THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
THEORETICAL
THEORY
APPROACH
Psychoanalysis
Ego Analytic Psychology
Psychoanalytic
Extended Psychoanalytic Theory
/ Object Relations Theory
Development of Self Psychology
Separation-Individuation Theory
of Child Development
Neopsychoanalytic Individual Psychology
THEORISTS BASIC TENET BASIC CONCEPTS
Human personality and
behavior are powerfully Id, ego, and superego,
shaped by early childhood wishes, instincts,
relationships. They parapraxes, defense
Sigmund Freud believed that humans are mechanisms, anxiety,
primarily pleasure-seeking dreams, psychosexual
creature dominated by stages, deterministic,
sexual and aggressive pessimistic
impulses.
In order to emerge in an
analysis, the ego must Developmental line, ego,
become aware of the diagnostic profile,
Anna Freud
utilized defenses to elaboration of defense
prevent the material to mechanisms
resurface.
Recognizing the
importance of earliest
Relationships, introject,
Melanie Klein childhood experiences in
positions
the formation of the adult
emotional world.
Children developed a sense
of self during early infancy
Transference, self-love,
when parents and others
Heinz Kohut narcissism, empathy
treat them as if they had
development
an individualized sense of
identity.
Children’s sense of identity
rests on a three-step Separation and
Margaret Mahler
relationship with their individuation
mother.
Fictions, finalisms,
Individuals strive toward
inferiority complex,
completion and toward
superiority complex,
Alfred Adler achieving his or her
creative self, social
idiosyncratic, fictional
interest, striving for
personal goals.
superiority, style of life,

Analytical Psychology
Psychoanalytic Social Theory
Humanistic Psychoanalysis
Personology
Psychosocial Stages of
Life Span Approach
Personality Development
Trait Approach Psychology of the Individual
birth order, safeguarding
tendencies
Humans have a vast and
mysterious potential within
their unconscious. Psyche, attitudes,
Unconsciousness contains functions of attitudes,
broad psychic energy archetypes, collective
Carl Jung
rather than simply sexual unconscious, self-
energy. Humans are realization, self,
extremely complex beings synchronicity, complexes
who possess a sanely of
opposing qualities.
Basic anxiety, neurosis,
Social and cultural
neurotic trends, idealized
conditions especially
self, real self, feminine
Karen Horney during childhood have a
psychology,
powerful effect on later
hypercompetitiveness,
personality.
womb envy
Basic human condition,
Humans have been torn
loneliness, escape
away from their prehistoric
mechanisms, character
Erich Fromm union with nature and left
orientations, basic needs,
with no powerful instinct to
syndrome of decay,
adapt to a changing world.
necrophilous character
Personality is rooted in the Need, alpha press, beta
brain. He was the one who press, proceeding, serial,
Henry Murray
quoted, “No brain, no serial program, ordination,
personality.” TAT
It postulated eight stages
of psychosocial
development through
Psychosocial stages,
which people progress. He
Erik Erikson identity crisis, virtue, ego,
emphasized on ego and
epigenetic principle
social influences than what
Freud’s asserted on Id and
unconscious.
He emphasized the
Traits, cardinal disposition,
uniqueness of each
Gordon Allport common trait, personal
individual. He believed that
disposition, central
psychologically healthy
 individuasl are motivated disposition, proprium,
by present, mostly functional autonomy
conscious drives and that
they not only seek to
reduce tensions but to
establish new ones.
Surface traits, source
traits, factor analysis,
Human personality is
extraversion, introversion,
Hans Eysenck and largely the product of
Trait and Factor Theories emotionality, stability,
Raymond Cattell genetics and not
reticular activating system,
environment.
visceral brain, restrictive
eugenics, PEN model
Openness,
Conscientiousness,
Robert McCrae & Paul These identified important
Five Factor Theory (Big 5) Extroversion,
Costa dimensions of personality.
Agreeableness,
Neuroticism
Arnold Buss & Robert
Plomin
He believed that pyknic
persons were friendly, Temperaments, pykoric,
Ernst Kretschner
interpersonally dependent, asthenic, athletics
and gregarious.
He believes that there are
Temperament Theory
three core elements in the
effective face-to-face
Model of emotions,
communication of
Albert Mehrabian pleasure, arousal,
emotions or attitudes:
dominance
nonverbal, tone of voice
and literal meaning of the
spoken word.
People are continually
motivated by one or more Hierarchy of needs, B-
needs, and that, under the needs, D-needs, self-
Humanistic Approach Holistic-Dynamic Theory Abraham Maslow proper circumstances, they actualization,
can reach a level of metamotivation,
psychological health called motivation
self-actualization.

Person-Centered Theory
Man’s Search for Meaning /
Logotherapy
Existential Psychology
Gestalt Psychology
Personal Constructs Theory
Cognitive Approach
Irrational Beliefs
Irrational Cognitive Processes
Self, actualization,
organismic valuing,
Each individual has the process, self-concept,
capacity for dramatic and congruence, empathy,
Carl Rogers
positive growth; People are positive regard,
basically good. unconditional positive
regard, conditional positive
regard, conditions of worth
Logotherapy, freedom and
Human nature is motivated responsibility, composition
by the search for a life of logotherapy,
Victor Frankl purpose; logotherapy is composition of the
the pursuit of that meaning of life,
meaning for one’s life. composition of attitudinal
values
A basic unity exists
between people and their
environment, a unity
Simultaneous, modes,
expressed by term Dasein
umwelt, mitwelt,
or being-in-the-world.
Rollo May eigenwelt, guilt,
People are both aware
existentialism, anxiety,
themselves as living beings
daimonic, intentionality
and also aware of the
possibility of nonbeing or
nothingness.
Frederick Fritz Perls
It holds that people Characteristics of
anticipate events by the constructs, corollaries,
George Kelly meanings or postulates, constructs,
interpretations that they anticipation of events,
place on those events. metatheory
He developed an ABCDE
format to teach people
Albert Ellis how their beliefs cause Irrational beliefs
their emotional and
behavioral responses.
A person’s experiences
Irrational beliefs, Beck
result in cognitions of
Aaron Beck Depression Inventory
thoughts. Disorders are
(BDI)
maintained by negative

Transactional Analysis
Cognitive-Affective Personality
Theory
Radical Behaviorism / Operant
Conditioning
Behavioral Approach
Theory of Behaviorism
Classical Conditioning
Social Cognitive Theory /
Social Learning Reciprocal Determinism
Approach
Interpersonal Theory
attitudes and distorted
thinking.
Social transactions are
Transactional, ego state,
analyzed to determine the
transaction types, life
Eric Berne ego state of the patient as
script, strokes, games,
a basis for understanding
psychological positions
behavior.
Human behavior stems
from relatively stable Marshmallow Test, delay of
personal dispositions and gratification, behavioral
Walter Mischel
cognitive-affective signature, consistency
processes interacting with paradox
a particular situation.
Humans are neither
positive or negative, but
simply a function of their
Operant conditioning, a
environment. Human
theory of personality
behavior like any other
without personality,
B.F. Skinner natural phenomena is
shaping, reinforcement,
subject to the laws of
schedules of
science, and that
reinforcement, satiation
psychologists should not
attribute inner motivations
to it.
A child’s environment is
the factor that shapes
John B. Watson behaviors over their Behaviorism
genetic makeup or natural
temperament.
Objects or events could
Ivan Pavlov trigger a conditioned Conditioning process
response.
Human activity is a
function of behavior and
Observational learning,
person variables as well as
Albert Bandura chance encounters,
the environment; He
fortuitous events, modeling
believes that reinforcement
is mediated by cognition.
It emphasized the Dynamisms, self-system,
Harry Sullivan
importance of security operations, eidetic

Locus of Control
Sensation seeking
Theory of Learned Helplessness
Filipino Psychology Sikolohiyang Pilipino
interpersonal relations. personification,
Personality is shaped personification, cognitive
almost entirely by the processes, anxiety,
relationship we have with unawareness
other people.
Human behavior is best
predicted from an
understanding of the I-E Construct, Locus of
Julian Rotter
interaction of people with control, interactionist
their meaningful
environments.
Sensation seeking is one of
many core traits that
Marvin Zuckerman Sensation seeking
describe human
personality.
An organism learning to
Learned helplessness,
accept and endure
positive psychology,
Martin E.P. Seligman unpleasant stimuli, and
explanatory style,
unwilling to avoid them,
attribution model
even when it is avoidable.
It refers to the psychology
born out of the experience,
thought and orientation of
the Filipinos, based on the
Katutubong karanasan,
full use of Filipino culture
Sikolohiyang Pilipino,
Virgilio Enriquez and language. The
sikolohiya sa Pilipinas,
theoretical framework and
sikolohiya ng mga Pilipino
methodology emerge from
the experiences of the
people from the indigenous
culture.