THEORIES OF

PERSONALITY
It’s everything about you that makes you what you are!
Self-Assessment Activity (Time allowed: 6 Minutes)
•Write three points about your personality.

•Write the name of your favorite personality,

and three points about why are you inspired
by them?
What is Personality?
Three standard dictionary definitions:
• The state of being a person.
• The characteristics and qualities that
form a person’s distinctive character.
• The sum total of all the physical,
mental, emotional, and social
characteristic of a person
 Psychoanalytic
Sigmund Freud Theory

Carl Jung
Neo-
psychoanalytic
Alfred Adler Theory

Personality Karen Horney

Theorists Erik Erikson Identity

Theory
Humanistic
Carl Rogers Theory

Behavioristic
B.F. Skinner Theory
 SIGMUND FREUD

Turn your eyes inward, look into your own depths, learn to first
know yourself. —Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud: The Structure of Personality

The Id: Pleasure Principle

The Ego: Reality Principle

The Superego: Moral Principle

THE ID:
• Instincts are a form of energy—
transformed physiological energy—
that connects the needs of the
body with the wishes of the mind
• basic elements of the personality
• Tension is produced when the body
is in a state of need, and the person
acts to reduce this tension by
satisfying the need
• The id is a selfish, pleasure-seeking
structure—primitive, amoral,
insistent, and rash
THE EGO:
• The rational master of the personality

• Exerts control over the id impulses

• Mature thought processes needed to deal

rationally with the external world
• Directing and controlling the instincts
according to the reality principle
• Determines appropriate and socially acceptable
times, places, and objects that will satisfy the id
impulses.
• Tries to postpone, delay, or redirect it in order
to meet the demands of reality
THE SUPEREGO:
• Internal morality a conscience
• Learned by the age of 5 or 6 - rules of conduct
set down by our parents
• Conscience: contains behaviors for which the child has been punished
• Ego-ideal: contains the moral or ideal behaviors for which a person
should strive or has been rewarded
• Parental control is replaced by self-control
• Internalization- guilt or shame on performing action contrary to this
moral code
• The superego strives neither for pleasure (as the id does) nor for
attainment of realistic goals (as the ego does) - It strives solely for moral
perfection
Defense Mechanisms: Distortions of Reality
• Defense mechanisms are
psychological strategies that are
unconsciously used to protect a
person from anxiety arising from
unacceptable thoughts or feelings.
According to Freudian theory,
defense mechanisms involve a
distortion of reality in some way so
that we are better able to cope
with a situation.
 Defense Explanation Example
Repression unconscious denial of the existence of something Someone being extremely fearful of cat/dog, does
that brings discomfort or pain not remember the incident but has a fear
Denial denying the existence of an external threat or Parents of a child who has died may continue to deny
traumatic event the loss by keeping the child’s room unchanged
Reaction expressing an id impulse that is the opposite of the Someone who is disturbed by extreme aggressive
Formation one truly driving the person impulses may become overly solicitous and friendly
Projection attributing a disturbing impulse to someone else a person who realizes that they are being aggressive
during an argument may accuse the other person of
aggression
Regression retreating to an earlier, less frustrating period of life An adult curling in fetal position when depressed or
and displaying the childish and dependent sad
behaviors characteristic of that more secure time
Rationalization reinterpreting behavior to make it more acceptable The person who is fired from a job may rationalize by
and less threatening saying that they really didn’t like the job anyway
Displacement shifting id impulses from a threatening or A child angry at their parents may hit or shout at
unavailable object to a substitute object that is their younger sibling or a pet
available
Sublimation altering or displacing id impulses by diverting Changing home décor or hitting gym after a rough
instinctual energy into socially acceptable behaviors breakup
 CARL JUNG
My life is a story of the self-realization of the unconscious.
Everything in the unconscious seeks outward manifestation,
and the personality too desires to evolve out of its unconscious
conditions. —Carl Jung
 Carl Jung: Analytical Psychology

•Extroversion •Introversion

• Prefer outer world and • Prefer their own world of

interaction with people to thoughts, dreams, feelings,
being alone. fantasies and need private
space.
• They are sociable beings
who get energized from • Interaction drains their
going to parties, energy whereas being
interacting with people alone energizes them.
Jung’s Psychological Personality Types:
• Extroverts: • Introverts:

• Extroverted Sensors • Social Introverts

• Extroverted Intuits • Thinking Introverts
• Extroverted Feelers • Anxious Introverts
• Extroverted Thinkers • Restrained Introverts
 ALFRED ADLER
The goal of the human soul is conquest, perfection, security,
superiority. Every child is faced with so many obstacles in life
that no child ever grows up without striving for some form of
significance. —Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler: Individual Psychology
• Inferiority Feelings - a
constant motivating force in
all behavior.
• Compensation- motivation to
overcome inferiority, to strive
for higher levels of
development.
• Social Interest - innate
potential to cooperate with
other people to achieve
personal and societal goals.
• The mother must teach the
child cooperation,
companionship, and courage.
Only if children feel a kinship
with others will they be able
to act with courage in
attempting to cope with life’s
demands. Those who have no
feeling of social interest may
become neurotics or even
criminals
 Complexes
Organic • physical disabilities strive to compensate for their weaknesses
• Inferiority
Complex:
• develops when a
person is unable to Spoiled
• When confronted with obstacles to gratification, spoiled children come
to believe that they must have some personal deficiency that is
thwarting them; hence, an inferiority complex develops.
compensate for
normal inferiority
feelings. • It is easy to understand how neglected, unwanted, and rejected
children can develop an inferiority complex. Their infancy and
Neglected childhood are characterized by a lack of love and security because their
parents are indifferent or hostile. As a result, these children develop
feelings of worthlessness, or even anger, and view others with distrust
Superiority Complex:
• A condition that develops when
a person overcompensates for
normal inferiority feelings
striving for superiority
• The urge toward perfection or
completion that motivates each
of us.
• fictional finalism: The idea that
there is an imagined or potential
goal that guides our behavior.
 dominant getting avoiding socially useful
• Social
Lifestyle:• or ruling attitude • the most common • makes no attempt to • cooperates with
with little social human type face life’s problems. others and acts in
• A unique awareness accordance with
• expects to receive • By avoiding
character • person behaves satisfaction from difficulties, the their needs
structure without any regard other people and so person avoids any • Such persons cope
or pattern for other people. The becomes dependent possibility of failure with problems within
of personal more extreme of this on them. a well-developed
behaviors type attack others framework of social
and and become sadists, interest.
characteris delinquents, or
tics by sociopaths. The less
which each virulent become
of us alcoholics, drug
strives for addicts, or suicides;
perfection they believe they
hurt others by
attacking
themselves

not prepared to cope with the problems of everyday life. Unable to cooperate and the clash between lifestyle
and the real-world results in abnormal behavior, which is manifested in neuroses and psychoses. lack social
interest
 KAREN HORNEY

The basic evil is invariably a lack of genuine warmth and

affection. —Karen Horney
 Karen Horney: Neurotic Needs and Trends
• Safety Need - A higher level need for security and freedom
from fear.

• a feeling of security, and an absence of fear is decisive in

determining the normality of personality development.
• A child’s security depends entirely on how the parents treat
the child -parents weaken or prevent security is by displaying
a lack of warmth and affection.
• Include: obvious preference for one sibling over another,
unfair punishment, erratic behavior, promises not kept,
ridicule, humiliation, and isolation of the child from peers
• The more helpless children feel, the less they dare to oppose
or rebel against the parents.
• Repress the resulting hostility because “I need you.”
Basic Anxiety: The Foundation of Neurosis
• Horney defined basic anxiety as an “insidiously increasing, all-
pervading feeling of being lonely and helpless in a hostile world.”
• It is the foundation on which all later neuroses develop, and it is
inseparably tied to feelings of hostility, helplessness, and fear
• Regardless of how it’s expressed basic anxiety, the feeling is
similar.
• In Horney’s words: we feel “small, insignificant, helpless, deserted,
endangered, in a world that is out to abuse, cheat, attack,
humiliate, betray”
Four Different Ways to Protect Ourselves Against
Basic Anxiety in Childhood
Securing Affection
• trying to do whatever the other person wants
• bribe others, or threaten others into providing the
desired affection
Being Submissive
• complying with the wishes of either one person or of
everyone in our social environment
• repress their personal desires and cannot defend
against abuse for fear that such defensiveness will
antagonize the abuser
• believe they are unselfish and self-sacrificing
Attaining Power
• By attaining power over others, a person can
compensate for helplessness and achieve
security through success or through a sense of
superiority.
• Such people seem to believe that if they have
power, no one will harm them.
Withdrawing
• become independent of others, and the
satisfaction of emotional, internal or external
needs
• blunting, or minimizing of emotional needs. By
renouncing these needs, the withdrawn person
guards against being hurt by other people
 Neurotic Needs -Ten irrational defenses against anxiety that become a permanent part
of personality and that affect behavior
1. Affection and approval 6. Admiration
2. A dominant partner 7. Achievement or ambition
3. Power 8. Self-sufficiency
4. Exploitation 9. Perfection
5. Prestige 10. Narrow limits to life
• Universal manifestation of these needs to some degree. For example, at one time or another,
everyone seeks affection or pursues achievement.
• Not abnormal or neurotic in an everyday, but the intensive and compulsive pursuit of
satisfaction as the “only” way to resolve basic anxiety and comes to dominate the personality.
• Satisfying these needs will not make one feel safe and secure but will only help to escape the
discomfort caused by our anxiety. They will do nothing for the underlying anxiety. In other
words, they will help with the symptoms, but not their cause.
 ERIK ERIKSON

The personality is engaged with the hazards of existence

continuously, even as the body’s metabolism copes with decay.
—Erik Erikson
Erik Erikson: Identity Theory
• Psychosocial Stages Of • Crisis
Development
To Erikson, the turning point faced at
To Erikson, eight successive stages each developmental stage. Human
encompassing the life span. At each development involves a series of
stage, we must cope with a crisis in personal conflicts
either an adaptive or a maladaptive
• Basic Strengths
way.
To Erikson, motivating characteristics
• Epigenetic Principle Of Maturation
and beliefs that derive from the
The idea that human development is satisfactory resolution of the crisis at
governed by a sequence of stages each developmental stage.
that depend on genetic or hereditary
factors.
Psychosocial Stages Of Development
 CARL ROGERS

The organism has one basic tendency and striving—to

actualize, maintain, and enhance the experiencing organism.
—Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers: Self-Actualization Theory
• Actualization Tendency
The basic human motivation to
actualize, maintain, and enhance the
self.
• This drive toward self-actualization is
part of a larger actualization
tendency, which encompasses all our
physiological and psychological
needs.
• Rogers believed that the
actualization tendency begins in the
womb, facilitating human growth
• It is responsible for maturation—the
genetically determined development
of the body’s parts and processes—
ranging from the growth of the fetus
to the appearance of the secondary
sex characteristics at puberty.
• These changes, programmed into our
genetic makeup, are all brought to
fruition by the actualization
tendency.
• Positive Regard
Acceptance, love, and approval
from others.
• Unconditional Positive
Regard Approval granted
regardless of a person’s
behavior. In Rogers’s person-
centered therapy, the therapist
offers the client unconditional
positive regard.
• Positive Self-regard
The condition under which we
grant ourselves acceptance and
approval.
• Conditions Of Worth
To Rogers, a belief that we are worthy of approval only
when we express desirable behaviors and attitudes and
refrain from expressing those that bring disapproval from
others; like the Freudian superego.
Conditional Positive Regard
Approval, love, or acceptance granted only when a person
expresses desirable behaviors and attitudes.
Incongruence
A discrepancy between a person’s self-concept and
aspects of his or her experience.
Congruence And Emotional Health
Our level of psychological adjustment and emotional
health is a function of the degree of congruence or
compatibility between our self-concept and our
experiences.
Characteristics of fully functioning persons
 BURRHUS FREDERIC
SKINNER

It is the environment which must be changed. —B. F. Skinner

B. F. Skinner: Reinforcement Theory
• His fundamental idea is that behavior can • Skinner distinguished between two kinds
be controlled by its of behavior:
• consequences, that is, by what follows the • Respondent behavior
behavior. Skinner believed that an animal • Operant behavior
or a
• human could be trained to perform virtually
any act and that the type of reinforcement
• that followed the behavior would be
responsible for determining it. This means
that
• whoever controls the reinforcers has the
power to control human behavior, in the
same
• way an experimenter can control the
behavior of a laboratory rat.