Answer the following…….
What is personality?
Personality is a unique feature of each individual. A person’s behavior, habits, skill, thoughts, and the way they do things make up their personality. This is a long-term characteristic developed in an individual through which the person makes contact with others around them. Personalities are usually stable and cannot be changed. Personality is taken from the Latin word called persona, which means a mask. In the early times, people wore masks for drama to show a character’s personality.
In 370 BCE, Hippocrates made a theory that human behaviors and traits are the results of the fluids inside the human body. Their theory suggests that both diseases and personality differences are imbalances in the temperaments of these human fluids. According to Clark & Watson (2008), zealous, enthusiastic, and courageous are choleric personalities, whereas restrained, troubled, and disconsolate are the personalities of melancholic people. The sanguine people are mostly positive-minded about the future, hopeful and merry people, on the other hand, the phlegmatic people are gentle, dependable as well as contemplative. Later in 1780, a German physician named Franz Gall proposed another theory where he studies that the distances between the “bumps of the skull” reveal character or make up the personality of an individual. phrenology was very popular but it soon came to an end with the lack of imperial support.
How does personality affect human behaviors?
Personality is the assumed small effects that a person has on their behavior which is. Behaviorists believe that a personality of a person is shaped by the activities or situations around them. They believe that a person is responsible for their behavior, they strictly “do not believe in biological determinism”. According to Skinner, an individual develops his behavior by the way he responds to the situation. A person tends to mold their behaviors to suit the situations, for instance, people increase the behavior that leads to positive outcomes rather than negative outcomes. Personality develops through every stage in a person’s life and not just in childhood, argues Skinner.
What did the psychodynamic or Freud’s theory say in terms of conscious and unconscious ways in which personality impacts people?
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was a medieval doctor and also a psychological theorist. In his days there was no “degree in psychology” which could help people understand the controversies of human behavior. Freud had a systematic study of the unconscious mind which best suits the modern study of psychology.
To make the concept of consciousness and unconsciousness easier for people to understand Freud compared a person’s mind to an iceberg. He claimed that one-tenth of the human mind is in the conscious state whereas the rest of the mind is in an unconscious state. The unconscious mind is the mental activity that the person himself is oblivious of. Repression is the process through which a person’s unacceptable thoughts and desires are stored, says Freud.
Freud explains that a personality is developed by two conflicting forces, one being the biological aggressive and the other being the pleasure-seeking drives. A personality is the combination of these two balanced forces. This can be understood by the three interacting systems in our minds, the ego, id, and superego. From birth, the id is contained in our unconscious mind. It controls the urges of “hunger, thirst, and sex”. According to Freud, the id is the “pleasure principle” which looks for immediate satisfaction. As a child grows up interacting with more people the id gets in control by the ego and superego. As the child grows and it develops the learning of the social rules about rights and wrong, this is called the superego. The superego acts as a person’s morality teaching a person how to behave. Superego pursues perfection and judges one’s self leading to feelings like pride and guilt. The ego is the personality of an individual, as it strives to balance the id and the superego to portray it to others around the person. Therefore, Freud also calls it the “reality principle”, as it is ambitious to satisfy personal desires in reality. It focuses on satisfying its desires regardless of the consequences, but the superego tries to formulate the behavior in a universally acceptable manner. The ego’s job is to balance both the id and the ego to maintain a “personality balance”. Freud further explains that a disbalance between these can result in neurosis, where a person feels negative emotions. These may result in “anxiety disorders or unhealthy behaviors”.
Explain how each of these factors affects personality or a person’s behavior.
Give an example4 to show how each one works to influence one’s acts.
Anxiety
Repression
Rationalization
Denial
Projection
Sublimation or diverting
(a). The unconscious mind uses defense mechanisms to protect the behavior to “aim to reduce anxiety”. The ego is a constant struggle to protect and decrease anxiety. According to Freud, every person uses defense mechanisms in their unconscious mind, working in different ways to contrast reality.
For example, if a situation or feeling is making a person feel anxious then the person would want to reduce their anxiety. The defense mechanism paves the path to deal with such anxiety unconsciously to the person.
(b). Repression is referred to as containing the unpleasant past and thoughts. For example, Rachel could not remember the death of her grandfather even though she was present when he breathed his last.
(c). Rationalization is the justification of one’s actions with acceptable reasons for convincing for their wrong unacceptable real reasons. For example, Julia failed her geography exam as she did not appear for the exam with full preparation, but she convinced her friends in believing that the professor did not like her and as a result, he gave her a fail mark.
(d). Denial is refusing to accept an individual’s bad traits because they are socially or morally unacceptable. For example, Kayla refuses to accept she is consuming heavy doses of alcohol, even though she cannot go a day without drinking.
(e). Projection is imputing an individual’s inappropriate emotions on someone else. For example, Juliet suspects that her boyfriend is cheating on her so in return she cheats on him.
(f). Rerouting unacceptable desires of an individual through a medium that is ethically acceptable by everyone else, is known as sublimation or diverting. For example, David’s killing of the driver who killed his son is channeled to other people as drinking leads to the loss of loved ones in a family.
Describe your personality in general.
I am a very self-conscious kind of person, which is why people think that I judge everyone I see because I limit my conversations depending on the person I am talking to. I usually think before I speak so that whatever I say makes sense to people. Another reason for me not to talk much is that I do not want to get ignored when I speak. I want people to listen to me when I talk to them so making short conversations helps a lot to grab a person’s attention. There’s another benefit to limiting your conversations with people, it is that people are also aware of the kind of person I am and, most of the people also think before they speak to me. Any random jokes even by my friends are followed by an apology. From my point of view, I like when people think before they come and talk to me, that makes me feel more respected. As I am very conscious about what I do and say, people assume that I am a very bold and courageous kind of person. I like It when people think about me in that way because I have learned to pretend that I’m bold even when I feel nervous. Whenever I stop pretending It becomes very difficult for me to face even a small group of people as I start palpitating, and find it very difficult to suit words for that situation. This trait of mine is not known to many, as I have portrayed myself as a very elegant, respectful, and bold person.
Choose the factors that explain your personality and explain why?
People who meet me find me very judgmental and sometimes not so friendly because I do not talk much with anyone, so they might feel like I am not interested or proud. As I have already said that people think that I am very bold so I have adopted a quality to pretend in situations that I am confident even when I am not. So I think that anxiety is working to make me feel not so anxious even when I am. I think that this might be the factor that is affecting my personality because it has made me develop this quality of pretending which helps me overcome my anxiety and no one can make out that I was anxious at that moment as they think I am too good to be stupid. I also think that I might have the quality of rationalization, as most people do, to blame the fault to be of someone else even though we know the real reasons. So, there have been several occasions where I have used this mechanism to justify my actions. For instance, I tend to blame my mother when I would get late for some event because it would affect my reputation and I cannot accept my fault. I also think that I might have repression as a defense mechanism because there were times when people tried to remind me of my bad past so that they could make fun of it but I just simply denied remembering any of that.
Positive and better changes to develop your personality in the future.
To develop my personality, I guess I have to take more personality quizzes about myself so that I can discover more about my personality and my behavior. I also want to get rid of my anxiety which creeps in whenever I do not want it to. I find it very difficult whenever I am anxious and I prefer being alone whenever I feel this way. To overcome this fear, I think I have to talk more in a way that people find more acceptable as talking less might serve to have a negative thought about me. I think that I can avoid rationalization by accepting my faults, it might not be easy but to develop my personality for the good, I have to work this out. Repression is not a very helpful solution to facing the past, I think sometimes remembering the past helps a person to put things together and have a better future knowing with all their senses not to make the same mistakes again.
OCEAN
What makes you Unique
The difference between Introvert and extroverts
What makes us different
Why we should not ask people about their traits or types but instead ask them about their core projects that are important in their lives.
The five dimensions of trait psychology which are the approaches that influence the science of personality are called the OCEAN. It describes a variety of aspects regarding the “differences between people”. OCEAN is an acronym for “open to experience”, “conscientiousness”, “extroversion”, “agreeable individuals”, and “neurotic individuals”. These dimensions give a person an idea of how life would be. For example, life’s success can be predicted by “openness and conscientiousness”, but success in open people can be achieved by being bold, which might seem odd sometimes. The other set of people who stick to deadlines to achieve their goals, and constantly persevere are conscientious people. Extroverts and agreeable individuals are people who come along easily. Lastly, there are individuals who are not so stable referred to as “neurotic individuals”.
Extroverts are very stimulated when they find some things to be very exciting. They like participating in social events and gatherings such as parties and enjoy loud noises. Whereas introverts like calmness and quiet spaces to “reduce stimulation”. According to Brian Little, caffeine works best for extroverts rather than introverts. For example, extroverts might need coffee as soon as they enter the office, it is not the same for introverts. Even if they have some coffee and become quantitative, they would appear not to be quantitative, giving people a misconception of themselves. Extroverts tend to engage in more sexual activities than introverts. Extroverts are social people; they would stand close while communicating and would call nicknames to make the conversation more comfortable. For introverts it is not the same, they only speak intimately if they are comfortable with the person they are talking to. Extroverts speak a very simple language in either black or white, introverts prefer complex things in their language.
The traits of a person cannot define them as everyone is different. If two people from different regions, as said in the Ted talk of Mr. Little, are extroverted does not mean that they share the same traits. Both of them are different people sharing “extroversion” as well as “neuroticism”. Our cultures and our authenticities make us different from each other even though we may share a trait in personality. Personal projects make a person different; it is mainly constituted of our daily tasks.
