
3. Principle of propiate patterning - The principle asserts that all propiate motives are firmly
rooted within the person's self-structure (Propium). As a result, the person structures his or
her life around the propium, pursuing that which enhances the self and rejecting the rest.
PROPIUM
Propium is the known part of one's self. It is observed by the knower i.e. the subject and
represents his views about his self. Hence, it is self-represented as an object, where `T’ is the
subject or knower. The subject is the active observer who actively processes our experiences. The
propium is represented by 'Me' i.e. the observed. In other words, if self represents the personality
of the individual in totality, propium is the selfhood or empirical self.
The term propium was coined by Allport to represent 'self as known and experienced as warm and
central. It is the me part of subjective experience. Allport identified seven different aspects of
'selfhood' which are involved in the development of the propium from infancy to adulthood. He
called these aspects as propriate functions. They evolve slowly over time and ultimately get
consolidated whence they constitute the 'self as an object of subjective knowledge and feeling. The
following are the sequence of appearance of these propriate functions.
1. Sense of bodily self

It is the first aspect of propium to evolve. During the first year of life, infants become aware of
many sensations that emanate from muscles and tendons, internal organs, joints, etc. These
recurrent sensations constitute the bodily self. In turn, the infant begins to distinguish himself from
other objects: I(remains the anchor of self-awareness throughout the life, however, most adults
remain unaware about bodily self unless they suffer pain or illness.
2. Sense of self-identity . .
The second aspect of self to unfold is the self identity. The process beings with language acquisition
when the child learns his name and recognizes himself for herself as distinct and constant point of

PERSONALITY
reference. He realizes that he/she is the same person inspite of great changes in growth and
interaction with the world that is taking place. Allport believed that self identity continuously
changes as other things like toys, clothes, goals etc. get associated to strengthen his self identity.
3. Sense of self-esteem
During the third year of life, the child starts taking pride in his/her accomplishments. Self- esteem,
thus, depends on child's success in mastering tasks of the world. Parents frequently consider this
age as the age of negativism since the child resists any adult proposal as a threat to his integrity
and autonomity. All port argued that parents should not frustrate the child's age to explore and
manipulate the environment, for this may lead to feelings of shame and anger in the child. Later by
age of 4-5 years, self-esteem acquires a competitive flavour.
4. Sense of self-extension
Approximately at 4-6 years of age, the propium gets elaborated through self-extension. Here, self
comes to include relevant aspects of not only physical environment but also his social environment
i.e. significant others. Children become jealous and possessive like. This is my ball, my dog, my
sister etc. are regarded as integral part of the self and are to be guarded against loss especially
against take over by another child.
5. Self-image .
At around 5 or 6 years of age, the goals and aspirations of the child begin to reflect the aspirations
of significant others. The child comes to know what parents, teachers and relatives expect them to
be and in this way, he begins, to distinguish between the 'good me' and 'bad me' respectively.
However, the child has no clearly developed conscience and therefore, he is concerned about what
he wants to be, while what he ought to be is still germinal.
6. Sense of self as a rational coper

Between 6 and 12 years of age, abstract reasoning and logic is applied in solving day-to-day
problems. But the child does not yet trust himself/herself to be an independent moral agent. Rather
he,dogmatically believes that his/her family, religion and peers are right. This stage reflects
intensive moral and social conformity.
7. Propriate Striving
The adolescent knows that the future must follow a plan. Hence, he starts pursuing long range
goals having a sense of directedness and intentionality in striving for defined objectives. He imparts
a sense of purpose to his life. Allport viewed the realization of propriate strivings as requiring a
unified sense of selfhood. But as the self-identity is yet to be searched, only in adulthood when all
the aspects of self are consolidated does this occur.
In addition to the above seven aspects of proium, Allport suggested that there is self as a knower
which represents the subjective self or, which is aware of the objective 'me'. Self as a knower
represents the final stage in development of proprium that represents human capacity of self-
recognition and self-consciousness.
FUNCTIONAL AUTONOMY

PERSONALITY
Basic to Allport's theories or the idea that personality is dynamic growing system i.e. it i motivated.
Allport offered his own analysis of motivation in the concept of functional autonomy of motives. It
simply means that adult motives are not related to past motives.
Past motives explain nothing unless they are also present motives. Thus, he disagreed Freud's
contention that 'the child is the father of man'. Thus, the personality is liberalized from the past;
the bonds to the past are historical and not functional.
Examples of Functionally autonomous motives

1. The skilled craftsman who perfects his product even though his. income no longer
depends on the extra efforts.
2. The miser who continues to amass money while living in poverty.
In both the cases, behaviour that was once motivated by need for money persisted in
absence of that motivation.
Hence, the behaviour has been functionally autonomous of past motives.
In 1961. Allport distinguished between 2 levels of autonomy:
1. Preservative functional autonomy

It sufers to the feedback mechanism in the nervous system that are governed by simple
neurological principles. These are physiologically based motivational systems that once activated
continues for a time without further stimulation from the environment. E.g., A man who becomes
habituated to cycles of feeding, going to bed at same time each day, becomes restless if regular
interval of food ingestion or sleep is violated.
2. Propriate Functional Autonomy
It involves person's acquired interests, attitudes and values. It is a higher system of motivation
which makes a person's strivings for values and goals. It is a master system of motivation that
imparts consistency to the person's striving of a congruent self image and a higher level of maturity
and growth. E.g;,College student.
Allport's theory of Functional Autonomy contradicts principle of Homeostasis since once the motive
becomes functionally autonomous, it becomes self-sustainable. While homeostasis implies cyclic
appearance of motives.
The process of propirate autonomy is governed by 3 psychological processes-
1. Principle of organizing the energy level - It states that propriate autonomy is possible
because the energy level possessed by the person is in excess of that required to satisfy
survival needs and demands for immediate adjustment. An example would be a retired
person who channels his energies into new interests and activities.
2. Principle of mastery and competence - For Allport, mature adults are intrinsically motivated
to master and extract meaning from the environment and to pursue future goals.
3. Principle of propriate patterning - The principle asserts that all propriate motives are firmly
rooted within the person's self-structure (Propium). As a result, the person structures his or
her life around the propium, pursuing that which enhances the self and rejecting the rest.
Maslows Theory
 Physiological needs - They are most urgent, basic and powerful need as they are essential for
physical survival. They must be ratified to certain minimum level before the next higher orders
need attains importance. E.g., A chronically hungry person is not likely to strive to compose

PERSONALITY
music, pursue a career, or build a brave new world. Such a person is too pre-occupied with
getting something to eat.
 Safety and security needs - Once physiologicalt1eeds' are fairly well-satisfied, the person
becomes concerned about safety needs. These include need for stability; law and order,
predictability, freedom from threatening forces. E.g., Illness, fear and chaos.
These needs reflect concern about long-term survival.
Such needs, according to Maslow, are most evident in infants and young children because of their
increasing degree of dependency and helplessness. He observed that infants respond fearfully to
loud noises, illness, etc. A child with broken legs may temporarily experience fear, have night
mares and manifest a need for protection and reassurance not evident before accident. Certain
implications of safety needs:
1. Children have preference for same kind ofdepericiable or undisrupted routine.

If certain degree of routine or discipline is absent within the family, as in the case of parents
who adopt unrestricted permissive child rearing practices, the safety and security needs of
the child get frustrated. Not going to bed at a certain time or not eating at regular intervals
causes confusion and fright in the child. Factors like parental quarrellings, separations,
physical assaults, death within family are particularly harmful to the child's sense of well-
being.
2. The preference for fixed tenure and financial protection in the case of selection of job
maintaining savings account and insurance, etc. may be considered to be motivated by safety
needs.
3. To some extent, even the religious beliefs stern may help a person to organize his/her world
and people in it into coherent and meaningful whole. This makes the person feel secure.
4. Maslow talked about neurotic, safety needs which find specific expression in search for
protection or stronger system on whom they may depend. E.g. obsessive compulsive type.
Belongingness and love needs

The person operating at this level longs for affectionate relationships with others, for a place in
his/her family or reference group. Consequently, group application becomes the dominant goal for
a person. He frequently feels pangs of loveliness, friendliness and rejection in absence of loved
ones.
E.g., Students who attend college far from home fall prey to belonging needs, striving to be
accepted and recognized by peers. :.
The adolescent seeks love in form of respect and acknowledgement of his/her independence as a
self-governing person and gravitates towards athletics, music, academic and other closely knit
groups.
The young adults want love in the form of sexual intimacy i.e. to be involved in romantic
relationship with a member of opposite sex.
Maslow has identified two kinds of adults love:
a) Deficiency or D – love
b) Being or B –love
D - Love - is the love out of need for something we lack, such as self-esteem, sex, or someone to
keep us from being lonely.

PERSONALITY
B- Love - is based on valuing the other person as a person, as an end in himself or herself without
any desire to change or to use that individual in any way. Maslow expressed this as loving the
'being' of the other despite his or her imperfections. It is non-possessive, non- intrusive and
concerned, primarily with fostering in the other person a positive self-image, self-acceptance, a
feeling of love worthiness, all of which permit the individual to grow. Being loved and accepted is
instrumental to healthy feelings of worth. No being loved generates futility, emptiness and hostility.
 Self-esteem needs
When our needs for being loved and for loving others have been reasonably gratified, their
motivating force diminishes, pausing way for self-esteem needs. Maslow divided these into
tw6basictypes: Self-respect and respect from others. The former includes such concerns as desire
for competence, confidence, achievement, independence and freedom. Respect from others entails
such concerns as desire for prestige, recognition, reputation, status, appreciation and acceptance.
Satisfaction of the self-esteem needs generate feelings and attitudes of self-confidence, self- worth
capability and sense of being useful and necessary in the world. In contrast, frustration of these
needs leads to feelings and attitudes of inferiority, ineptness, weakness, passivity and dependency.
Maslow emphasized that healthy self-esteem is based on earned respect from others rather, than
fame, social status, or.adulatiori, Esteem needs on ... than on demonstrated ability, achievement
and adequacy. Self-esteem must be founded on ouractua:Iworth, not on external factors outside
our control. Maslow suggested that esteem needs tenc to reach a plateau in adulthood and then
diminish in intensity during middle years. The reasons for this are twofold. First, adults usually
acquire a morerealistic appraisal of their true worth and value, so that the esteem needs no longer
continue as significant forces in their lives. Second, most adult have experienced. an adequate
amount of esteem gratification. These reasons may account in possible for Maslow's claim that true
self
actualization occurs only in the years following middle age.
 Self-actualization needs
Maslow characterizes self-actualization as the person's desire to become, everything that he or she
is capable of becoming. The person who has achieved this highest level presses towards the full use
and exploitation of his or her talents, capacities and potentialities. In Maslow's words, "what
humans can be, they must be.”
Self-actualization need not take the form of creative and artistic endeavors. A parent, an athlete, a
student or teacher, or an ardent labourer may all be actualizing their potential in doing well what
each does best. It is at this upper most level of Maslow's need hierarchy that individual differences
are the greatest.
TRAIT & TYPE APPROACH

Type: refers to a set of characteristics that a group of individuals seem to share.
Type can be defined as a class /group of individuals that are said to share common collection of
characteristics.
HIPPOCRATES was the first type theorists. He classified people into 4 types on the basis of different
temperaments. There are:
1. Sanguine: These people are cheerful optimistic & vigorous.
2. Melancholic: They are depressed pessimistic & lack initiative & drive
3. Choleric: They are hot-tempered easily aroused & strong
4. Phlegmatic: They are non-excitable, calm & slow moving.

PERSONALITY
Demerit: But people show combinations of more than one temperament type. This classification
was rejected.
WILLIAM JAM ES classified people into 2 types

1. Tender-minded: These people are rationalist and are those who are guided by principles &
abstract ideas. They are intellectuals & they are idealistic in their approach. They believe in free
will.
2. Tough-minded: They arc realistic materialistic pragmatic & influenced by facts. This
classification also suffers form the same demerit that some people are mixture of the above
types.
KRETSCHNER was the first man to instigate scientific investigation of the correlation between
physical traits & personality characteristics.
On the basis of their body, he divided people into 3 types:
1. Pyknic: They haye short & rounded type of body. Such persons are jovial, sociable, extrovert &
are prone to Manic depressive Psychosis (MDP)
2. Atheletic: They are muscular, rectangular & are prone to sanity.
3. Asthenic: They are slender, lean, thin, tall & are prone to Schizophrenia.
Demerit:
1. He could not explain the type of people having mixture of above types
2. He ignored their cultures
3. He could not demarcate the dividing line between short & tall. slender & fat etc.
To overcome the first demerit he came up with type -- Dysplastic which was mixture of all
categories. It denoted mixture of above features. But his classification remain unsatisfactory.
TRAIT THEORY
RAYMOI'TD CATTELL
According to him, traits are hypothetical mental structures inferred from behaviour which pre-
disposes the person to behave uniformly across various circumstances and across time.
On the lines of Allport, Cattell identified-
a) Common traits- shared by varying degree by all the members of the same culture. Ex- self
esteem intelligence etc.
b) Unique traits- those shared by very few people perhaps no people Ex-evident in areas of
interests and attitudes.
Cattell has also made distinction between surface and source traits.
1. Surface traits: are set of overt or manifest trait elements (manifested in behaviour) that seem
to "hang" together. These traits are visible for example- if a person is unable to concentrate is
indecisive and restless-may be clustered together to form the surface trait of neuroticism.
2. Source traits: are the underlying causal entities determining such surface manifestations. They
exist in deeper levels of personality. Source traits arc unitary (indivisible) and also invisible.
They can be identified only by "Factor analysis".
Factor analysis: A mathematical technique involving self report scale which the psychologist use to
estimate the factors or dimensions that underline the surface variations in behaviour So basic aim

PERSONALITY
is to identify the source traits. Cattell concluded that there are 16 source traits underlying
personality.
Ex: unselfish, sociable, numerous-surface manifestation while friendliness source underlying.
Types of Source Traits:

Two sub-types
a) Constitutional Trait which is inherited (bio-physiological) and hence, reflects individuals
constitution.
b) Environmentally would traits-determined by environmental factors both social and physical.
Ex.-learned characteristics and style of loving.
Source trait can be further classified into-
a) Ability traits-skills-music, motor coordination etc.
b) Temperament Traits- emotional and stylistic qualities ex-people may either react calmly or
hysterically. Cattell considers them constitutional source trait.
c) Dynamic traits- motivational elements of behaviour ex-Ambitious, power oriented etc.
Cattell used 3-kinds of data to discover source traits:
1. Life records-everyday behavioral situations are observed.
2. Self rating-self report inventories.
3. Objective tests-In this person is observed in specifically designed situations where in he/she
elicits a response. Behaviors in other situations can be predicted using the data.
This chapter is devoted to theories of temperament. Temperament is that aspect of our
personalities that is genetically based, inborn, there from birth or even before. That does not mean
that a temperament theory says we don't also have aspects of our personality that are learned.
They just have a focus on "nature," and leave "nurture" to other theorists!
The issue of personality types, including temperament, is as old as psychology. In fact, it is a good
deal older. The ancient Greeks, to take the obvious examp1e, had given it considerable thought,
and came up with two dimensions of temperament, leading to four "types," based on what kind of
fluids (called humors) they had too much or too little of. This theory became popular during the
middle ages.
The sanguine type is cheerful and optimistic, pleasant to be with, comfortable with his or her work.
According to the Greeks, the sanguine type has a particularly abundant supply of blood (hence the
name sanguine, from sanguis, Latin for blood) and so also is characterized by a healthful look,
including rosy cheeks. .
The choleric type is characterized by a quick, hot temper, often an aggressive nature. The mime
refers to bile (a chemical that is excreted by the gall bladder to aid in digestion). Physical features
of the choleric person include a yellowish complexion and tense muscles.
Next, we have the phlegmatic temperament. These people are characterized by their slowness,
laziness, and dullness. The name obviously comes from the word phlegm, which is the mucus we
bring up from our lungs when we have a cold or lung infection. Physically, these people are thought
to be kind of cold, and shaking hands with one is like shaking hands with a fish.
Finally, there's the melancholy temperament. These people tend to be sad, even depressed, and
take a pessimistic view of the world. The name has, of course, been adopted as a synonym for
sadness, but comes from the Greek words for black bile. Now, since there is no such thing, we
don't quite know what the ancient Greeks were referring to. But the melancholy person was
thought to have too much of it!

PERSONALITY
These four types are actually the comers of two dissecting lines: temperature and humidity.
Sanguine people are warm and wet. Choleric people are warm and dry. Phlegmatic people are cool
and wet. Melancholy people are cool and dry. There were even theories suggesting that different
climates were related to different types, S9 that Italians (warm and moist) were sanguine, Arabs
(warm and dry) were choleric, Russians (cool and dry) were melancholy, and Englishmen (cool and
wet) were phlegmatic!
What might surprise you is that this theory, based on so little, has actually had an influence on
several modem theorists. Adler, for example, related these types to his four personalities. But,
more to the point, Ivan Pavlov, of classical conditioning fame, used the humors to describe his
dogs' personalities.
One of the things Pavlov tried with his do s was conflicting conditioning -- ringing a bell that
signaled food at the same time as another e t at signaled the end of the meal. Some dogs took it
well, and maintain their cheerfulness. Some got angry and barked like crazy. Some just laid down
and fell asleep. And some whimpered and whined and seemed to have a nervous breakdown. I
don't need to tell you which dog is which temperament!
Pavlov believed that he could account for these personality types with two dimensions: On the one
hand there is the overall level of arousal (called excitation) that the dogs' brains had available. On
the other, there was the ability the dogs' brains had of changing their level of arousal -- i.e. the
level of inhibition that their brains had available. Lots of arousal, but good inhibition: sanguine. Lots
of arousal, but poor inhibition: choleric. Not much arousal, plus good inhibition: phlegmatic. Not
much arousal, plus poor inhibition: melancholy. Arousal would be analogous to warmth, inhibition
analogous to moisture! This became the inspiration for Hans Eysenck's theory.
Hans Eysenck Theory

Identified 4 levels of organization in behaviour or hierarchies in the elements of personality.
1st (lowest) level- Specific response. Ex- shaking of hand and smiling.
2nd level- Habitual responses. Ex- every time he meets with some body - he smiles and shakes
hand. Hence, this is the habitual response of a person to greet somebody.
3rd level- traits.
Habitual responses may correlate with other habitual responses and the resulting cluster forms a
trait. Ex-shaking hands may correlate with going to parties, talking to people etc. and cluster to
give some trait of sociability.
4th level- super trait
Ex-sociability correlates with response dispositions such as liveliness, activity, assertiveness to give
super trait or type called Extraversion.
EYSENCK identified 3 supertraits-

1. Introversion – Extroversion
2. Neuroticism – Stability
3. Psychotism – Ego strength
CRITICAL EVALUATION
1. Personality is dynamic but trait theorist see trait to be largely static.
2. Person-situation controversy.
3. Ignores individuals capacity to grow psychologically towards self actualization.

PERSONALITY
But nevertheless trait theories are simplistic in approach that attempted to increase predictability in
psychology though adapting descriptive methods.
Eysenck's theory is based primarily on physiology and genetics. Although he is a behaviorist who
considers learned habits of great importance, he considers personality differences as growing out of
genetic inheritance. He is, therefore, primarily interested in what is usually called temperament.
Eysenck is also primarily a research psychologist. His methods involve a statistical technique called
factor analysis. This technique extracts a number of "dimensions" from large masses of data. For
example, if you give long lists of adjectives to a large number of people for them to rate
themselves on, you have prime raw material for factor analysis.
Imagine, for example, a test that included words like "shy", "introverted", "outgoing", "wild" and so
on. Obviously, shy people are likely to rate themselves high on the first two words, and low on the
second two. Outgoing people are likely to do the reverse. Factor analysis extracts dimensions --
factors-- such as shy-outgoing from the mass of information. The researcher then examines the
data and gives the factor a name such as "introversion-extraversion." There are other techniques
that will find the "best fit" of the data to various possible dimensions, and others still that will find
"higher level" dimensions -- factors that organize the factors, like big headings organize little
headings.
Eysenck's original research found two main dimensions of temperament: neuroticism and
extraversion-introversion. Let's look at each one...
Neuroticism
Neuroticism is the name Eysenck gave to a dimension that ranges from normal, fairly calm and
collected people to one's that tend to be quite "nervous." His research showed that these nervous-
people tended to suffer more frequently from a variety of "nervous disorders" we call neuroses,
hence the name of the dimension. But understand that he was not saying that people who score
high on the neuroticism scale are necessarily neurotics -- only that the yare more susceptible to
neurotic problems.
Eysenck was convinced that, since everyone in his data-pool fit somewhere on this dimension of
normality-to-neuroticism, this was a true temperament, i.e. that this was a genetically-based,
physiologically-supported dimension of personality. He therefore went to the physiological research
to find possible explanations.
The most obvious place to look was at the sympathetic nervous system. This is a part of the
autonomic nervous system that functions separately from the central nervous system and controls
much of our emotional responsiveness to emergency situations. For example, when signals from
the brain tell it to do so; the 'sympathetic nervous systems instructs the liver to release sugar for
energy, causes the digestive system to slow down, opens up the pupils, raises the hairs on your
body (goose bumps), and tells the adrenal glands to release more adrenalin (epinephrine). The
adrenalin intum alters many of the body's functions and prepares the muscles for action. The
traditional way of describing the function of the sympathetic nervous system is to say that it
prepares us for "fight or flight."
Eysenck hypothesized that some people have a more responsive sympathetic nervous system than
others. Some people remain very calm during emergencies; some people feel considerable fear or
other emotions; and some are terrified by even very minor incidents. He suggested that this latter
group had a problem of sympathetic hyperactivity, which made them prime candidates for the
various neurotic disorders.
Perhaps the most "archetypal" neurotic symptom is the panic attack. Eysenck explained panic
attacks as something like the positive feedback you get when you place a microphone too close to a
speaker: The small sounds entering the mike get amplified and come out of the speaker, and go
into the mike, get amplified again, and come out of the speaker again, and so on, round and round,

PERSONALITY
until you get the famous squeal that we all loved to produce, when we were kids. (Lead guitarists
like to do this too to make some of their long, wailing sounds.)
Well, the panic attack follows the same pattern: You are mildly frightened by something -- crossing
a bridge, for example. This gets your sympathetic nervous system going. That makes you more
nervous, and so more susceptible to stimulation, which gets your system even more in an uproar,
which makes you more nervous and more susceptible……. You could say that the neuroticistic
person is responding more to his or her own panic than to the original object of fear! As someone
who has had panic attacks, I can vouch for Eysenck's description -- although his explanation
remains only a hypothesis.
Extraversion-introversion
His second dimension is extraversion-introversion. By this he means something very similar to what
Jung meant by the same terms, and something very similar to our common-sense understanding of
them: Shy, quiet people "versus" out-going, even loud people. This dimension, too, is found in
everyone, but the physiological explanation is a bit more complex.
Eysenck hypothesized that extraversion-introversion is a matter of the balance of "inhibition" and
"excitation" in the brain itself. These are ideas that Pavlov came up with to explain some bf the
differences he found in the reactions of his various dogs to stress.
Excitation is the brain waking itself up, getting into an alert, learning state. Inhibition is the brain
calming itself down, either in the usual sense of relaxing and going to sleep, or in the sense of
protecting itself in the case of overwhelming stimulation.
Someone who is extraverted, he hypothesized, has good, strong inhibition: When confronted by
traumatic stimulation -- such as a car crash -- the extravert's brain inhibits itself, which means'
that it becomes "numb," you might say, to the trauma, and therefore will remember very little of
what happened. After the car crash, the extravert might feel as if he had "blanked out" during the
event, and may ask others to fill them in on what happened. Because they don't feel the full mental
impact of the crash, they may be ready to go back to driving the very next day.
The introvert, on the other hand, has poor or weak inhibition: When trauma, such as the car crash,
hits them, their brains don't protect them fast enough, don't in any way shut down. Instead, they
are highly alert and learn well, and so remember everything that happened. They might even
report that they saw the whole crash "in slow motion!" They are very unlikely to want to drive
anytime soon after the crash, and may even stop driving altogether.
Now, how does this lead to shyness or a love of parties? Well, imagine the extravert and the
introvert both getting drunk, taking off their clothes, and dancing buck naked on a restaurant table.
The next morning, the extravert will ask you what happened (and where are his clothes). When you
tell him, he'll laugh and start making arrangements to have another party. The introvert, on the
other hand, will remember every mortifying moment of his humiliation, and may never come out of
his room again. (I'm very introverted, and again I can vouch to a lot of this experientially! Perhaps
some of you extraverts can tell me if he describes your experiences well, too - assuming, of course,
that you can remember you experiences!)
One of the things that Eysenck discovered was that violent criminals tend to be non-neuroticistic
extraverts. This makes common sense, if you think about it: It is hard to imagine somebody who is
painfully shy and who remembers their experiences and learns from them holding up a Seven-
Eleven! It is even harder to imagine someone given to panic attacks doing so. But please
understand that there are many kinds of crime besides the violent kind that introverts and
neurotics might engage in
Neuroticism and extraversion-introversion

PERSONALITY
Another thing Eysenck looked into was the interaction of the two dimensions and what that might
mean in regard to various psychological problems. He found, for example, that people with phobias
and obsessive-compulsive disorder tended to be quite introverted, whereas people with conversion
disorders (e.g. hysterical paralysis) or dissocative disorders (e.g. amnesia) tended to be more
extraverted.
Here's his explanation: Highly neuroticistic people over-respond to fearful stimuli; If they are
introverts, they will learn to avoid the situations that cause panic very quickly and very thoroughly,
even to the point of becoming panicky at small symbols of those situations -- they will develop
phobias. Other introverts will learn (quickly and thoroughly) particular behaviors that hold off their
panic -- such as checking things many times over or washing their hands again and again.
Highly neuroticistic extraverts, on the other hand, are good at ignoring and forgetting the things
that overwhelm them. They engage in the classic defense mechanisms, such as denial and
repression. They can conveniently forget a painful weekend, for example, or even "forget" their
ability to feel and use their legs.
Psychoticism
Eysenck came to recognize that, although he was using large populations for his research, there
were some populations he was not tapping. He began to take his studies into the mental
institutions of England. When these masses of data were factor analyzed, a third significant factor
began to emerge, which he labeled psychoticism.
Like neuroticism, high psychoticism does not mean you are psychotic or doomed to become so --
only that you exhibit some qualities conm10nly found among psychotics, and that you may be
more susceptible, given certain environments, to becoming psychotic.
As you might imagine, the kinds of qualities found in high psychotic people include a certain
recklessness, a disregard for common sense or conventions, and a degree of inappropriate
emotional expression. It is the dimension that separates those people who end up institutions from
the rest of humanity!
MEASUREMENT OF PERSONALITY
Personality is a 'real' quantity. This is evident by the fact that people show consistency in their
behaviour. Further, the real quantities may be measured in someway.
Behaviour in any situation is a complex function of both personality & external factors (i.e.
situational factors)
Measurement of Personality:
There are both theoretical reasons and methodological reasons for having different types of
personality tests. On theoretical grounds, it is apparent that many sorts of tests are more or less
appropriate for measuring the aspect of personality under consideration. For example, it does not
make sense to ask people to report about their unconscious motivations. By definition, such
motivations cannot be consciously reported and grasped.
On methodological grounds, it is important to have various ways of measuring personality because
each suffers from inherent biases. For example, interviews can probe more deeply and reactively
into a persons inner thoughts and feelings then can a standardized questionnaire. On the other

PERSONALITY
hand, observation of behaviours or the analysis of person’s expressive style are often best at
capturing what a person actually does.
The weakness in one technique can be compensated for by other, thus helping us achieve a more
complete understanding of personality.
Types of tests:
a) Paper Pencil Test
b) Projective Test
c) Test for physiological responses by machines
a) PAPER PENCIL TEST:
1. Self Report Tests. These are test consisting of items assigned by the tester and requires the
participation of the test taker to report about himself. The three categories are-
(a) Autobiographies
(b) Questionnaire
(c) Personality Inventories
All these techniques illuminate what individual has to say about himself.
(a) Autobiographies- Contains personal confessions, events, feeling and behaviours in one’s life.
They are non-directed, as the tester has no control over the subject on which tester writes.
However, they are quite useful in assessment of personality aspects of individuals who are not
present to take the test.
(b) Questionnaire – It consists of a series of printed or written questions and the subject is
required to respond to these questions in the spare provided in the form under the columns
yes, no or cannot say etc.
For example- Do you enjoy being alone? Yes/No

Do you enjoy seeing others successful? Yes/No
Do you laugh at joke on you? Yes/No
It is very popular method for gathering both quantitative and qualitative information.
(c) Personality Inventories- It resembles the questionnaire in so many aspects like administration
scoring, interpretation etc. The difference can be seen in two ways.
1. The questionnaire is the general devise and can be used for collecting all kinds of information
(not only connected with personality traits). Personal Inventories on the other hand are
especially designed to seek answers about the persons and his personality.
2. The questions, set in the questionnaire, are generally addressable to the second person. For
example, Do you feel lonely? Yes/No
While in P.I., they are usually addressed to the first person, such as:
I often feel lonely Yes/No
The best known P.I. is the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). The questions,
included in this inventory are such that their answers are known to indicate certain specific
personality traits. It consists of 550 items responding against them the test taker answers either
“true”, “false” or “cannot say”. The MMPI was created using criterion related item selection i.e. the
selected items distinguished between the target group such as depressed people and control group.
It thus focused upon assessing psychopathology.

PERSONALITY
Similarly, NEO-PI attempt to measure basic dimensions of personality using method of factor
analysis. The factor analysis method was pioneered by Guillford, Cattel, Thurstone. It is a statistical
technique involving correlations among number of simple scales and then reduces the information
to a few basic dimensions. For example, notions about being outgoing, active, warm, talkative,
energetic, sociable and so on are captured in the factor called Extroversion.
Five basic dimensions of personality accordingly are – conscientiousness, extroversion,
agreeableness, neuroticism and openness.
1. PERSONALITY INVENTORY: It resembles a very standardized kind of interview. A personality
inventory is essentially a self rating questionnaire & also called as self report inventory. It
may be designed to measure a single dimension of personality. (Example-Extroversion or
Introversion) It may also measure several personality trails simultaneously resulting in a
profile of scores.
Self report inventories can be classified into 5 types.
1. Inventories that attempt to measure attribute values & interests.
Example- SVIB (strong Vocational Interest Blanks)
2. Inventories that attempt to evaluate pathological traits like hysteria, schizophrenia.
Hypomania, depression etc.
Example: MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory)
3. Inventories that attempt to measure social & certain other traits, such as dominance, ego,
strength, self-confidence etc.
Example: E.P.T.
4. Inventories that evaluate the adjustability of individuals to environment i.e. school, home
etc.
Example: Cornell's Index.
5. Inventories that attempt to screen individuals into 2 or 3 groups.
Example: Cornell's Index.
Drawbacks of questionnaire and P.I.
1. It is difficult to get response to all questions.
2. The subject may give selected responses rather than genuine ones (to hide his weakness etc.)
3. He/she might be ignorant of certain traits or qualities he/she may possess.
2. RATING SCALES
This is a technique by which we can find what others have to say about the individual whose
personality is under assessment. Usually with the help of this technique we tried to have
some specific idea about some of the personality traits of an individual (whom we do not
know well), from the person who knows him very well. It reflects the impression the subject
has made upon the person to rates him. The three basic steps involved in construction are :
1. The specific trait or traits to be rate
2. The scale by which degree of possession or absence of the trait has to be shown
3. The appropriate persons or judges for rating.
The technique was designed by Lewis Terman in 1921.
A. PROJECTIVE TEST:

PERSONALITY
Projective tests are indirect methods of personality assessment wherein an individual projects
his/her unconscious impulses. Since, a large part of our personality is unconscious, an individual
cannot reveal it. Hence, a Psychoanalyst must interpret the symbolic meanings of a person's
behaviour to arrive at underlying conflicts & motives.
A projective test presents an ambiguous or unstructured stimulus to which the individual may
respond as he wishes. The unstructured stimulus or situation is one whose meaning & interpretation
varies from individual to individual Since, the stimulus does not demand any specific response, the
individual projects his personality through his responses. The responses are subject's imagination
which reveal something about his personality.
Depending upon the techniques involved. LINDZEY has given a popular classification as stated
below:
1) Association techniques: It uses the symbolic interpretation to those associations which have
evoked in the minds of the examinee after viewing or listening the ambiguous stimulus
Example:
(a) Rorschach Test
(b) Word association Test
2) Construction Techniques: It involves those situations wherein the examinee is required to
construct a story) (theme) after seeing a stimulus material (usually some picture) In analyzing the
responses, the psychologist looks for recurrent themes that may reveal the individual's needs,
motives etc.
Example: TAT (Thematic Apperception Test).
People interpret ambiguous pictures according to their apperception (readiness to perceive) and
elaborate stories in terms of preferred plots or themes that reflect personal fantasies.
3) Completion Techniques: It includes those situations where the examinee is presented with
incomplete sentences which he has to complete in the way he desires. The responses supplied by
subject are interpreted & analysed.
Example: Sentence completion test.
4) Expressive Technique: It involves the analysis of those expressive manipulations done by
the subject while he is interacting with the supplies material
Example: I) Finger painting 2) Role playing
While painting or role playing, the unconscious material comes out.
EVALUATION
Paper & pencil test removes some of the demerits of projective tests. They an immensely economi-
cal & can be their easily administered as well as scored. Their reliability & validity is high & the tests
are less time taking. But these are several factors which limit the degree of trust which can be
placed in the responses given by the individual in this test. Some of them are:
(1) Inventories may be interpreted in a way in which the test constructor did not intend
because of ambiguity of test items.
(2) The subject may not have the insight & may be enable to answer items correctly.
(3) The subject may approach the test with different response sets. It is after seen that
personality variables play an important role in the response sets which the person uses.
Example:- Answering every question as either 'No' only or' Yes' only.
2. RATING SCALES

PERSONALITY
Rating scale is device for recording judgment about a trait defined by the scale. The irater
categorizes the objects, events or person represented by a series of continuous numerals or
descriptive cues.
In any rating scale, there are two components namely.
1. Stimulus variable
2. Response options
Stimulus variable consists of trait names i.e. quality to be rated.
Response option consists of numerical (ex. Numerical rating scale) or descriptive categories (ex.
Graphic rating scale)
The purpose of rating scale is to know what kind of impression the person or object or event has
made upon the rater. It is, therefore, essential that the rater must be acquainted with the
knowledge of those objects, person or events It is also essential that rater must understand the
scale.
Rating may be of two types:
1. Retrospective rating: It tends to summarize all the impression gathered by rater regarding
the rates over an extended period of time.
2. Concurrent raring: It summarizes the impression gathered from a recurrent interview.
Most popular and widely used rating scale is—
Graphic rating scale- These scales are represented graphically in which descriptive cues
corresponding to different scale steps which are given, The rater either puts a rid mark or a cross
made against any of the descriptive cues to indicate his views Ex. Lickert Scale.
Difficulties in rating:
1. Rater's willingness to participate -Lack of modification reduces enthusiasm of the rater to
rate according to his self instructions.
2. Which is rated
3. Personality of the rater - Some raters are liberal who give high and positive ratings as
opposed to those who are conservative (i.e give low ratings)
4. Ambiguity or vagueness in the meaning of trait.
Ex. Peak experience.
5. Errors involved in rating:-
Subjectivity is generally induced while rating covert behaviours like intelligence etc.
(a) It is not always possible for the rater to be acquainted with the person or the object error
occurring due to close resemblance of the traits being rated. Ex. Cooperativeness &
friendliness.
(b) Logical errors occur when rater gives more or less similar rating to the traits which seems
logically related to him. Ex. Creativity & Intelligence.
(c) Severity error:- KERLINGER discovered a tendency amongst some raters to rate all
individuals too low on all characteristics He called the 'Hard raters' Ex Hard examiner.
(d) Leniency error -It is the tendency to rate too high Such raters are called' Easy raters’ (c) &
(d) can be controlled by forced choice techniques (Explain)
(e) Central tendency error - The tendency to middle rating to all objects for all characteristics
GUILFOR.D suggested greater variation in measuring of the steps at the extreme of the
scales than at the middle.

PERSONALITY
(f) Halo error- Remedy-Arrange the scale points in such a way that desirables fall in RHS.

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Psychology Optional

Concept and Definition of Personality

RAU’S IAS STUDY CIRCLE | PSYCHOLOGY OPTIONAL 1

APPROACHES & THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

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DEVELOPMENT OF SUPER EGO

Freud called them as structure of personality

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INTRA PSYCHIC STRUGGLE

Defense Definition Example

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5. Regression Responding to a threatening Student throws a temper tantrum when

6. Sublimation Unacceptable impulse is transformed Child unable to satisfy the desire to

RAU’S IAS STUDY CIRCLE | PSYCHOLOGY OPTIONAL 6

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF FREUD’S PSYCHOANALYTICAL THEORY:

The Neo – Analytical Approaches to Personality

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5. The emphasis on sex and aggression.

RAU’S IAS STUDY CIRCLE | PSYCHOLOGY OPTIONAL 8

Personal unconscious harbors two kinds of thoughts and urges.

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S.No. Psycho analytical Concept Behaviorist Reinterpretation

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8. Neuroticism stars from Neuroticism exists because such behaviours like

Psychoanalytical theory and cross cultural issues

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Major Proponents of Culture-Personality School

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The Evolution of Adler’s Theory

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The Role of Birth Order

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Karen Horney: Psycho social approach

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2. Moving away from people: The Detached type

INTERACTIONIST APPROACH TO PESONALITY

INTERPERSONAL APPROACH: HARRY STACK SULLIVAN

RAU’S IAS STUDY CIRCLE | PSYCHOLOGY OPTIONAL 17

Basic conception of Sullivan’s theory of personality

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accommodated. End result of tension reduction is experience of satisfaction. Therefore tensions

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Inter Personal Approach

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Interpersonal accommodation in Interpersonal Approach

BEHAVIORISTIC APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

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The basic premises of behaviourial approach to personality are:

BEHAVIOURIST VIEW ON PERSONALITY:

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The works have also been applied for development of personality.

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(iv) Self-esteem needs

Underlying this scheme is the assumption Ne

Maslow's need Hierarchy Pyramid

These needs reflect concern about long-term survival.

RAU’S IAS STUDY CIRCLE | PSYCHOLOGY OPTIONAL 25

 Belongingness and love needs

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Carl Roger (1902):

Skinner believed that regularities of behaviour could be explained in terms of responses to