Personality Theories
BEH/225
April 11, 2014
Hillary Locke
Personality Theories
Many different theories of personality were researched, examined, and studied by psychologists, philosophers, and other theorists. Many factors such as society, beliefs, religion, and family can influence a person’s personality. Several theorists like Freud, Jung, Rogers, and Maslow developed personality theories that have made an impact on the society. Sigmund Freud
On May 6, 1856 Sigmund Freud was born; he developed psychoanalysis. Freud theories involved ego, sexuality, and libido. “Sigmund Freud's work and theories helped shape our views of childhood, personality, memory, sexuality and therapy.” (Cherry, n.d. p. 1) Freud believed the mind had three different parts conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind; he had a theory people acted on unconscious motives. “Freud considered dreams to be keyholes into our unconscious mind where the fears, desires and emotions exist that we suppress in some form.” (Dreaminterpretation-dictionary.com, 2011 p. 1) According to Freud, the structures of personality were Id, Ego, and Superego. Id consists of all wants, needs, and desires; it functions on the pleasure principle this state brings anxiety or tension will result. Ego focuses on the reality and controls desires of the Id. Superego gives a person a sense of right and wrong; morals begin in the superego. In addition, Freud also theorized the Oedipus Complex. In this theory, he figured the desire for sexual connection in a boy for his mother and to replace the father. The daughter also wanted to become sexual with the father and replace the mother. Personality was formed from the psychosexual stages of development; included oral, anal, phallic, and genital. Oral stage transpired from birth to one year; it involved a stage of attachment and the infant becoming dependent on their parent. Anal stage ranged from one to three years; the child can gain approval, show aggression and protest. The next stage is phallic it is based from the Oedipus complex; a child has urges for sexual activity from the age three to six years. One other stage is a latent stage it fluctuates from age six until puberty. Latent stage is a quiet time and focuses on social interactions. Genital is the last stage of psychosexual stages of development; interest for the opposite sex occurs. The final stage begins at puberty and lasts through life allowing a balance in many areas of a person’s life. Freud’s contribution to the study of personality is “creating the perspective of studying human behavior from an unconscious standpoint.” (Daw, 2009 p. 1) Carl Jung
Likewise, a student of Freud’s Carl Jung also made an impact on society. He was born July 26, 1875 in Switzerland. Jung rejected Freud’s theory on psychosexual development. However, Jung did agree on Freud’s theory of libido; he felt the same about conscious and unconscious, but added a part called collective conscious. Jung theorized the human psyche is made of three parts; collective conscious was a storage place for images and ideas. Unlike Freud, Jung felt dreams were a way to relate to the unconscious; he assumed dreams came from archetypes. There were four types of archetypes persona, archetype, anima archetype, shadow type, and self-archetype. Self-archetype pertained to unification of the unconsciousness and consciousness of a person. The shadow is a dark side it can appear as a monster; it resides in the unconscious mind. The anime represents wholeness or true self; it communicates to the collective mind. The fourth type is persona it protects the ego from bad images. Jung also created theories of introversion and extraversion. “Extroverts have an ego that faces more towards the persona,” (Admin, 2009 p. 1) and “introverts have an ego that faces more towards the collective unconscious and their archetypes.”
