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Basic Concepts of Personality Development
Basic Concepts of Personality Development
Personality
❑ Early established behavior patterns related to how one thinks, feels and relates to the
environment and to others.
❑ The sum total of one’s behaviors (John Watson)
❑ Environment
❑ Training
❑ He also stressed that early childhood experiences are important in the development of
personality.
❑ Personality structure
Conscious
❑ Part of the mind which functions when the person is awake and that makes a person a thinking
being.
❑ Focus on the here and now
Unconscious
❑ Largest part of the mind which exerts greatest influence in one’s personality. It is the storehouse
for all experiences, memories and feelings experienced by the individual in his entire life.
❑ The memories can not be recalled at will only through hypnotism, psychoanalysis or drugs
(hallucinogens)
❑ The unconscious part of the mind can be expressed as: dreams, slips of the tongue (Freudian
slip), unexplained behavior, jokes, lapses of memories
ID
❑ Unconscious part of the person which serves as the reservoir of primitive and biologic drives and
urges (libido-sexual drives).
❑ It is primitive, it demands immediate satisfaction.
Ego “self”
❑ Begins to develop during the 4th and 5th month.
❑ Solves problems
❑ It strives for perfection rather than pleasure and represents the ideal rather than the real
❑ Narcissistic-self love
❑ Desired outcomes: trust in the environment develops with the realization that needs can be met.
Possible personality traits:
❑ fixation at the oral stage is associated with passivity, gullibility and dependence, the use of
sarcasm and the development of orally focused habits e.g. nail biting and smoking
❑ Is able to use words and gestures regarding toilet training and toilet needs
❑ Behaviors: touching of genitals (masturbation) erotic attachment to the parent of the opposite
sex. Sexual identity with parent of the same sex
❑ Beginning of super ego development
❑ Unresolved outcomes may result to difficulties with sexual identity and difficulties with authority
figures.
❑ Fixation: masturbation
❑ Libido is channeled into school, home, organization activities, hobbies, relationship with peers
❑ They are very modest. They refuse to expose their bodies for physical examination.
❑ Behaviors: becomes independent of parents, responsible for self, develops sexual identity, ability
to love and work.
❑ Fixation: emotional and financial dependence, inability to form satisfying and intimate
relationship
❑ Evaluates one’s behavior vs. fear of doing wrong, lack of self-confidence, over restricting actions
❑ Develop a sense of self, planning for adult roles vs. doubts relating to sexual identity, occupation/
career
❑ Emancipation from family, heterosexual relationship, develops ideology and philosophy in life
❑ Develop intimate relationship with others, commitment to career vs. avoidance of choices in
relationship or life style
❑ The ability to love and be compassionate
❑ Productive; use of energies to guide next generation vs. lack of interest, concern with own self
❑ Feelings of self-acceptance
❑ Wisdom is achieved
❑ Fear of death
❑ Period of reminiscence
❑ Naturally active, mobile and curious which make them vulnerable to accident
❑ They love to tell ‘lies’, to brag and boast in order to impress others
❑ Questions about sex should be answered honestly at the level of their understanding
▪ they turn away from their parents and would look to peers of the same sex to fill the functions of
providing him sense of security and companionship.
▪ Period of gang loyalties
▪ Chum relationship- an intense love relationship with a particular person of the same sex whom
the child perceives to be very similar to himself
▪ Learns to put other need of his need
Adolescence (12-18 years old)
❑ Establish relationship with the opposite sex
❑ After earning a doctorate in Zoology in his hometown in Switzerland, he went to explore the field
of psychology because according to him humans like living organisms adapt to their
environment.
❑ He used the word SCHEMATA to refer to the child’s cognitive structure or framework of thought.
❑ Accommodation- occurs when what is taken in from the environment does not match the
existing structure and thus changes the structure to match the new information.
❑ Organization- is the process of placing one’s ideas into a coherent state of order.
These processes are constantly working together to produce changes in the growing child’s
understanding of the world.
❑ Pre-operational period (2-7 years old)- at the end of this stage, reasoning becomes intuitive.
✔ The child begins to work with problems of weight, length, size and time
❑ Each individual reaches each stage according to his or her own time table.
❑ He believed that libido was broadly derived from life energy not just from sex
Otto Rank
❑ Austrian psychologist/ Psychotherapist
❑ Emphasizes on considering the total individual from all points of view ‘HOLISM’
Alfred Adler
❑ Austrian Psychologist