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PERSONALITY THEORIES
Definitions of Personality

While there are many different theories of personality, the first step is to
understand exactly what is meant by the term personality. The word personality
itself stems from the Latin word persona, which referred to a theatrical mask
worn by performers in order to either project different roles or disguise their
identities.

A brief definition would be that personality is made up of the characteristic

patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that make a person unique. In
addition to this, personality arises from within the individual and remains fairly
consistent throughout life

Personality is the sum of behaviors and mental characteristics (cognition,

emotions and senses) that are distinctive of an individual. Distinctive style of
thoughts, behaviors and feeling that make each human being unique individual.

Personality is a reasonable stable pattern of emotions, motives and behavior that

characterize a persons’ adaptation to life.

TRAIT

Consistent pattern of behavior (more or less) that distinguishes a person, the

person possessing the characteristic would be likely to display in relevant
circumstances shyness, honesty, tidiness or stupidity.

A trait is an element of personality that is relatively stable throughout the

lifespan and across contexts. In other words, a trait is a consistent element of self
that makes that person who he is. Traits are the general tendencies you'd list if
you were asked to describe yourself or someone else.

BIG FIVE

Fundamental dimensions that are believed to be the core traits of personality.

The "big five" are broad categories of personality traits. While there is a
significant body of literature supporting this five-factor model of personality,
researchers don't always agree on the exact labels for each dimension. However,
these five categories are usually described as follows:
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1. Extroversion: This trait includes characteristics such as excitability,

sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional
expressiveness.
2. Agreeableness: This personality dimension includes attributes such as
trust, kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors.
3. Conscientiousness: Common features of this dimension include high
levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed
behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organized and
mindful of details.
4. Neuroticism: Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional
instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability, and sadness.
5. Openness: This trait features characteristics such as imagination and
insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of
interests. Open to experience and are intellects.

It is important to note that each of the five personality factors represents a range
between two extremes. For example, extraversion represents a continuum
between extreme extraversion and extreme introversion. In the real world, most
people lie somewhere in between the two polar ends of each dimension.

Consider, for instance, someone who is high in Intellect and high in

Extraversion. This person would be both sociable and creative. But the
combination of high Extraversion and high Intellect reveals the more subtle
characteristic of being witty or humorous. In contrast, suppose someone is high
in Intellect but low in Extraversion. The combination of these two characteristics
reveals the quality of being reflective.

Because people can be high or low on each of the Big Five dimensions, when
we combine the different possible combinations, we end up with 45 personality
facets from Big Five personality scores.

Personality Traits are simply:

Actions
Attitudes
Behaviors you possess

POSITIVE personality traits

Adventurous
Conscientious
Dependable
Fair
Fearless
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THEORIES OF PERSONALITY
Theories of personality are a bit confusing area. We find ourselves asking who
is right. Much of what personality involves are things that are not accessible to
us. Our own inner thoughts and feelings. But it also involves our instincts and
unconscious motives that are not available to us as well. We all have pretty
direct access to our own thought and feelings and have plenty of experience
dealing with people but we should not mistake familiarity with knowledge.
Much of what we think we know turns out to be prejudice and biases we have
picked up over the years.

There are numerous different theories which attempt to explain some aspect or
other of personality. No theory can claim to offer a really comprehensive
explanation of personality. They are hard to organize in a simple way because
different ones address different aspect and theories which are clearly contrasting
with each other in some important respect can be similar in others. Integration of
theories is a must, if we want to be able to understand how the psychological
structure of an individual is put together, how it works and how it falls apart.

Study of personality seeks the answer to certain key questions like the origins
and differences among people. Why, when several people encounter the same
situation, they do not react alike?. Why something which is terrifying for one is
enjoyable for the other? The answer is simple. They have different personalities.
Then again, why and how these differences develop?

To be able to answer these entire why’s and how’s, psychologists have

developed different personality theories. Although the aim is the same, some
have stressed the influence of an early life experiences and childhood conflicts,
while some stresses the influence of people’s biological makeup and some
stressed on the influence of learning. Other than the origin of differences among
people, consistency of differences is also considered. Questions like, are
personality traits persistent in different situations or do the situation determine
the response? Is age a factor in the change of personality?

In search to find the answers to why individuals behave the way they

do, 5 major theories of personality developed.

1- Psychoanalytic theory
2- Trait theory
3- Behavioral approach
4- Evolutionary/biological approach
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PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY OF PERSONALITY

SIGMUND FREUD
Psychoanalysis began as a conceptual system designed to explain certain types
of psychopathology. It later developed into a technique of treatment and finally
expanded to a theory of personality of both normal and disturbed individuals.
Basic assumptions of Freud’s personality theory;

1- Topographical model
2- Structural Model
3- Instincts
4- Personality dynamics)motivating factors
5- Psychosexual stages of development

TOPOGRAPHICAL MODEL of psychic life.

According to Freud, there are 3 levels of consciousness that organize
personality.

1 -The conscious

2-The preconscious

3- The unconscious

Freud used this mental map of mind to describe the decree to which mental
events such as thoughts and fantasies vary in accessibility of awareness.

THE CONSCIOUS: All the sensations and experiences of which we are aware
of at any given moment. Thoughts, feelings, perceptions and memories are in
consciousness, and they are regulated by external cues. The conscious represents
a small and limited aspect of personality.

THE PRECONSCIOUS: Available memories. All experiences that is not

conscious at the moment but which can readily be called upon into awareness
either spontaneously or with minimum effort. The preconscious bridges and
safeguards the unconscious and conscious.

THE UNCONSIOUS: The rally significant aspects of human behavior is shaped

and directed by impulses and drives totally outside the realm of awareness.
Unconscious material may be expressed in disguised or symbolized form. So
psychoanalysis emphasizes on the interpretation of fantasies and dreams for
deeper understanding of the unconscious processes underlying behavior.
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TYPES OF ANXIETY

Based on the source of the threat to the age, there are 3 types of anxiety.

1-Realistic or objective: (external threat)

Emotional responses to threats and or perception of real dangers in external

environment. It helps to assure self preservation i.e.: war, earthquake, epidemic,
rape or assault. Ego is under threat which a person is unable to prevent. Leads to
PTSD. Perception is one of the main factors which affect the degree of the
person anxiety.

2- Neurotic anxiety: (internal threat)

It is an emotional threat that ID impulses will become conscious. Coursed by the

fear that EGO will be unable to control the ID instincts (sexual or aggressive
nature)

Neurotic anxiety is initially experienced as a realistic anxiety since punishment

did originally derive from external force. When the instinctual impulses of ID
threaten to break through the EGO controls, Neurotic anxiety occurs. It is the
struggle between ID-EGO.

3- Moral Anxiety:

When the EGO is threatened by the SUPEREGO by punishment. It occurs

whenever the ID strives towards active expression on immoral thoughts or acts
and the SUPEREGO responds with feeling of shame, quilt and self
condemnation.

It directs behavior into activities that are acceptable to the individual’s

conscience. Development of moral anxiety leads to social anxiety like exclusion
from peer groups and memberships.
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Defense Mechanisms

1. Denial

Denial is the refusal to accept reality or fact, acting as if a painful event, thought
or feeling did not exist. It is considered one of the most primitive of the defense
mechanisms because it is characteristic of early childhood development. Many
people use denial in their everyday lives to avoid dealing with painful feelings
or areas of their life they don’t wish to admit. For instance, a person who is a
functioning alcoholic will often simply deny they have a drinking problem,
pointing to how well they function in their job and relationships.

2. Regression

Regression is the reversion to an earlier stage of development in the face of

unacceptable thoughts or impulses. For an example an adolescent who is
overwhelmed with fear, anger and growing sexual impulses might become
clingy and start exhibiting earlier childhood behaviors he has long since
overcome, such as bedwetting. An adult may regress when under a great deal of
stress, refusing to leave their bed and engage in normal, everyday activities.

3. Acting Out

Acting Out is performing an extreme behavior in order to express thoughts or

feelings the person feels incapable of otherwise expressing. Instead of saying,
“I’m angry with you,” a person who acts out may instead throw a book at the
person, or punch a hole through a wall. When a person acts out, it can act as a
pressure release, and often helps the individual feel calmer and peaceful once
again. For instance, a child’s temper tantrum. Self-injury may also be a form of
acting-out, expressing in physical pain what one cannot stand to feel
emotionally.

4. Dissociation

Dissociation is when a person loses track of time and/or person, and instead
finds another representation of their self in order to continue in the moment. A
person who dissociates often loses track of time or themselves and their usual
thought processes and memories. People who have a history of any kind of
childhood abuse often suffer from some form of dissociation. In extreme cases,
dissociation can lead to a person believing they have multiple selves (multiple
personality disorder”). A person who dissociates can “disconnect” from the real
world for a time, and live in a different world that is not cluttered with thoughts,
feelings or memories that are unbearable.
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ERIK ERIKSON

PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELEPMENT (EGO- PSYCHOLOGY)

Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development is one of the best-known

theories of personality in psychology. Much like Sigmund Freud, he focuses on
the development and functions of the EGO. Erikson believed that personality
develops in a series of stages. Unlike Freud's theory of psychosexual stages,
Erikson's theory describes the impact of social experience across the whole
lifespan. He stresses the idea that any psychological phenomenon must be
understood in terms of reciprocal interplay of biological, behavioral,
experimental and social factors.

One of the main elements of Erikson's psychosocial stage theory is the

development of ego identity. Ego identity is the conscious sense of self that we
develop through social interaction. According to Erikson, our ego identity is
constantly changing due to new experiences and information we acquire in our
daily interactions with others.

Identity contains all of the beliefs, ideals, and values that help shape and guide a
person's behavior. The formation of identity is something that begins in
childhood and becomes particularly important during adolescence, but it is a
process that continues throughout life. Our personal identity gives each of us an
integrated and cohesive sense of self that endures and continues to grow as we
age.

In addition to ego identity, Erikson also believed that a sense of competence

motivates behaviors and actions. Each stage in Erikson's theory is concerned
with becoming competent in an area of life. If the stage is handled well, the
person will feel a sense of mastery, which is sometimes referred to as ego
strength or ego quality. If the stage is managed poorly, the person will emerge
with a sense of inadequacy.

In each stage, Erikson believed people experience a conflict that serves as a

turning point in development. In Erikson's view, these conflicts are centered on
either developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality.
During these times, the potential for personal growth is high, but so is the
potential for failure.
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HENRY MURRAY

Personal background
Henry Murray was born into a wealthy family in New York in 1893. In
"Perspectives on Personality"(Carver and Scheier p. 100), noted that "he got on
well with his father but had a poor relationship with his mother", resulting in a
deep-seated feeling of depression. It is hypothesized that the disruption of this
relationship led Murray to be especially aware of people's needs and their
importance as underlying determinants of behavior.

A turning point occurred in Murray's life at the age of 30, after seven years of
marriage, he met and fell in love with Christiana Morgan but experienced
serious conflict as he did not want to leave his wife, Josephine. This raised his
awareness of conflicting needs, the pressure that can result, and the links to
motivation.

NEED THEORY of personality

Studies internal motivational forces that guide and direct human activities.

He believed that the anatomic center of personality is the BRAIN site of our
emotions.

NEED theory is modification of Freud’s theory. Murrey emphasizes heavily on

conscious motivational forces. Unlike Freud, Murrey gives much weight to
conscious as well as unconscious motives. (Similar to ego psy.)

PERSONALITY for MURRAY

Personality is a hypothetical entity, rather than a physical substance. Personality

is not the brain itself but the hypothetical structure of the mind. Personality is
completely dependent on brain processes.

Brain + Mind

Physiological brain percepts gives name/meaning to the emotion

One always has a personality since one always has a brain and personality
represents a process of development from birth to death. He believed that the
personality integrates and directs the person’s behavior.
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5 PLEASURABLE CONDITIONS & COMPLEXES

1-Secure, passive and dependent existence within the womb. Claustral complex

2-Enjoyment of sucking good nourishment from breast or bottle. Oral complex

3-Emjoyment of pleasurable sensation accompanying defecation: Anal complex

4- Pleasant sense accompanying urination. Urethral complex

5-Pleasurable excitation that arise from genital pleasure. Castration complex

4 sets of determinants contribute to molding personality.

1-Constitutional: Persons total makeup. Sex, age, color, disabilities…..

2-Group Membership: Ethnic group, race, religion, socioeconomic status

Contributes to personality. Membership caries with itself an exposure to a
particular social environment and value system.

3- Role: Culture prescribes roles necessary to group life and personality

formation is bound up with these roles ascribes to them as well as those that they
select.

4- Sitiuational: Made up by day to day experiences of the individual. Include

thing that have happened 1000 times as well as those that happened only once.
Interpersonal contacts of brief duration, friendships with a particular individual
or divorced parent.

T. A. T.

Thematic Apperception Test

Method of exploring unconscious thoughts and fantasies. Projective technique.

Consists of series of picture that subject is asked to make a story. Done in 3
tenses. What do you think had happened in the past, what is happening now,
what will happen in the future. Like how do you thing the story will end. It is
used in clinical diagnosis as well as in motivational research.
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CARL JUNG
Jung, like Freud based his personality theory on the assumption of conscious
and unconscious but unlike Freud he strongly asserted that the most important
portion of the unconscious springs not from personal experiences of the
individual but from the distant past of human existence, a concept Jung called
the collective unconscious.

He divides the psyche into 3 parts

1-Ego

2-Personal unconscious

3-Collective unconscious

1- EGO

The conscious mind. According to Jung, conscious images are those that are
sensed by the ego, whereas unconscious elements have no relationship with the
ego. His notion of ego is more restrictive than Freud. He saw the ego as the
center of consciousness, but not the core of personality. Ego must be completed
by the more comprehensive self, the center of personality that is largely
unconscious. Healthy individuals are in contact with their conscious world, but
also they allow themselves to experience their unconscious self.

2- PERSONAL UNCONCIOUS

It contains repressed infantile memories and impulses, forgotten events and

experiences originally perceived below the threshold of our consciousness. It is
made of our individual experiences and is therefore unique to each of us. Some
images can be recalled easily, some remembered with difficulty, and others are
beyond the reach of consciousness which have been suppressed for some reason.
Not the instincts like Freud included.

3- COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS

In contrast to the personal unconscious, which results from individual

experiences, the collective unconscious has roots in the ancestral past of the
entire species. Jung’s most controversial concept. The contents of the collective
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ALFRED ADLER'S "INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY"

BIOGRAPHICAL
Adler couldn't walk until 4 years old due to rickets. He was hit by a car at age 5.
Skinny, weak, sickly, and tormented by his older brothers he felt small,
unattractive, and rejected by his mother. He idolized his father who was
successful, wealthy merchant. He always felt like he was in competition with his
older brother and was jealous of him.
He worked hard to overcome his handicaps and inferiorities and became very
outgoing and social. He could made friends easily with everyone from all group
in the multicultural neighborhood where he grew up.

Like Freud he was affected by events surrounding World War 1. After viewing
the horrors of war he suggested that social interest and compassion could be the
cornerstone of human motivation and not aggression deriving from libido.

INTRODUCTION TO ADLERIAN THEORY

Adler evolved a basically simple and parsimonious theory. To him people are
born with weak, inferior bodies- a condition that leads to feeling of inferiority
and consequent dependence on other people. Therefore, a feeling of unity with
others (social interests)is inherent in people and the ultimate standard for
psychological health.

The main tenets of Adlerian theory:

1-The dynamic force behind people’s behavior is the striving for success or
superiority.

2-People’s subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality

3-Personality is unified and self consistent

4-The value of all human activities must be seen from the viewpoint of social
interests

5-The self-consistent personality structure develops into a person’s style of life

6-Style of life is molded by people’s creative power

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1-STRIVING FOR SUPERIORITY (OR PERFECTION)

Adler reduced all motivation to a single drive. Striving for success or

superiority.
The basic dynamic force between all human activities

Individual psychology holds that everyone begins life with physical deficiency
that activate feelings of inferiority. Feelings that motivate a person for personal
superiority or success.

The meaning of superiority changed through the years. Later it came to mean
perfection, completion, or overcoming. Like self-realization.

Throughout a person's life, Adler believed, he or she is motivated by the need to

overcome the sense of inferiority and strive for ever higher levels of
development.
When an inability to overcome inferiority feelings heightens and intensifies
inferiority complex sets in.

THE FINAL GOAL

People strive towards a final goal of either personal superiority or the goal of
success for all humankind. In either case the final goal is fictional and has no
objective existence. But the final goal has great significance because it unifies
personality and shapes all behavior.

Each people have the power to create a personalized fictional goal provided by
heredity or environment. However the goal is neither genetically nor
environmentally determined. By the time children reach the age of 4-5 their
creative powers have developed to the point that they can set their final goal.

STRIVİNG FORCE as compensation

Because infants are born small, incomplete and weak they feel inferior and
powerless. To compensate for this deficiency, they set fictional goal to be big,
complete and strong. The final goal reduces the pain of inferiority feelings and
directs a person to either superiority or success. Even infants have an innate
drive towards growth, completion or success but it must be developed. Adler
describes two avenues of striving.

1-Striving for personal superiority

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KAREN HORNEY (summery)

* Culture and childhood experiences shape human personality.
Culture, kinship. Achievement, difficult childhood, safety needs
*Basic Hostility
We need favorable conditions for growth. Like warm and loving environment.
But these should not be overly permissive. Balances genuine love+ healthy
discipline = sense of safety, satisfaction and growth of real self.
If a parent is unable or unwilling to love their child, because of their own
neurotic needs, they often dominate, neglect, overprotective, reject or
overindulge on their children. In this case the need for safety and satisfaction is
not satisfied and the child develops BASIC HOSTILITY towards parents.
Because children often cannot show this hostility to their parents they repress it.
This repression leads to feeling of insecurity which is called BASIC ANXIETY
(feelings of isolation, helplessness) in a potentially hostile world.
Interwoven: Hostile impulses are------- source of Basic Anxiety
Basic Anxiety contributes ------to hostile feelings.
Basic anxiety is not neurosis but helps to its development.
Because BA is constant and needs no particular stimuli like test taking or
making a presentation, it affects the relationships with everyone and leads to an
unhealthy ways of coping with people or problems.
*Protective mechanisms neurotics use against BA
4 defenses are used against Anxiety to protect yourself in this hostile world.
1-Affection: Search for true love. If you cannot find it, you purchase it, compile
with someone, became materialistic or seek sexual flavors.
2-Submissiveness: They submit to people or institutions, religion to gain
affection.
3-Power, prestige, possession: Power: dominate others
Prestige: Protection from humiliation and
tendency to humiliate others
Possession: Buffer against poverty and
destitution. Tendency to deprive others.
4-Withdrawal: Protect themselves by developing independence or emotional
detachment. So cannot be hurt by others.
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ERICH FROMM

BIOGRAPHY and OVERVIEW

His basic thesis is that modern-day people have been torn away from their
prehistoric union with nature and also with one another, yet they have the power
of reasoning foresight and imagination. This combination of lack of animal
instincts and presence of rational thoughts makes humans the freaks of the
universe. Self awareness contributes to the feelings of loneliness, isolation and
homelessness. To escape from these feelings, people strive to become reunited
with nature and their fellow human beings.

FROMM developed a theory of personality that emphasizes the influence of

sociobiological factors, history, economics and class structure. His humanistic
psychoanalysis assumes that humanity’s separation from the natural world has
produced feelings of loneliness and isolation, a condition called basic anxiety.
His humanistic theory looks at people from a historical and cultural perspective
rather than a strictly psychological one. It is less concerned with the individual
and more concerned with those characteristics common to the culture.

FROMM takes an evolutionary view of humanity. When humans emerged as a

separate species in animal evolution, they lost most of their animal instincts but
gained “an increase in brain development that permitted self awareness,
imagination, planning and doubt”. This combination of week instincts and
highly developed brain makes humans distinct from all other animals.

HUMAN NEEDS

As animals humans are motivated by such physiological needs as hunger, sex

and safety; but they can never resolve their human dilemma by satisfying these
animal needs. Only the distinctive human needs can move people toward a
union with the natural world. These existential needs have emerged during the
evolution of human culture, growing out of their attempts to find an answer to
their existence and to avoid becoming insane. Indeed, FROMM contended that
one important difference between mentally healthy individuals and neurotic or
insane ones is that healthy people find answers to their existence – answers that
more completely correspond to their total human needs.

In addition to physiological or animal needs, people are motivated by five

distinctively human needs – relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, a sense of
identity and a frame of orientation.
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1. Relatedness
The first human or existential need. The relatedness is the drive for union
with another person or other persons. FROMM postulated three basic
ways in which a person may relate to the world: (1) Submission, (2)
Power and (3) Love. A person can submit to another, to a group, or to an
institution in order to become one with the world. Submissive people
search for relationship with domineering people, power seekers, welcome
submissive partners and they establish a symbiotic relationship. People in
symbiotic relationships are drawn to one another not by love but by a
desperate need for relatedness, a need that can never be completely
satisfied by such partnership. Underlying the union are unconscious
feelings of hostility. FROMM believed that love is the only roots by
which a person can become united with the world and at the same time
achieve individuality and integrity. He defined love as a “union with
somebody, or something outside oneself under the condition of retaining
the separateness and integrity of one’s own self”. Love involves sharing
and communion with another, yet it allows a person the freedom to be
unique and separate. It enables a person to satisfy the need for relatedness
without surrendering integrity and independence. In love, two people
become one yet remain two.
2. Transcendence
Like other animals human are thrown into the world without their consent
or will and then removed from it again without their consent or will. But
unlike other animals, human beings are driven by the need of
transcendence, defined as the urge to rise above a passive and accidental
existence and into “the realm of purposefulness and freedom”. Just as
relatedness can be pursued through either productive or non-productive
methods, transcendence can be sought through either positive or negative
approaches. People can be transcendent their passive nature by either
creating life or by destroying it.
3. Rootedness
The third existential need is for rootedness or the need to establish roots
or to feel at home again in the world. When humans evolved as a separate
species, they lost their home in the natural world. At the same time, their
capacity for thought enabled them to realize that they were without a
home, without roots. The consequent feelings of isolation and
helplessness became unbearable. Rootedness too can be sought in either
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GORDON ALLPORT
BIOGRAPHY and OVERVIEW

Born on 1897 in Indiana. He was the forth and the youngest son of his family.
His father had engaged in number of business ventures before becoming a
physician at about Gordon’s birth. Lacking adequate facilities, Dr. Allport
turned his household into a miniature hospital. Both patients and nurses were
living in the same home, and a clean and sterile atmosphere prevailed.

At the age of 22, Allport visited Vienna. During his visit, he penned a note to
Freud asking for an appointment. When he visited Freud, he realized that he had
nothing to say that would interest Freud. Searching his mind for some incident,
he remembered seeing a small boy on the tramp car while travelling to Freud’s
home. The little boy of about 4 years old displayed an obvious dirt phobia,
constantly complaining to his well dressed mother about the filthy conditions on
the car. Freud listened silently to his story and then asked to his young visitor if
he was in reality talking about himself. Feeling guilty and embarrassed he
managed to change the subject. Allport claimed that he choose this particular
incident to get Freud’s reaction to a dirt phobia in a child so young. He was not
after a professional consultation. It was this encounter that sparked his interest in
personality theory. Back in USA, he began to wonder is there might be room for
another approach to personality other than psychoanalysis and learning theories,
but also one that adopted a more humanistic stance.

More than any other personality theorist, he emphasized the uniqueness of the
individual. He believed that attempts to describe people in terms of general
traits rob them of their unique individuality. For this reason he objected trait
theory saying that one person’s stubbornness is different from any other
person’s stubbornness and the manner in which one person’s stubbornness
interacts with his or her extraversion and creativity cannot be duplicated by no
other individual.

He called the study of individual morphogenic science. Morphogenic methods

are those that gather data on single individual, whereas nomothetic methods
used by most psychologists gather data on groups of people.

Allport’s approach to personality theory

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ABRAHAM H. MASLOW (summary)

BIOGRAPHY

Maslow had perhaps the most lonely and miserable childhood in all the
personality theorists. Born in New York, he spent his unhappy childhood in
Brooklyn. He was the oldest of seven children of his family. As a child, his life
was filled with intense feelings of shyness, inferiority and depression.

Maslow was not especially close to either parents, but he tolerated his often
absent father, a Russian-Jewish immigrant who made a living preparing barrels.
Towards his mother, however, he felt hatred and deep seated animosity; not only
during his childhood, but until the day she died. Despite several years of
psychoanalysis, he never overcomes the intense hatred and refused to attend to
her funeral. He wrote on his diary: ‘’What I reacted against or totally hated
and rejected was not only her physical appearance, but also her vales
and world view, her stinginess, her total selfishness, her lack of love for
anyone else in the world, even her own husband and children, her
assumption that anyone was wrong who disgraced her, her lack of
concern for her grandchildren, her lack of friends, her sloppiness and
dirtiness, her lack of family feelings for her own parents and siblings. I
have always wondered where my humanism, ethical stress, kindness,
love, friendship and all the rest came from. I knew certainly the direct
consequence of having no mother-love, but the whole trust of my life
philosophy and all my research and theorizing also has its roots in a
hatred for and revulsion against everything she stood for’’.

Maslow’s personal life was filled with pain both physical and psychological. He
was often in poor physical health suffering from a series of ailments, including
chronic heart problems. He fell in love with his cousin when he was young and
being a very shy boy he could not disclose his feeling to her until one day he got
help from another cousin. He loved the girl so desperately and he needed love so
desperately that he found it very hard to concentrate on school until the day he
found out that the girl loves him as well. From that time on his life become
meaningful and reached to his potential. He began with the assumption that the
people are free to shape their own lives and they are motivated by a desire to
achieve self-actualization. According to Maslow, a self-actualized person finds
fulfillment in doing the best that he or she is capable of , not in competition with
others but in an effort to become ‘’ the best me I can be’’.
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ALBERT BANDURAS
Overview of Social Cognitive theory

Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory takes chance encounters and fortuitous
events seriously, even while recognizing that these meetings and events do not
invariably alter one’s life path. How we react to an expected meeting or event is
usually more powerful than the event itself.

Social cognitive theory rests on several basic assumptions.

1-Plasticity: The outstanding characteristic of humans. Humans have the

flexibility to learn a variety of behaviors in diverse situations. People can and
do learn through direct experiences like Skinner said but he places much more
emphasis on vicarious learning, that is learning by observing others. Bandura
also stresses the idea that reinforcement can be vicarious; people can be
reinforced by observing another person receive reward. This indirect
reinforcement accounts for a good bit of human learning.

2-Triadic reciprocal causation: The model includes behavioral, environment and

personal factors, people have the capacity to regulate their lives. Humans can
transform transisitory events into relatively consistent ways of evaluating and
regulating their social and cultural environments. Without this capacity, people
would merely react to sensory experiences and would lack the capacity to
anticipate events, create new ideas, or use internal standards to evaluate present
experiences; two important environmental forces in the triadic model are chance
encounters and fortuitous events.

3-Agenic perspective: Humans have the capacity to exercise control over the
nature and quality of their lives. People are the producers as well as products of
social systems.

4-Internal-External factors: People regulate their conduct through both internal

and external factors. External factors include people’s physical and social
environments, whereas internal factors include self-observation, judgmental
process and self-reaction.

5-Moral Agency: When people find themselves in morally ambiguous situations,

they typically attempt to regulate their behavior through moral agency, which
includes redefining the behavior, disregarding or distorting the consequences of
their behavior, dehumanizing or blaming the victims of their behavior, and
displacing or diffusing responsibility for their actions.
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LEARNING

One of the basic assumptions of Bandura’s social cognitive theory is that

humans are quite flexible and capable of learning a multitude of attitudes, skills
and behaviors and that a good bit of those leanings are a result of vicarious
experiences. Although people can and do learn from direct experience, much of
what they learn is acquired through observing others.
Bandura believes that new behaviors are acquired through two major kinds of
learning: observational learning and enactive learning.

1-Observational learning
Bandura believed that observation allows people to learn without performing
any behavior. People observe natural phenomena, plants, animals, waterfalls, the
motion of moon and stars, and so forth; but especially important to social
cognitive theory is the assumption that they learn through observing the
behavior of other people. He differs from Skinner in his belief that
reinforcement is not essential for learning. Although reinforcement facilitates
learning, Bandura says that it is not a necessary condition for it. People can
learn, by observing models being reinforced.
Learning is facilitated by observing appropriate activity, properly coding these
events for representation in memory, actually performing the behavior and being
sufficiently motivated.
Bandura believes that observational learning is much more efficient than
learning through direct experience. By observing other people, humans are
spared countless responses that might be followed by punishment or by no
reinforcement.

Modeling

The core of observational learning is modeling. Learning through modeling

involves adding and subtracting from the observed behavior and generalizing
from one observation to another. Modeling involves cognitive processes and is
not simply mimicry or imitation. Several factors determine whether a person
will learn from a model in any particular situation.

a. The characteristics of the model are important. People are more likely to
model high-status people rather than low-status, competent individuals
rather than unskilled or incompetent ones, and powerful people rather
than impotent ones.
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S.F. SKINNER
Behaviorism

Behavioral psychology is one of the major subjects studied in almost every

introductory psychology course. The behaviorist influence was stronger during
the middle half of the 20th century than it is today, but behavioral concepts and
theories remain important in fields such as education and psychotherapy.Both
classical conditioning and operant conditioning are central to behaviorism. The
central idea of behaviorism is that all actions are acquired through conditioning
processes.

Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is a process that involves creating an association between

a naturally existing stimulus and a previously neutral one. Imagine a dog that
salivates when it sees food. The food is the naturally occurring stimulus. If you
started to ring a bell every time you presented the dog with food, an association
would be formed between the food and the bell. Eventually the bell
alone,becomes the conditioned stimulus, would come to evoke the salivating
response.Ivan Pavlov first discovered classical conditioning as well as the
famous Little Albert experiment, which demonstrated the powerful effects of
conditioning.

SKINNER -Operant Conditioning

Skinner was an experimental psychologist at Harvard when he developed

behaviorism as a position in learning. Skinner uses the consequences of a
behavior to explain why the behavior continues or fades.

Skinner believes that behavior that is followed by reinforcement (positive or

negative) has an increased probability of reoccurrence. Behavior followed by
extinction or punishment has a decreased probability of re-occurrence.

Operant conditioning utilizes reinforcement and punishment to create

associations between behaviors and the consequences for those behaviors.

For example, imagine that a school teacher punishes a student for talking out of
turn by not letting the student go outside for recess. As a result, the student
forms an association between the behavior (talking out of turn) and the
consequence (not being able to go outside for recess). As a result, the
problematic behavior decreases.
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Since learning is implied by a change in behavior, first the desired behavioral

change is decided and then the consequences are manupulated to alter the
probability of the behavior recurring. Through proper use of shaping the
development of new behaviors can be promoted.

Operant conditioning focuses on using either reinforcement or punishment to

increase or decrease a behavior. Through this process, an association is formed
between the behavior and the consequences for that behavior. For example,
imagine that a trainer is trying to teach a dog to fetch a ball. When the dog
successful chases and picks up the ball, the dog receives praise as a reward.
When the animal fails to retrieve the ball, the trainer withholds the praise.
Eventually, the dog forms an association between his behavior of fetching the
ball and receiving the desired reward.

Consequence Definition Example

A behavior is followed by
Receive reinforcer
the presentation of a positive Giving students a gold star for
(positive
stimulus, thus the behavior completing work on time
reinforcement)
increases.
Putting on sunglasses to remove the
A behavior is followed by
Remove unpleasant glare of the sun; allowing students to
the removal of an unpleasant
stimulus (negative quit working problems that don't
stimulus, thus the behavior
reinforcement) interest them if they follow classroom
increases.
rules about arriving on time
A behavior is followed by
Spanking a child who misbehaves;
Receive unpleasant the presentation of an
assigning additional homework
stimulus unpleasant stimulus, thus the
problems to a student who is
(punishment) behavior decreases at least
disruptive
temporarily.
A behavior is followed by
Not allowing a student to go out on
Withhold pleasant the withholding or removal
the playground when he has not
stimulus (extinction) of a positive stimulus, thus
completed his work as scheduled
the behavior decreases.

Shaping, Reinforcement, Shesules of Reinforcement

Operant conditioning can be viewed as a process of action and consequence.

Shaping is the conditioning paradigm of an experiment. The form of the
experiment in successive trials is gradually changed to elicit a desired target
behavior. This is accomplished through reinforcement, or reward.