CHAPTER 3: THE DEVELOPING PERSONALITY
DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
Every person has a distinct personality that sets him or her apart from others. Many factors
influence one's personality, which we refer to as "determinants of personality”. The following are some of
the factors that influence one's personality:
A. Heredity refers to the genetic factors, such as qualities, that are passed down through the generations
through a biological mechanism from one generation to the next. Physical characteristics such as eye
color, blood type, or illness, facial attractiveness, temperament, or behavioural characteristics are
examples of these qualities.
Parents Children Personality
B. Environment refers to which the affects the person during his growing years. This determinant plays a
very important role in shaping the person’s personality. This covers the society or culture in which we
were raised, as well as family rituals and norms. It's natural to assume that children raised by the same
parents will have similar personalities, but this isn't always the case. The process of socialization begins
with the first contact between a mother and her new baby. They do, in fact, gradually come into contact
with society outside of the home, such as peers, school, colleagues, and so on.
Parents Children Society Personality
C. Situation
The main determinants of personality are heredity and environment, but the situation affects the
impact of heredity and environment on personality. It is not difficult for you to understand how we, as
humans, respond to various situations in different ways. Because of the demands of the various situations
from different aspects of one's personality, one's personality changes depending on the situation. When
you're at work and at a party with your friends, you would act differently in front of your boss. As a result,
personality must be examined in context, not in isolation.
“Situation exerts an important press on the individual,” according to American Psychologist
Standley Milgram. It puts constraints on you and may give you a push. In some cases, it is not so much a
man's character as it is the situation in which he finds himself that decides his actions.”
Parents Children Society Situation Personality
FOUR MAJOR APPROACHES ON PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
Personality is a difficult notion to describe. Listed below are a few important approaches on the
study of personality held by various personality scholars. Based on their theoretical dispositions, various
theorists present us with their own definitions and understandings of the term personality.
A. Psychodynamic Approaches
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his later followers used the psychodynamic view to explain the
origins of individual personality. The father of psychoanalysis, Freud, was a physiologist, physician, and
influential thinker in the early twentieth century.
Basic Assumptions
a. Unconscious motives have a significant impact on our actions and emotions.
b. As adults, our behavior and emotions (including psychological issues) are influenced by our childhood
experiences.
c. Psychic determinism: All behavior, including slips of the tongue, has a cause. As a result, everything
you do is predetermined.
d. Personality is made up of three parts: the id, ego, and super-ego (i.e., tripartite).
The personality approach encompasses a number of psychological theories that view human
functioning as a result of the interaction of unconscious and conscious drives and forces within the
person, as well as between the various personality systems. According to psychodynamic theory, events
from our childhood have a significant impact on our adult lives, shaping our personalities. Childhood
events can linger in the unconscious mind and cause problems as adults. Although we are unaware of it,
the information in our unconscious influences our behavior.
The term "unconscious" refers to mental
activity that we are unaware of and unable to
access (Freud, 1923). The unconscious mind is
made up of mental processes that are hidden from
conscious awareness but have an impact on
decisions, emotions, and behavior (Wilson, 2002).
Unacceptable urges and desires, according to
Freud, are suppressed in our unconscious through
a process known as repression. For example, we
may accidentally say things we didn't mean to say
by substituting another word for the one we meant.
The id, ego, and superego are three systems in
Freud's theory of personality, and the mind is like
an iceberg, with the unconscious accounting for 90% of the mind and the conscious (like the tip of the
iceberg floating above water) accounting for only 10%. He coined these terms and suggested this mental
division as abstract ideas to aid in our understanding of how personality evolves and functions.
The id (Latin term for "it") is a personality trait that encompasses our basic instincts, inborn
dispositions, and animalistic urges. The id, according to Freud, is completely unconscious. The id,
according to Freud, operates on the pleasure principle, aiming toward pleasurable things and away from
painful ones. Our biological urges and drives are satisfied by the id. Hunger, thirst, sex, and other natural
body wishes aimed at obtaining pleasure are all included.
The ego (Greek and Latin for "I") is a personality trait that begins to develop in childhood and can
be translated as "self." The ego is conscious and unconscious in equal measure. The ego follows the
reality principle, attempting to assist the id in obtaining what it desires by judging the distinction between
real and imaginary. If someone is thirsty, for example, the id may start to imagine juice or water and even
dream about it. (The id is not rational) The ego, on the other hand, will try to figure out how to get some
water. The ego aids in the fulfillment of a person's desires through reality.
The moral ideas that a person learns in his or her family and society are included in the
superego. When people do something right (the ego ideal), the superego makes them feel proud, and
when they do something, they consider to be morally wrong, they feel guilty (the conscience). The
superego, like the ego, is conscious and unconscious in equal measure. A healthy personality
development, according to Freud, necessitates a balance between the id and the superego. Intrapsychic
conflict, or conflict within the mind, is exemplified by the struggle between these two.
Although Freud's psychoanalysis was the first psychodynamic theory, the psychodynamic
approaches on personality encompasses all theories based on his thoughts, including the following
prominent psychoanalytic approaches theorists:
Erik Erikson - From childhood to adulthood, he stressed that personality develops in a
predetermined order. He called his theory "psychosocial theory”, with eight developmental stages. An
individual goes through a psychosocial crisis at each stage, which can have a positive or negative
impact on their personality development.
Carl Jung - Analytic psychology is the psychoanalytic approach developed by Jung. He was
particularly interested in ideas like the collective unconscious, archetypes, and psychological types.
Alfred Adler - The core motivation behind personality, according to him, is a desire for domination,
or the desire to overcome obstacles and move closer to self-realization. This desire for superiority
derives from what Adler considered to be universal feelings of inferiority.
Karen Horney - She emphasized the importance of overcoming fundamental anxiety, such as the
feeling of being alone in the world. She stressed the importance of the parent-child relationship, as
well as social and cultural factors that influence personality.
B. Humanistic Approach
Personality from a humanistic approach emphasizes psychological development, free will, and
self-awareness. It takes a more optimistic view of human nature and focuses on how each person can
reach their full potential.
Basic Assumptions
a. People have free will; not all of their actions are predetermined.
b. Each person is unique and driven to reach their full potential.
c. Human behavior can only be fully understood by studying humans rather than animals.
d. Individual cases (idiographic) should be studied in psychology rather than average group performance
(nomothetic).
The following are the most important theorists of the humanistic approach:
Carl Rogers - Significant aspects of "person-centered therapy" are published by Rogers. He
believed in people's innate goodness and stressed the value of free will and psychological
development. The actualizing trend, he claimed, is the driving force behind human behavior.
Abraham Maslow - He developed the “Hierarchical Theory of Human Motivation.” The most basic
needs are for things that are necessary for survival, such as food and water, but as individuals
progress up the hierarchy, these needs shift to include things like esteem and self-actualization.
C. TRAIT APPROACHES
This standpoint assumes that particular traits, which are the fundamental components of one's
personality, determine one's behavior. Researchers believe that by gaining a better understanding of
these characteristics, they will be able to better comprehend individual differences.
This approach believes that personality can be assessed and measured by various psychometric
tests. Continuous (quantitative) variables are trait scores. A numeric score is assigned to a person to
determine how much of a trait they possess.
Basic Assumptions
a. Personality traits are predictable because they are relatively stable.
b. In a variety of cases, personality traits are consistent.
c. Each person possesses a unique set of characteristics in varying degrees.
Below are the most important trait perspective theorists:
Hans Eysenck - Extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism are the three dimensions of personality
proposed by Eysenck, also known as the "PEN Model." Each aspect of personality can be linked to
a different set of genetic factors. The fact that one's personality has a biological basis means that it is
universal. Personality is determined by the autonomic nervous system's (ANS) balance of excitation
and inhibition processes.
*Eysenck’s Personality Inventory (EPI)
Raymond Cattell - He disagreed with Eysenck's assertion that personality can be understood by
examining only two or three behavioral dimensions. He came up with 16 personality traits that he
believes can be used to understand and quantify individual personality differences.
*Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF)
Gordon Allport - He defines personality as the dynamic organization of those psychophysical
systems within an individual that determine his distinctive behavior and thought. Individual
characteristics (also known as personal dispositions) and common traits were distinguished by him.
Common traits are internal structures that can be used to compare all people in a given society.
Individual trait, on the other hand, is a defining characteristic that is unique to the person who
possesses it. In a nutshell, common traits group people into similar groups, while individual traits
more accurately reflect a person's uniqueness.
Robert McCrae and Paul Costa - The Five-Factor Model, or FFM, was created by McCrae and
Costa, and it defines five key dimensions of personality: A) openness to experience, b)
conscientiousness, c) extraversion, d) agreeableness, and e) neuroticism are the five variables. The
acronym 'OCEAN' will help you remember the five reasons.
D. SOCIAL COGNITIVE APPROACH
In the 1960s, Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) started as Social Learning Theory (SLT). Albert
Bandura, the behavioral psychologist who coined the term "social learning theory," discovered the value
of observational learning, imitation, and modeling in shaping one's personality. People learn certain
behaviors by observing and imitating the behaviors of others, and then being rewarded or punished for
doing so, according to SLT. In 1986, SLT evolved into SCT. The role of cognitive processes like thinking
and judging in the growth of one's personality was also highlighted by SCT. All of a person's learned
qualities, such as beliefs, expectations, and personality traits, are referred to as cognitive processes.
Social cognition refers to how one's mind processes social information or how one thinks about it. SCT
is a theory that explains how people behave and act in social situations. His theory stressed the
importance of conscious thoughts, such as self-efficacy, or the ability to succeed.
Basic Assumptions
a. Observing others helps people learn.
b. Learning is an internal process that can or cannot result in a change in behavior.
c. People and their surroundings have a mutual impact.
d. Actions are directed toward specific objectives.
e. Behavior becomes more self-controlled.
Bandura also suggests the concept of
reciprocal determinism, also known as "triadic
reciprocal causation," which explains how
personal, behavioral, and environmental
determinants all influence one another as
shown in the diagram. Personal determinants
included cognition, as well as other personal
factors like self-efficacy, motivation, and
personality. Complexity, duration, competence,
and other behavioral determiants are examples
of behavioral determiants. The circumstances,
roles, models, and interactions were all
environmental determinants. However, Bandura
does not claim that these three factors have
equal influence on behavior; rather, their
influence is dependent on which factor is the
most powerful at any given time.
