​ ​ ​ ​ SELF AND PERSONALITY

PART 1

The idea of self is not inborn. A newborn child has no idea of itself. The
structure of self is modified in the light of our own experience and
experiences. We have of other person we develop personal identity and
social identity.
●​ Personal identity which is unique and which differentiates us from
others.
●​ Social identity, refer to our link with our social and cultural groups.

Self as a subject and self as an object.

Self can also be understood as a novel as well as as the known the nor is
called the subject, and the known is called the object.

Kinds of self.
Biological self can be noticed when a newborn child cries, although
although it is a reflects but can be linked with the biological need and
hunger.
●​ Personal self, which leads to an orientation in one’s feeling primarily
concerned with oneself.
●​ Social self emerges in relation with others and emphasis such
aspects of life as cooperation, unity, affiliation, sacrifice, support, or
sharing. this cell values, family, and social relations, so it can also be
referred to as familial or relational self.

COGNITIVE ASPECT OF SELF

●​ Self-concept is our perception of our competencies, attribute,
strengths, and weaknesses. An individual may have a positive
self-concept or negative self-concept of himself or herself.
●​ Self-esteem refers to our self worth the value judgement about
ourselves. Self-esteem is is formed in four areas, academic
competence, social competence, physical or athletic competence,
and physical appearance.
 ●​ Self efficacy refers to self-confidence or exchange to which a person
believes that he or she can control his or her life outcomes by himself
or herself, which is symbolised as I can do it attitude.

BEHAVIOURAL ASPECT OF SELF

Self regulation refer to the ability to organise and monitor our own
behaviour. It also means self control, which means to delay or defer the
gratification of need. There are three psychological techniques of
self-control, namely, self observation, self instruction, and self
reinforcement.
●​ Self observation of our behaviour provide us with necessary
information that mainly used to change or modify certain behaviour.
●​ Self instruction is instructing ourselves to do something and behave
the way we want to.
●​ Self reinforcement is rewarding behaviours that have pleasant
outcomes.

CULTURE AND SELF

In Indian culture, there are shifting boundaries between the self and others.
Invest in cultures. There are clear differences between the self and others.
That is why many western cultures are characterised as individualistic
whereas many Asian cultures are characterised as collectivism in the
Indian culture. The self is generally not separated from one’s own food
rather remain in a state of harmonious coexistence. In western culture, they
are often at a distance.
CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY
Defination Of Personality
Gordon Allport defined personality as the dynamic organisation within
the individual of those psychophysical systems that determines his
characteristic behaviour and thought.

Personality, characterised by the following features

1.​ It has both physical and psychological components.
2.​ The expression in terms of behaviour is fairly unique and given
individual.
3.​ Its main features do not easily change with time.
4.​ It is dynamic in the sense that some of its features may change due
to internal or external situational demands. Those personality is
adaptive to situations.

MAJOR APPROACHES TO STUDY PERSONALITY

1.​ Type approach
2.​ Trait approach
3.​ Psychodynamic approach
4.​ Post Freudian approach
5.​ Behavioural approach
 6.​ Cultural approach
7.​ Humanistic approach

1.​ Type Approach this approach attain to comprehend human

personality by its remaining certain broad patterns in the observed
behavioural characteristics of the individual.

TYPE APPROACH

1.​ Hippocrates He proposed a psychology of personality based

on body fluids or humans, and classified people
into four types, namely
●​ Sanguine
●​ Phlegmatic
●​ Melancholic
●​ Choleric
2.​ Ayurveda Charaksamhita, a famous treatise on Ayurveda
classified into theories of Vata, Pitta, Khafa on
the basis of the humeral elements called
tridosha.

Trigunas On the basis of three units, the psychology of

personality, were namely,
●​ Sattva Guna includes attributes like
cleanliness, truthfulness, dutifullness,
detachment, discipline, etc.
●​ Rajas Guna includes intensive activity,
desire for sense gratification,
dissatisfaction in envy for others, and
materialistic mentality.
●​ Tamas Guna characterises, anger,
arrogance, depression, laziness, feelings
of helplessness.
All the three guns present in each and every
person is of different degrees, the dominance of
one or the other guna may lead to particular
 type of behaviour.
3.​ Sheldon He propose the typology of endomorphs,
Mesomorphs and ectomorphs on the basis of
bodybuilld and temperament.
●​ Endomorphs are fat, soft, and rounded
by temperament, they are relaxed and
sociable.
●​ Mesomorphs have strong muscleculature
a rectangular with a strong bodybuild.
They are energetic and courageous.
●​ Ectomorphs are long and fragile in
bodybuild, they are brainy artistic, and
introvert.
4.​ Jung He grouped people into two types which are
widely recognised as introverts and extroverts.
●​ Introvert are people who prefer to be
alone team to avoid others, withdraw
themselves in case of emotional conflict
and shy on the other hand.
●​ Extrovert a sociable outgoing drawn to
occupation that allow dealing directly with
people and react to stress and conflicts by
trying to lose them among people and
social activity.

5.​ Friedmann and The 2 cardiologist give two personality types

Rosenman type A and type B. They use psychological risk
factors to identify those two type of
personalities.
●​ Type A personality poses high
motivation, lack of patients feel short of
time being in a great hurry and feel like
being always burden with work, feel
difficult to slow down and relax. They are
susceptible to problems like high BP and
coronary heart disease.
●​ Type B people are patient and relaxed,
 easy going and highly flexible feel less
stressed. They have a carefree approach
and just opposite to type A people.

6.​ Morris He suggested type C personality which is

prone to cancer. Individuals with this personality
cooperative on assertive and patient show
compliance to authority and surprise their
negative emotions like anger.
7.​ Type D has been recently suggested which is
characterised by proness to depression.

2. Trait Approach
Trait approach focuses on the specific psychological attributes along with
which individuals tend to differ in consistent and stable ways.

TRAIT APPROACH
1.​ Allport Trait He categorised people into cardinal central
Approach and secondary traits. He found that one
English language dictionary contain more than
4000 words describe different personality traits
categories. This traits into three levels.
●​ Cardinal Traits are traits that dominate
an individuals who live often to the point
that person becomes known specifically
for this trait. All what suggested that
carnal traits are rare entertained Family
to develop later in life.
●​ Central trait are the general
characteristics from the basic foundation
of personality term like intelligent or shy
and anxious.
●​ Secondary traits, other traits that are
sometimes related to attitudes
 preferences and often appear only in
certain situations or under specific
circumstances. For example, impatient
while waiting in traffic.
2.​ Cattell Personality Raymond Cattell applied the statistical
Factors technique, factor analysis to discover the
common structures on which people differ from
each other and discovered 16 primary or
source traits as well as large number of
surface traits that result out of the interaction
of the source traits.

He also developed one of the most widely

used personality self-report, namely 16 PFQ.
3.​ Eyesenck Theory He reduced personality into two broad
dimensions
●​ Neuroticism versus emotional
stability, It refers to degree to which
people have control over their feeling at
one extreme of the dimension. We find
people who are neurotic. They are
anxious, moody, touchy, restless and
quickly lose control. At the other end.
Extremely people who are calm, even
temper, reliable and remain under
control.
●​ Extroversion versus introversion, it
refers to the degree to which people are
socially outgoing or socially withdrawn at
one extreme, those who are active,
gregarious, impulsive and thrill seeking.
At the other extreme, our people who are
passive quite cautious and reserved.
●​ In the later work,he proposed a third
dimension called psychoticism versus
sociability which is considered to
interact with the other two dimensions.
Mention above a person who scores
 high on the psychoticism, dimension
tends to be hostile, egocentric and
antisocial.
●​ Eyesenck Personality Questionaire is
the test which is used for studying this
dimensions of personality.

3. Psychodynamic Approach
Psychodynamic approach views largely to the contributions of Sigmund
Freud.
Freud used free association a method in which a person is asked to
openly share all the thoughts, feelings, and ideas that come to his or her
mind.
Dream analysis and analysis of errors to understand the internal function
of the mind.

Levels of Consciousness
Freuds theory considers the sources and consequences of emotional
conflict and the way people deal with this. In doing so it visualise that the
human mind in terms of three level of consciousness.
●​ The first level is conscious, which includes the thoughts, feelings,
and actions of which people are aware of.
●​ The second level is preconscious, which includes mental activity of
which people may become aware, only if they attended to it closely.
●​ The third level of unconscious, which includes mental activity that
people are unaware of.
Structure of Personality
According to Freud’s theory, the primary structure of personality consists of
id, ego, and superego.
●​ Id is the source of person instinctual energy. It deals with immediate
gratification of primitive needs, sexual desires and aggressive
impulses. It works on the pleasure principal which assumes that
people sick pleasure and try to avoid. Freud considered much of
persons instinctual energy to be sexual and the rest as aggressive. It
does not care for moral value, society, or other individuals.

●​ Ego grows out of Id and seeks to satisfy an individuals. Instinctual

needs in accordance with reality. It works by the reality principal, and
often directs it towards more appropriate ways of behaving. While the
Id is demanding unrealistic and works, according to pleasure
Principle, the ego is patient, reasonable and works by the reality
Principle.
 Superego is the best way to characterise a super ego is to think of it as
the moral branch of mental functioning. The superhero tells the Eid and the
ego very for ratification in particular instance is ethical. It helps control the e
by internalising the parental authority through the process of socialisation.

Thus , in terms of individual functioning. He thought of the unconscious as

being composed of three competing forces. The relative strength of id, ego
and superego determines each person stability.
Freud also assumed that id is energised by two instinctual forces called
life instinct and death instinct. He paid less attention to the teeth instinct
and focused more on the life instinct. The instinctual life forces that
energises the id is called libido. It works on the pleasure, principal, and
seeks immediate gratification.
Ego Defense Mechanism
According to fraud much of human behaviour reflects and attempt to deal
with or escape from anxiety. Thus, the ego deals with anxiety largely
determines how people behave. You believe that people avoid anxiety
mainly by developing defence mechanism that try to defend the ego
against the awareness of the instinctual needs. Defence mechanism is the
way of reducing anxiety by distorting reality. Some defence against anxiety
is normal and adaptive people who use this mechanism to such an extreme
that reality is truly distorted. Develop various forms of adjustment.

Defense Defination Example

Mechanism
Repression The anxiety, provoking I do not know why I
behaviours, or thoughts are did it.
totally dismissed by the
unconscious.
Projection People attribute their own A student having a
traits to other. strong desire to
cheat in the exams is
not able to do
because of a strong
revolt by the
conscious within. So
he suspects that the
other classmates
might be cheating.
Denial A person totally refuses to Smokers may refuse
accept the reality. why not to admit to
opening. themselves that
smoking is bad for
their health.
Reaction A person defends against Ramit dislikes Sunil,
Formation anxiety by adopting but goes out of his
behaviour opposite to heart way to be overly kind.
or his true feelings.
Rationalization A person tries to make A person may explain
unreasonable feelings or a natural disaster as
 behaviour that seems God’s will.
reasonable and acceptable.

Stages of Personality Development

Freud claims that the core aspect of personality established and remains
stable throughout life and can be changed only with great difficulty. He
proposed a five stage theory of personality, which is also called
psychosexual theory of development. A brief description of the stages are,
●​ Oral stage a newborn’s instinct are focused on the mouth. This is the
infant primary pleasure Centre. It is through the mouth that the baby
os food that reduces hunger. The infant achieves oral gratification to
fitting thumb, sucking, biting and bling. It is during this early months
that peoples basic feelings about the world are established that, for
him and adult who considers the world, a bitter probably had difficulty
during the oral stage of development.
●​ Anal Stage is found that around ages two and three, the child learns
to respond to some of the demands of the society. One of the
principal demands made by parents is that the child wants to control
the bodily function of urination and defecation most children at this
age experience pleasure in moving their bowels. The annual of the
body becomes the focus of certain pleasurable feelings. this
establishes the basis for conflict between the id and the ego and
between the desire for babyish pleasure and demand for adult control
behaviour.
●​ Phallic Stage this stage focuses on the genitals it is around ages,
four and five children begin to realise the differences between males
and females. They become a lot of sexuality and sexual relationship
between their parents. During this teach the male child experiences,
the oedipus complex, which involves love for the mother hostility
towards father. The female child experiences the electra complex
that is love for the father and hostility towards mother.
●​ Latency stage this stage lasts from about seven years until puberty.
During this period. The child continues to grow physically, but sexual
 large is relatively inactive much of a child energies, channelised into
social or achievement related activities.
●​ Genital stage during this stage, the person attain maturity and
psychosexual, develop development. The sexuality, fears, and
reprised feelings of our teachers are once again exhibited people
learn to deal with members of the opposite sex, socially and sexually
maturely. However, is the journey towards this stage is marked by
excessive streets or over indulgence because fixation to an earlier
stage of development.

Freud theory also postulates that as children proceeded from one stage to
another stage of development, they seem to adjust their view of the world.
Failure of child to pass successfully through a stage leads to fixation to the
stage.
Regression is also a likely outcome in such situations. Regression occurs
when a person is resolution of problem at any stage of development is less
than adequate. In this situation, people display behaviour, typical of less
mature stage of the development.

Post Freudian Approach

1.​ Jung He proposed a theory of collective
unconscious consisting of archetypes or
primordial images which were not
individually acquired, but where in. The God
or the mother is a good example of architect.
The basic assumption of his theory is that
personality consists of competing forces and
structures within individual, rather than
between the individual and the demands of
the society or between the individual and
reality. Human beings guided by much by
aims and aspirations as basic and
aggression. His theory of personality is called
as analytical psychology.
2.​ Karen Horney She had a more optimistic view of human life
and she guided when parents behaviour
towards the child is indifferent, discouraging
and erratic. The child feels insecure and
feeling called basic anxiety results. Deep
resentment towards parents or basic hostility
occurs due to this anxiety that is
psychological disorders were caused by
disturbed interpersonal relationships during
childhood, leading to a feeling called basic
anxiety. Her major contribution lies in
challenge to Freud’s treatment of women as
inferior. According to her and each sex has
attributes to be admired by the other, and
neither sex can be viewed as superior or
inferior. She countered that woman were
more likely to be affected by social and
cultural factors than biological factors.
3.​ Adler He propose a theory of individual psychology
and inferiority complex. His basic assumption
is that human behaviour is purposeful and
directed. Each one of us has the capacity to
choose and create. Our person are the
sources of our motivation. The goals that
 provide us with security and help us in
overcoming the feeling of in adequacy
important in our personality development.
According to him, every individual success
from the feelings of inadequate and that is
inferiority complex, which arise from
childhood. overcoming this complex is
essential for optimal personality development.
4.​ Erich Fromm He developed his theory from social
orientation and views human as social
beings and did not differentiate them on their
biological basis. He argued that psychological
quality such as growth and realisation of
potential resulted from a desire for freedom
and striving for justice and truth.
5.​ Eric Erikson He viewed personality development as a
lifelong process and developed the concept
of identity crisis.

Criticism of Psychodynamic Theories

●​ The theory is a largely based on case studies. They lack a rigourous

scientific basis.
●​ They use smaller individuals as samples for advancing
generalisations.
●​ The concepts are not properly defined, and it is difficult to submit
them to scientific testing.
●​ Freud has used males as the prototype of all human personality
development. Overlooked female experiences and perspectives.

4. Behavioural Approach
This approach focuses on the learning of stimulus response connection
and their reinforcement for most behaviourist the structural unit of
personality is the response.
5. Cultural Approach
This theory proposes that personality is also influenced by cultural
variations. This approach considers personality as an adaptation of
individuals or group to the demands of their ecology and culture.

6.​ Humanistic Approach

This approach was developed response to Freud’s theory.
A.​Carl Roger- he proposed the ideas of a fully functional person and
unconditional positive regards.
Characteristics of a fully functioning person
The humanistic theorists have indicated that healthy personality lies in not
adjustment to society. It involves a quest to know oneself deeply and to be
true to one’s own feelings without any disguise and to be oneself in the
year and now. According to them, the healthy people share the following
characteristics,
1.​ They become aware of themselves that feelings and their limits
except themselves, and what they make of their lives as their own
responsibility. Have the courage to be.
2.​ They experience the here and now are not trapped.
3.​ They do not leave in the past or dwell in the future through anxious
expectations and distorted defences.

B. Maslow- He developed the theory of self actualisation.

Self Actualisation: self actualisation is a state in which people have
reached their own fullest potential.