Chapter 2 of your textbook outlines several theories of personality development (e.g., psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, and biological). Among these perspectives, the book also discusses many of the contributors to the development of the theories.
Should you choose to learn about personality theories for course credit under blog comments, please complete the following:
- Choose 2 of the overarching theories presented in the chapter (e.g., psychodynamic, behavioral, humanistic, and biological) and provide an overview of each theory's perspective on personality development.
- Because there are several contributors to each theory, you may choose to focus on the work of one or more psychologists in each area.
- Which theory do you believe in? Maybe you tend to agree with one theory over another, or maybe a combination or multiple theories. Please provide reasoning and/or examples explaining why you believe in the theory(ies).
Sigmund Freud had a very different view of the personality development when compared to other scientists and psychologists. He created a theory of psychoanalytic theory. He believes that there are three parts that contribute to personality: the id, ego, and superego. Freud believed that we did not control our own minds but other forces led to how our personalities developed. These components included unconscious forces, our experiences as children, and the way in which we deal with our sexual urges. Freud developed the three components of personality to describe how these forces effect us. The id was the part of us that controlled our biological needs such as eating and sleeping. The ego is what controls our decisions along with considering the principles of reality. The superego is the part that determines what is good and bad based on principles of the world. Along with these three concepts, there are three other parts called the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. The conscious is what you are aware of, the preconscious is what lies right beneath the surface, and the unconscious is are our memories and thoughts that we are not personally aware of.
ReplyDeleteAnother theory of personality development is the behavioral perspective. Behavioral perspective explains how personality can be observed by the behaviors of a person. A main contributor to his thoughts on this theory is Pavlov and his classical conditioning. Pavlov performed experiments in order to show that our behavior can be due to stimuli that we activate by the correspondence we put with certain objects. He did an experiment with a dog and its ability to salivate by hearing just the ding of a bell. This was done because Pavlov would ring a bell and put food out in front of the dog. This was done several times and then eventually it was made so that when the dog heard the ding, it would salivate just as if there was a food dish out in front of it. Pavlov said that conditioning could become conditioned reflexes because they brought up involuntary arousal when hearing or seeing a certain sound or object such as a cop car. These arousals can be brought about by memories or different experiences put together with these objects.
I believe in Ivan Pavlov's theory more than Sigmund Freud's. Freud's theory is very abstract and discusses the unconscious and terms that may not even be reliable. They seem far-fetched to me based on his theory. I definitely agree a lot more with Pavlov's theory because I experience some of the ideas that he describes. An example would be that I automatically push the break of my car if I see a police car because I get nervous even if I am not speeding. I also experiencing this happening when smelling food and beginning to salivate even though you are not actually eating anything. These reflexes happen every day and they seem to make more sense to me. It is relatable to both me and people around me that I experience personally on a daily basis.