Personality Theory

By : Lukman Nul Hakim

PERSONALITY

Behavior is complex and it is changed by experience. Behavior changes through out the life span and thus change is the only constant thing. But there is another side to the story. While people change as a function of experience or developed by they also show consistency, tendency to behave, think and feel in certain ways over a long period of time and in a wide variety of situation. In English we have thousands of words to describe the personality like shy, irritable, guilliable, aggressive, dominant, sociable, easygoing, jovial, cunning, etc. personality can be defined as the unique and consistent pattern of behavior, thoughts and feelings in a wide variety of situations over a long period of time. To put it in simple terms personality is the unique, relatively consistent pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving.

DETERMINANTS
We have to examine some of the determinants of personality structures and behaviors. Personality development is because of the interaction of the following determinants:
Biological factors
Physical environment
Psychological factors
Familial determinants
Social class
Cultural factors

Biological factors
Personality development is influenced by many biological factors. It includes genetics and hormones.

a. Genetics
What is the significance of genetics to personality development? Studies have shown that personal characteristics such as physical experience, motor activity, emotional reactivity (temperament) introversion and extraversion, and energy level are strongly related to genetic composition. Let us see the genetic influence on the temperament on the introversion and extraversion.
The role of genetics in the development of personality has been studied by using the twins. The studies show that temperament is mostly determined by the genetics. Temperament may be defined as the characteristic phenomena of an individual’s nature, including his susceptibility to emotional stimulations, his customary strength and speed of response and the quality of this prevailing mood, and all the peculiarities of fluctuation and intensity of mood. In one study Willerman selected four temperaments to study for heritability: emotionally, activity, sociability, and impulsivity. Questionnaire were constructed to asses the temperaments. The questionnaire were given to the mothers of fraternal and identical twins. The study showed high correlation for the identical twins than for the fraternal twins.

b. Hormones
The secretion of the endocrine gland –hormones- also influenced the behavior. For example, when the thyroid gland is overactive the person becomes irritable, restless and hyperactive and when it become under active the person becomes dull and sluggish. Similarly, the two key hormones, androgen and enstrogen, affect not only the biological sexual orientation but also the psychological assumption of sex roles. Aggression and maternalism are two types of behavior that are affected by these hormones. Androgen levels correlate positively with aggressive tendencies, and estrogens level correlate positively with maternalistic tendencies.

Physical environment
Now it has been found that climate and ions of the physical environment are also related to the behavior and personality. Like climate and ions.

Psychological factors
The psychological factors like, self concept and intelligence influence the development of personality.
a. Self concept
A person’s self concept is the person’s view of his or her own strengths and weakness. Self concept becomes the core of the personality. A positive self concept, initiated in the childhood period and nurtured throughout the developmental span, enables an individual to meet each challenge as it comes and to deal with it appropriately.
A person with a strong sense of self recognizes that he or she has a wide range of capabilities, yet also acknowledge limitations. Such a person realizes that it is acceptable to work within the framework of those limitations.

b. Intelligence
One individual characteristic that is very relevant to personality development is intelligence. Intelligence is the capacity for learning and includes problem solving ability. Intelligence, the ability to reason through complex situations has many implications for personality development. Intelligence has a profound impact on many areas of development and behavior, such as talking, memory, understanding and playing new concepts, and creativity. It seems that children who learn rapidly and who can apply their knowledge develop a more positive self concept, as a result of praise received from parents and teachers, than children who are poor achievers.

Familial determinants
The family unit is the chief which mould of personality. The nature of the family relationships that develop is crucial to each family member. It is within the family system that identification occurs, a major factor in personality development. Parents serve as the models for identification. A father can facilitate the development of masculinity in a son by rewarding masculine activities and by withholding rewards for feminine activities. During the world war two father separated boys showed more feminine behavior and less aggressive plays than the boys who were not separated from their parents.

Social class
All societies are to some extent stratified. Social stratification is a relatively stable, hierarchical arrangement of groups of individuals, with the higher classes within this hierarchy receiving more social and material rewards than the lower classes. Individuals within a class typically perform similar occupations and face the same life conditions and problems. As a result individuals can be assigned to a social class by using indexes such as education, occupation, income, and prestige. When people change from one social class to another, their life styles, language, and even personality attributes will also change.

Cultural factors
Personality differences between nations and ethnic groups are popularly recognized ; there are stereotypes that all the people within a particular group of nations are believed to follow. These differences are ascribed to disparities in culture: the modes of acting and feeling, or the set of norms and ideals, that are customary for an entire group. Culture therefore involves consistency in the actions of a larger number of people than does social class.

PERSONALITY THEORIES
Hippocrates
He developed a scheme for personality description in the 5th century B.C. he theorized that the body contained 4 basic fluids, each associated with a particular ‘temperament’ or personality. The personality depends on which one of these fluid is predominant.
a. Blood à sanguine temperament à cheerful, active, optimistic.
b. Phlegm à Phelegmatic temperament à unemotional, apathetic, sluggish.
c. Black bile à Melancholy temperament à sad, brooding, depressed, and anxious.
d. Yellow bile à Choleric temperament à irritable, excitable, easily annoyed.

Spranger
He classified individuals according to life philosophy and the values, they believed most important. He listed six categories:
a. The theoretical individual, primary interested in the discovery of truth
b. The economic personality, concerned with what is useful
c. The aesthetic person, places highest value on form and harmony.
d. Social personality, finds greatest pleasure in the love of people
e. Political person, interested in power
f. Religious personality, concerned with mystical experiences and looks for something divine in every happening.

Kretschmer
He postulated a realtionship between body type and personality. He proposed three body types and their personality:
a. Pyknic type, short and fat, extroversion, tend to manic depressive
b. Asthenic type, tall and thin, introversion, likely to become schizophrenic.
c. Athletic type, muscular, energetic and aggressive.


Sheldon
A more recent and better known effort regarding body types and personality was that of Sheldon. He analyzed in detail about 4000 photographs of male nude bodies and classified them into three body types. He also measured the personality by using a temperament scale. then he correlated the measurement of body types and the scores of the temperament scale. the results can be summarized as follows.

Endomorphy à fat, round, soft and with large stomach à viscerotonia, concerned with body comforts such as eating, sleep, and relaxation. Sociable and happy by nature.
Mesomorphy à strong, muscular, athletic and rectangular à somatotonia, liking for physical activity, energetic, courageous, self confident and risk taking.
Ectomorphy à tall, thin, and fragile à cerebrotonia, fast but limited physical movement, retrained, secretive, brainy, and introvert.

The Sheldon theory was rejected because he made use of only male students and other studies found no correlation between body and type of personality.

5. Eysenck’s Theory
Today the most influential theory of personality types is by Hans Eysenck’s three factor theory. Eysenck, a German psychologist, fled to England after refusing to become a member of Hitler’s secret police. Eysenck’s used the statistical technique of factor analysis in identifying three dimensions, we can determine his or her personality type.
The dimension of neuroticism measures a person’s level of stability/ instability. Stable people are calm, even –tempered, and reliable, unstable people are moody, anxious and unreliable. A study of students who began an on campus exercise program found that a year later those who dropped out had scored higher in neuroticism than had those who remind in the program. The dimension of psychotism measures a person’s level of tought –mindedness/tender-mindedness. Tough minded people are hostile, ruthless, and insensitive, where as tender mionded people are friendly, empathetic, and cooperative. Juvenile delinquencies score high in psychoticism.
The dimension of extraversion measures a person’s level of introversion/extraversion. This dimension, first identified by Jung, has stimulated the most reseach interest.
There is eveidence that the dimensions in Eysenck’s theory have a biological basis. Heredity maight explain why introverts are more physiologically reactive than extroverts are. This might, explain behavioral differences between introverts and extroverts. Because introverts are more physiologically arousable, they might condition easier. This might make introverts more socially inhibited, because they learn more easily to stop performing behaviors that have been punished.

6. Jung’s Theory
One of Jung’s best known contributions is his personality typology of two basic attitudes, or orientation, toward life : extroversion and ontroversion. Both orientation are viewed as existing simultaneously in each person, with one usually dominant. The extrovert’s energy is directed toward external objects and events, while the introvert is more concerned with inner experiences. The extrovert is outgoing and makes friends easily, the introvert frequently prefers solitude and cultivates few relationships. Most investigators now view extroversion-introversion as a single personality dimension along which people vary, in sontrast to Jung’s conception of pair of opposing attitudes. There is a substantial amount of empirical eveidence indicating that extroversion-introversion is indeed a significant personality dimension.
Jung extended his typology to include two other pairs of opposing tendencies, thinking versus feeling and sensing versus intuiting. These were considered to be psychological functions describing different ways in which wxtroverts and introverts deal with and perceive their experiences.

7. Allport’s Theory
Allport began his research by identifying all the English words that refer to personal characteristic. In 1936 Allport and his colleagues Henry Odbert, using an unabridged dictionary, counted almost 18.000 such a words. By eliminating synonyms and words referring to temporary status (such as hungry), they reduced the list to about 4.500 words. Allport then grouped the words in to less then 200 clusters of related words, which become the original personality traits in his theory.
Allport distinguished three kinds of traits, the differences depending on how important they are in a given person’s life. Cardinal traits are similar to personality types, in that they affect every aspect of the person’s life. Central traits affect many aspects of our lives but do not have the pervasive influence of cardinal traits. When you refer to someone as kind, humorous, or conceited, you are usually referring to a central trait. The least important traits are secondary traits because they affect relatively narrow aspects of our lives. Preferences for warning cuffed pants, reading western novels, or eating chocolate ice cream reflects secondary traits.

Cattel’s Theory
More recent theories have concentrated on what Allport called common traits, which they try to quantify in a precise, scientific manner. Their primay tool in this task has been an extremely sophisticated mathematical techniques called factor analysis which describes the extent tow which different personality variables are related.
Raymond B Cattel has used factor analysis extensively to study personality traits. Cattel defines a trait as a tendency to react to related situations in a way that remains more or less stable. He distinguishes between two kinds of tendencies: surface traits and source traits. Surface traits are clusters of behavior that tend to go together. An example of a surface trait is altruism, which involves a variety of related behaviors such as helping a neighbour who has a problem are contributing to an annual blood drive. Other examples of surface traits are integrity, curiosity, realism, and foolishness. Source trait are the I=underlying roots are causes of these behavioral clusters.