May 24, 2015
PSY/211-Dr. Peed
Personality Perspectives
Prior to taking Psychology-211 and learning about personalities my definition and thought process of one’s personality was quiet different. I always thought that a person acted a certain way because they chose to. I never knew that a personality could be influenced by someone, or that with age and experience personalities change, until I began this course. There are several different perspectives of personalities. Psychoanalytic, humanistic, trait, social cognitive, and biological are just a few of the perspectives that I will discuss in further detail in this paper today. Psychoanalytic perspective or unconscious motivation, is the mind moving energy to where energy is needed. Calling a new boyfriend by an ex-boyfriends name or feeling a certain way about someone from the past are examples of psychoanalytic perspective. One reasoning behind calling a current boyfriend an ex-boyfriends name may be because the female may still have some type of connection to the ex-boyfriend. Clearly he is still on the mind for the name to come up on accident. Humanistic perspective is someone who is in touch with themselves. This type of person knows what they need to improve on and will search for ways to improve. For example, a job in customer service requires good customer services with not only customers but also internal customers, your co-workers. If this person sees that they are not getting along too well with their colleagues, they may take a class to help improve their customer services with everyone. Sometimes personalities are described by using traits of a person. Things that they like, or how they act are sometimes in the description of how a person is. An example would be a manager looking to hire someone knew. John has a friend named Paul who needs a job. So John tells his boss about his friend in hopes that his boss would consider his friend. More than likely the boss is going to want John to tell a little about Paul prior to his boss considering his friend for the position. John will begin to describe Paul’s traits. Things that stood out to John in his friendship with Paul. Personalities are also built based on who you socialize with. There is a saying that goes