Personality Theories

Psychoanalytic perspective

The psychoanalytic theory proposes that we have 3 different types of consciousness.

I rate this a 6/10 on the relateablilty scale.

The psychoanalytic perspective was thought up by Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud was a psychiatrist and medical doctor from Australia.

He developed his theory during his pursuit of understanding the unconscious mind, like if there were meanings behind dreams.

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From their he studied what he could about a subconscious mind, coming up with a theory that says 90% of our actions and thoughts are subconscious, ran by the desires and morals of an individual.

Freud calls the desires our ID, our morals are our super ego, and our conscious mind is our ego.

Humanistic perspective

The psychoanalytic theory states that humans have different needs that need to be met in order to excel to the top possibilities.

I rate this a 10/10 on the relatabiity scale.

Created by Abraham Maslow, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the main backing behind the humanistic perspective. Abraham Maslow was an american psychologist.

Maslow came up with this theory out of frustration towards the theories from the time before him. He thought that the theories that he read didn't explain enough about people's nature.

He knew that humans all had their basic needs. Something human needed to live were our physiology needs. Water, food, oxygen, sleep,etc.

He than knew that humans required safety. They need security of the body, employment, family, good health, etc.

Humans that did well usually felt like they belonged. They need friendship, family, etc.

And he also saw that all people had self esteem, and to be a better person they would need to have a strong one. For that, confidence, achievement, respect, etc. where needed.

And at the top of the hierarchy were self actualized people. these people had all the lower needs fulfilled and could now focus on the future and self improvement. They would go with the flow, have a strong morality, have lots of creativity and more.

Behaviourist perspective

The behaviorist perspective theorizes that all our actions are what we have been conditioned to do.

I rate this a 7/10 on the relatability scale.

The behaviorist perspective is backed by Ivan Pavlov and his classical conditioning method. Ivan Pavlov was a Russian neurologist and psychologist.

He constructed his theory while he was trying to see when will dogs begin their digestive process. As he added a bell to beacon the dog, he realized that the dog would begin salivating just from the sound of the bell.

That one was pretty simple to say, but then there was Burrhus Frederic Skinner, the theorist behind operant conditioning.

B.F. Skinner was an american psychologist. He built up on Pavlov's theory, and used the terms Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment.

He got these terms figured out as he did his experiment on rats.

Positive reinforcement was letting a rat know that every time it pulled the lever, it would get food.

Negative reinforcement was having the box electrify the rat until the rat pulled the lever.

Negative punishment was that in-order to stop the box from heating up, the rat would need to pull the lever.

I don't know specifically what positive punishment was used for in this experiment, put it probably just focused on punishing the rat every time it tried to escape or damage something.

For me, the humanistic perspective is the most reflective of how I formed my own individual personality. The humanistic theory works out because it is specific to overall human needs but very vague when you apply it to someone's direct behaviour. I think I'm self-actualized because I have all of my other needs provided to me and at the moment my goal is to graduate with good grades to give my future self something roaring to work with. Also, the maslow's hierarchy of needs is more plausible that ID, super ego, and ego, and it is more humanistic compared to the behavioural animalistic view.