2.

1
The Term "personality" stems from the Latin word persona,which was the name given to the
masks actors wore and the characters they portrayed.The meaning of the word personality
in practice has changed little since classical time for it is still quite common to hear the
comments such as "I do not know what he sees in her,she has a very poor personality ".
A Personality is a thing or quality that is possessed by all of us and we can paste such labels
as fine,good or poor on it on the basis of the physical markup,manner of their
walking,talking,dressing and a host of other similar characteristics processed by individuals.
Watson the father of behaviorism,taking clues from his behavioral studies,to conclude that
"Personality is the sum of activities that can be dis covered by actual observations aver a
long enough period of time to give information".(1930)
Morton Prince said to "Personality is the sum total of all the biological innate dispositions,in
pulses,tendencies.appetites and instincts of the individual and the dispositions and
tendencies acquired by experience".(1929)
Cattell remarked: "Personality is that which permits a prediction of what a person will do in a
given situation".(1970)
Eysenck said to,"Personality is the more or less stable and enduring organisation of a
person's character temperament,intellect and physique which determine his unique
adjustment to the environment". (1971)
2.2
a. Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality argues that human behavior is the
result of the interactions among three component parts of the mind: the id, ego, and
superego.
This "structural theory" of personality places great importance on how conflicts among the
parts of the mind shape behavior and personality. These conflicts are mostly unconscious.
According to Freud, personality develops during childhood and is critically shaped through a
series of five psychosexual stages, which he called his psychosexual theory of development.
During each stage, a child is presented with a conflict between biological drives and social
expectations; successful navigation of these internal conflicts will lead to mastery of each
developmental stage, and ultimately to a fully mature personality.
Freud's ideas have since been met with criticism, in part because of his singular focus on
sexuality as the main driver of human personality development.
Adlers individual psychology presents an optimistic view of people while resting heavily on
the notion of social interest, that is, a feeling of oneness with all humankind.
Because of this breach in beliefs, the relationship between Freud and Adler was tenuous.
Freud saw all human motivation reduced to sex and aggression while Adler saw people as
being motivated mostly by social influences and the striving for superiority or success.
Freud assumed that people have little or no choice in shaping their personality whereas
Adler believed that people are largely responsible for who they are.

Freuds assumption that present behavior is caused by past experiences was directly
opposed to Adlers notion that present behavior is shaped by peoples view of the future.
Freud placed very heavy emphasis on unconscious components of behavior while Adler
believed that psychologically healthy people are aware of what they are doing and why they
are doing it.

Her theoretical approach to this is describing it towards people's personalities. The

personality she gave is an example of children and how parents as well as other socializing
factors influence their personality. For instance, a normal child goes through life having
certain characteristics of themselves when relating experiences with school, hobbies, and
home. However, when looking at a child that is neurotic the environmental factors isolates
their true self. Also, older people can be described as neurotic, characterized by no selfworth, loss of decision making or interest, afraid or obsessive-compulsive, anxiety, and
depressed. The goal of this analysis is to basically change the person's opinions and
perception of life by seeking a person's potential of self-realization. This emphasizes that the
neurotic should be aware of their environmental factors that surround them and their innerself, knowing who they are. This means "striving toward a clearer and deeper experiencing"
(Neurosis and Human Growth, 364) with the direction of their lives. This analysis "cannot
solve the ills of the world" (Self-Analysis, 10) but it can explain the neurotic's problems and
try to help them. Psychoanalysis therapy is "helping people toward their best possible
further development" (Self-Analysis, 37). Freud suggests that this therapy involves the
neurotic developing love for the analyst in addition to seeking help. However, Horney feels
this is "not prompted by love for the analyst" (Self-Analysis, 20) but is the patients fear of
people and their way of coping with life. The patient would feel helpless otherwise. Freud
suggests that in order for people to overcome their resistance they need to deny them.
Horney suggests differently. She thinks "the strength of the resisting forces and the strength
of the self to deal with them" (Self-Analysis, 269)..

b. Behaviorism
In the early twentieth century, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov did Nobel prize-winning work
on digestion[2]. While studying the role of saliva in dogs digestive processes, he stumbled
upon a phenomenon he labeled psychic reflexes. While an accidental discovery, he had
the foresight to see the importance of it. Pavlovs dogs, restrained in an experimental
chamber, were presented with meat powder and they had their saliva collected via a
surgically implanted tube in their saliva glands. Over time, he noticed that his dogs who
begin salivation before the meat powder was even presented, whether it was by the
presence of the handler or merely by a clicking noise produced by the device that
distributed the meat powder.
Fascinated by this finding, Pavlov paired the meat powder with various stimuli such as the
ringing of a bell. After the meat powder and bell (auditory stimulus) were presented together
several times, the bell was used alone. Pavlovs dogs, as predicted, responded by salivating
to the sound of the bell (without the food). The bell began as a neutral stimulus (i.e. the bell
itself did not produce the dogs salivation). However, by pairing the bell with the stimulus
that did produce the salivation response, the bell was able to acquire the ability to trigger
the salivation response. Pavlov therefore demonstrated how stimulus-response bonds (which
some consider as the basic building blocks of learning) are formed. He dedicated much of
the rest of his career further exploring this finding.

In technical terms, the meat powder is considered an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the
dogs salivation is the unconditioned response (UCR). The bell is a neutral stimulus until the
dog learns to associate the bell with food. Then the bell becomes a conditioned stimulus
(CS) which produces the conditioned response (CR) of salivation after repeated pairings
between the bell and food.

John B. Watson is generally given credit for creating and popularizing the term behaviorism
with the publication of his seminal 1913 article "Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It." In
the article, Watson argued that psychology had failed in its quest to become a natural
science, largely due to a focus on consciousness and other unseen phenomena. Rather than
study these unverifiable ideas, Watson urged the careful scientific study of observable
behavior. His view of behaviorism was a reaction to introspection, where each researcher
served as his or her own research subject, and the study of consciousness by Freud and
others, which Watson believed to be highly subjective and unscientific.
In response to introspection, Watson and other early behaviorists believed that controlled
laboratory studies were the most effective way to study learning. With this approach,
manipulation of the learner's environment was the key to fostering development. This
approach stands in contrast to techniques that placed the emphasis for learning in the mind
of the learner. The 1913 article is often given credit for the founding of behaviorism, but it
had a minor impact after its publication. His popular 1919 psychology text is probably more
responsible for introducing behaviorist principles to a generation of future scholars of
learning. In this way, Watson prepared psychologists and educators for the highly influential
work of Skinner and other radical behaviorists in subsequent decades.

When Rotter developed his social learning theory, the dominant perspective in clinical
psychology at the time was Freud's psychoanalysis, which focused on people's deep-seated
instinctual motives as determining behavior. Individuals were seen as being naive to their
unconscious impulses, and treatment required long-term analysis of childhood experience.
Even learning approaches at the time were dominated by drive theory, which held that
people are motivated by physiologically-based impulses that press the individual to satisfy
them. In developing social learning theory, Rotter departed from instinct-based
psychoanalysis and drive-based behaviorism. He believed that a psychological theory should
have a psychological motivational principle. Rotter chose the empirical law of effect as his
motivating factor. The law of effect states that people are motivated to seek out positive
stimulation, or reinforcement, and to avoid unpleasant stimulation. Rotter combined
behaviorism and the study of personality, without relying on physiological instincts or drives
as a motive force.
The main idea in Julian Rotter's social learning theory is that personality represents an
interaction of the individual with his or her environment. One cannot speak of a personality,
internal to the individual, that is independent of the environment. Neither can one focus on
behavior as being an automatic response to an objective set of environmental stimuli.
Rather, to understand behavior, one must take both the individual (i.e., his or her life history
of learning and experiences) and the environment (i.e., those stimuli that the person is
aware of and responding to) into account. Rotter describes personality as a relatively stable
set of potentials for responding to situations in a particular way.
Rotter sees personality, and therefore behavior, as always changeable. Change the way the
person thinks, or change the environment the person is responding to, and behavior will

change. He does not believe there is a critical period after which personality is set. But, the
more life experience one has building up certain sets of beliefs, the more effort and
intervention required for change to occur. Rotter conceives of people in an optimistic way. He
sees them as being drawn forward by their goals, seeking to maximize their reinforcement,
rather than just avoiding punishment.
Rotter has four main components to his social learning theory model predicting behavior.
These are behavior potential, expectancy, reinforcement value, and the psychological
situation.

Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during
the famous Bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961).
Individuals that are observed are called models. In society, children are surrounded by many
influential models, such as parents within the family, characters on childrens TV, friends
within their peer group and teachers at school. Theses models provide examples of
behavior to observe and imitate, e.g. masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social etc.
Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behavior. At a
later time they may imitate (i.e. copy) the behavior they have observed. They may do this
regardless of whether the behavior is gender appropriate or not, but there are a number of
processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that its society
deems appropriate for its sex.
First, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as similar to
itself. Consequently, it is more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the same sex.
Second, the people around the child will respond to the behavior it imitates with either
reinforcement or punishment. If a child imitates a models behavior and the consequences
are rewarding, the child is likely to continue performing the behavior. If parent sees a little
girl consoling her teddy bear and says what a kind girl you are, this is rewarding for the
child and makes it more likely that she will repeat the behavior. Her behavior has been
reinforced (i.e. strengthened).
Reinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative. If a child wants
approval from parents or peers, this approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling happy
about being approved of is an internal reinforcement. A child will behave in a way which it
believes will earn approval because it desires approval.
Positive (or negative) reinforcement will have little impact if the reinforcement offered
externally does not match with an individual's needs. Reinforcement can be positive or
negative, but the important factor is that it will usually lead to a change in a person's
behavior.
Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when deciding
whether or not to copy someones actions. A person learns by observing the consequences
of another persons (i.e. models) behaviour e.g. a younger sister observing an older sister
being rewarded for a particular behaviour is more likely to repeat that behaviour herself.
This is known as vicarious reinforcement.
This relates to attachment to specific models that possess qualities seen as rewarding.
Children will have a number of models with whom they identify. These may be people in

their immediate world, such as parents or older siblings, or could be fantasy characters or
people in the media. The motivation to identify with a particular model is that they have a
quality which the individual would like to possess.
Identification occurs with another person (the model) and involves taking on (or adopting)
observed behaviors, values, beliefs and attitudes of the person with whom you are
identifying.
The term identification as used by Social Learning Theory is similar to the Freudian term
related to the Oedipus complex. For example, they both involve internalizing or adopting
another persons behavior. However, during the Oedipus complex the child can only identify
with the same sex parent, whereas with Social Learning Theory the person (child or adult)
can potentially identify with any other person.
Identification is different to imitation as it may involve a number of behaviors being adopted,
whereas imitation usually involves copying a single behavior.

c. Phenomenological Approach
Maslow's (1943, 1954) hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising
a five tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.
Maslow wanted to understand what motivates people. He believed that people possess a set
of motivation systems unrelated to rewards or unconscious desires.
Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs, and that some
needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this
will be the first thing that motivates our behaviour. Once that level is fulfilled the next level
up is what motivates us, and so on.
This five stage model can be divided into deficiency needs and growth needs. The first four
levels are often referred to as deficiency needs and the top level is known as growth or being
needs.
The deficiency needs are said to motivate people when they are unmet. Also, the need to
fulfil such needs will become stronger the longer the duration they are denied. For example,
the longer a person goes without food the more hungry they will become.
One must satisfy lower level deficit needs before progressing on to meet higher level growth
needs. When a deficit need has been satisfied it will go away. Our activities become
habitually directed towards meeting the next set of needs that we have yet to satisfy. These
then become our salient needs. However, growth needs continue to be felt and may even
become stronger once they have been engaged. Once these growth needs have been
reasonably satisfied, one may be able to reach the highest level called self-actualization.
Every person is capable and has the desire to move up the hierarchy toward a level of selfactualization. Unfortunately, progress is often disrupted by failure to meet lower level needs.
Life experiences, including divorce and loss of job may cause an individual to fluctuate
between levels of the hierarchy. Therefore, not everyone will move through the hierarchy in
a uni-directional manner but may move back and forth between the different types of needs.

Maslow noted only one in a hundred people become fully self-actualized because our society
rewards motivation primarily based on esteem, love and other social needs.
The original hierarchy of needs five-stage model includes:
1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.

2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.

3. Love and belongingness needs - friendship, intimacy, trust and acceptance, receiving and
giving affection and love. Affiliating, being part of a group (family, friends, work).

4. Esteem needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, selfrespect, respect from others.

5. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal

growth and peak experiences.