Advanced Theories A7

Begin Final Research Paper.

This assignment MUST be typed in APA style, and must be written at graduate level English.

For the final paper, you will be presenting your own personality development from the perspective of two (2) or more theories of personality covered in the course.

 

Directions:

 

In consideration of your development from birth to present, choose two (2) or more personality theories, covered in the course, to describe your personal identity today. According to the research on your chosen theories, describe the milestones in your life that helped to formulate your beliefs, values, behaviors, familial and interpersonal relationships, career and occupational choices, academic pursuits, etc. The goal of the paper is to formulate your own developmental assessment using research to support your theoretical perspectives.

Select a minimum of eight (8) current research articles taken from scholarly journals (online or hard copy) on your selected topic. You are encouraged to utilize the Calsouthern Library to access evidence-based resources. You may use the bibliography located under Resources in your course syllabus.

* Do not use the course text or other texts for this assignment.

This is a research-based paper.

Remember to include any relevant legal, ethical, and cultural consideration.

 

Your paper should be 10-12 pages plus a title and reference page.

 

Due Week 7

 

Assignment Outcomes

Distinguish the major theories of personality

Contrast historical and current views of personality

Integrate evidence based treatment interventions

Combine current research to assessment and technique

Identify legal, ethical issues in theories of personality and psychotherapy

Examine issues of culture and diversity in theories and application

Demonstrate ethical behavior in the use of technology

Cervone, D. & Pervin, L.A.   (2016).   Personality theory and research.   (13th ed.).   New York , NY   Wiley, John & Sons, Inc.    ISBN 9781118976296

Running head: PERSONALITY THEORIES

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PERSONALITY THEORIES FINAL

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Personality Theories

Laura Kay Utgard

Cal Southern University

PSY:87500: Advanced Theories

July, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advanced Theories Final

Personality

Indefinitely, many personality theories exist, and the topic of personality has become one of the significant issues of interest in the area of psychology. There are substantial theories on the matter of character which tries to describe different patterns in a figure, how people differ on an individual level and how habits form. The principal arguments are The Psychoanalytic theory, The Humanistic theory, The Social cognitive theory, The Biopsychological theory, The Evolution theory and the trait pPerspective (Scarr, Webber, Weinberg, & Wittig, et al, 1981)

Psychoanalytic Theory

The Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory by Sigmund Freud is one of the theories that talks about the importance of the unconscious mind and experiences in the early childhood. Freud believed that the hidden things in the unconscious could be unfolded in different ways, such as free association, slips of the tongue and also through dreams. There were also other theorists who supported part of this theory. Erik Erikson was one of themanother who believed on how the personality is shaped over the course of the whole life, due to social and identity crisis. Carl Jung who also supports Freud emphasized on the issue of the collective unconscious, psychological types, and archetypes. Freud explains human personality into three components, that is id, ego, and super-ego. The id happens due to the pleasure principle that is demanding instant gratification of its needs. Then the ego automatically emerges to realistically accomplish the wishes and requests the id about what is there in the world (winter, 2013).

At lastfinally, the superego induces moral judgment and societal rules upon the ego. The previous function of development onto theon personality is the superego and Freud believed that the superego is the incarnation of the social or parental ideals established during childhood.

I’m going to stop here in reviewing this assignment as you did not follow what was required of this assignment. The directions for this assignment is as follows: In consideration of your development from birth to present, choose two (2) or more personality theories, covered in the course, to describe your personal identity today. According to the research on your chosen theories, describe the milestones in your life that helped to formulate your beliefs, values, behaviors, familial and interpersonal relationships, career and occupational choices, academic pursuits, etc. The goal of the paper is to formulate your own developmental assessment using research to support your theoretical perspectives. Please re-submit this assignment.

Humanistic theory

The other theory is the Humanistic theory which was formulated by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers where they explained how human could attain their potential and gave the details on personal awareness, psychological growth, and the free will by focusing on the favorable characteristics of the human nature. Rogers believed that the actual driving force behind the human behavior is the actualizing tendency. He explains the importance of the free will and also in the inherent goodness of people. As for Maslow illustrates the hierarchy of needs onto the human being. He says that people are motivated by the most basic needs which become the center of things important in life such as clothes, food, and water. This continues and moves up the hierarchy where the needs of other things become now the main agenda such as self- actualization, and esteem (Fleeson, 2004).

The Social Cognitive Theory

The social cognitive theory is another dominant theory of personality where this theory focuses on the cognitive processes, observational learning, situational influences and self-efficacy importance. Albert Bandura the theorist who formulated this theory emphasized the responsibility of conscious thoughts and self-efficacy in our abilities. He explains that the environment influences leads to the force of emotions and memory to work (Rosenberg, 1986).

The other dominant theory is the Biopsychological theory. This theory focuses on the importance of genetic determinants and how the personalities are being molded. Phineas Gage spearheaded this theory. Biology takes a significant role in the personality development. Those are some of the major theories that explain the development of personality.

According to the historical and present views of these various theories about personality development, this has also brought a sense in me. This happens through evaluating my growth from birth up to now. My emphasis towards personality theory has been drawn by both personalistic and humanistic. Human being demands full recognition in all aspects of life and also the potential for becoming more than he is, that is improving himself. This brings sense in me that it is humanistic. Now the concentrating in the study of how and predict the various development within the person thus I believe it is personalistic.

Many may define or label the approach as trait psychology or individual psychology. Though, according to the concept of personality as a unique and open system (Allport 1964), I regard it as eclecticism. Constant intake and output of energy happen to the tension-reduction (homeostatic) processes so do the open system. The two points of a free system as are allowed by these all theories, an original transaction with the environment and progressive internal organization over time are brought across by the present view. (Article: general systems theory, psychological system, and system analysis).

Freud, Jung, Fromm, Sullivan and other theorists, who derive their views from the clinical experience with disordered personalities, differ with my opinion which gets its roots in the traditions of academic psychology. The theories of Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Henry A. Murray and my approach of understanding there is the resemblance. In other cases, these views are grouped as “third force” in psychology. I have tried to recount these movements of internationalism, which is influenced by historical development in personality in schools of act and gestalt in the Europe continent to the empiricism of the Anglo-America, Where am impressed by their methods. I continually emphasize on the human being or the person being a self-active and realization instead of merely reactive, since it makes sense than the exaggerated environmentalism that highlight the American personality theories.

If I talk about the conjectures, my area of interest in the view of personality development is that I focus on historical, international and academic approach. I would also say that there is the small image of the human nature from the field of science, hence no way or any reason to close the methods or theories for research purposes. One thing to express about bringing found partial and incomplete theories as final copies of beliefs is that may lead to misleading or in satisfaction to the interested audience.

My emphases may look controversial in tone, for instance pressing upon improving the theory of learning, in animal models, and actuarial assumptions. In these days and current theorizing, some of these particularistic doctrines have now been overextended. The psychoanalysis, with its belief on behavior according to the interaction of various components personality; it brings the best theoretical suitable for a given character; since it supports much to our understanding of different human qualities. This is through detailed explanation on ego defenses and unconscious mind, but all the same, it is not safe to follow the guides of the biologist and reductionism.

For many human conflicts, they are greatly configurated in consciousness and because of this fact it is good to have the phenomenological report. One of the instances is “if you want to know about the well-being of a person, you ask the concerned person.” I support systematic eclecticism or pluralism instead of reductionism and particularism. This is because systematic pluralism considers human personality as an open system whereby its potentiality limits are not known. Again the science of personality development should leave doors open for expansion in this field. This because any given person is in the process of growing “becoming.” I don’t want to eliminate any valid or assertive evidence from the school of thought when I agree with the former agreement that it is purposivists who should leave the door open and the mechanisms close the door; so I may allow both the autonomous and automatic in human nature.

Most sufficient philosophies are the philosophies of growth, personhood, and process, compared to philosophies of egotism, hedonism, positivism, and materialism which are limited to accommodate all the evidence. Furthermore, all the personality theories are based on the believes and thoughts of the human being, what we call philosophies of man.

Take the general and the unique for example. It focuses on the study of the individual case in a fore choice to the be cast average case. Usually, the writers pay lip service to uniqueness; and because of the apparent uniqueness of environment, experience and genotype then the remedy is not to justify the study of an individual pattern but instead to make it clear our abstract and approximate nomothetic. Due to this reason the writers don’t allow to pay lip service in their dimensional method or as per their tendencies of mind in general or the law of mind.

People may develop differentiable interests and traits, though maybe possessing the same or similar environment, comparable learning capacities and similar but not identical physiological needs. On that case then we are proved in measuring shared traits with a population. We need to remember that the core challenge as we engage in this differential psychology practice, is that the invention of morphogenic procedures for the fit and valid study of individual lifestyles and personal dispositions (Bennett et al ,2006)

It is similar to what happens to biology, where molecular biology lags behind because of the morphogenic biology also in psychology dimensional or molecular psychology lags behind. The morphogenic shows that for the studies of a person ’s theme of development; thus should serve as the foundation for the event. I then bring my point home that there should be an increased study of individual patterns of growth. I do not say the nomothetic approaches not to have their uses; as per the point of view of morphogenic that single life is a right matrix for searching the structure, dispositions and the progressing of personal motives.

On the issues of culture and diversity, various factors stand out on the personality and its theories.

Religion as A Cultural Influence

One identifies the necessary traits and social movement of a particular group, by first knowing the faith of that given group or culture. That makes religion to be one of the major influencing factors upon all the groups and also the systems of learning.

Freud did not believe in God, played a functional role in explaining the influence of religion and also religious symbolism. For example, religion has played a significant role in many battles in the political ground and mostly for the Middle East where war has been a healthy life for many years. Religion has been a core aspect of personality development in specific and also to psychology development.

Race and Ethnicity as A Cultural Influence

Two significant issues come out with the idea of race and ethnicity even though both of them may have doubtable value as cultural factors. Racism has brought a lot of change into many groups and with their personalities due to the environment. For example, South Africa face the same challenge of racism, and many people developed different character through this period.

If one group believes that it has a right and decision in their own cultural beliefs and practice like what was in South Africa; and other group has illegal artistic practice and believes has led to a lot of frustrations to many peoples, and hence also leading altering their personalities in response to the harsh environment. This implies that a lot of precautions and critical thinking must be applied to the personality theories and their application in the right matter. This spearhead that people should be conscientious while interpreting the personality and behavior of other people from another cultural group (Younggren & Harris, 2008).

Culture and Diversity

Around the world and in our communities, we encounter different or mixture of gender and age. The religion, race or ethnicity compare from one group to another. This show the diversity within the world. Physical disabilities either through natural cause or human error are one of the differences that have received a lot of seriousness as a cultural factor affecting many people around the world.

Many organizations have come up to improve the personality of these physically challenged people. Whereby some encourages that disabilities or people with such problems are a thing that can be fixed and these people live a healthy life. (www.disstudies.org).

According to Dan McAdams (McAdams, 1985, 2006), he pressurized the need for creating the narrative framework as from what happens to our lives through the diversity. These frameworks are such as stories. If this is done through the literature on the stories we speak about to live, then this will bring and connect the past to the present and also help to predict the future. This welcomes the diverse elements into an integrated and composed life. McAdams believed that if this happens then, people will live their stories and the identity take its form that is through writing.

Ethical and Legal Issues in Psychotherapy

According to Wolberg, who at least make a complete definition, explains that; Psychotherapy is a treatment, by psychology it means that it is the process of promoting positive personality growth and development. Trying to place or put a professional relationship with the patient with the aim of removing the existing symptoms signs and modifying or even eliminating those signs forever (Adam, 2002).

There are various things which are common to all types of psychotherapy. This is discovered through all the other kinds of psychotherapies, and their theories have been emphasized based on the duration of treatment. There are various procedures for good ethical practice, which are risk management, defensive practice, and positive ethics. The psychotherapist makes sure that he/she attains the highest ethical standards in the profession and by doing so promotes the positive ethics. This is reached by doing good, avoiding taking advantage of the clients, being faithful to your clients either directly or indirectly, also providing adequate attention to our wellness (Adam, 2002).

On the issue of psychotherapy, the informed consent is the best interpreted as an ongoing process, planned around the need for treatment for the patient. According to the therapists, the meeting with the clients says that there is no specific agenda or goal of the therapy or even technique used in preparation for treatment to take place. Thus the family and the patient should have the whole information about the nature of medicine and also the objectives of the therapy and other alternative possible treatment. Clearly explain with their clarity for effectiveness as per the problem affecting the client. All these detailed information should be brought forward by the therapist.

Technology and the moral values

The technology keeps changing here and then. New fashion comes and goes, and another new one begins and again goes. This makes it hard to show or formulate the list of moral impacts on each. It has become a tough moment to be able to understand fully about the moral values as they change. Lorenzo Magnani has discussed the aspect that getting knowledge over the changing technology about moral values is a problem and has become our duty in the world of technology.

Moral values in information Recording

Nowadays technology has become one of the places to get and store information. A lot of information is recorded and stored in this growing technology. As we know that the is so rich in the report, then there is a need to keep a record for future reference.

The major and more focused moral value on this contest is that the information is recorded and stored in such a way that is very fair to anyone who may be seeing this information or having the interest on that data. The data can be accessed by the interested people or even the concerned parties or groups.

People are sharing the social power because, while each person can access the information without using the traditional mediators of that information. Another significant value of the technology is that the recording of data is made easy and in other cases is created automatically.

Moral values in communicating and accessing information

The primary moral value on the communicating and accessing information on this platform is the privacy, promotion of ownership and trust in the data being communicated from media to another and from one person to another. If you do not have the control of this process of transmitting and accessing the data, then you do not own or have the primacy over the information.

Moral paradox of Information Technologies

Many arise as per the excellent mastery of information technologies whereby, many users want to have rapid access to the information they are in need off. The users also want to have the data in an easy way to use and then acquire it within a meager rate as per the cost is concerned. This scenario makes it difficult for maximizing the value to have secured and high quality information or data.

Conclusion

The study of personality which has various definitions according to different theorists such as Feud, Maslow, Carl and the other makes it simpler to understand better. Though not all that gives evidence or prove in support of personality, hence I urge the writers and researcher not to provide partial information. Various factors affecting the character has been discussed above and also how technology comes in toward the ethics and moral values. Through that discussion, a significant scope is highlighted by nature though still, a lot remains untouched.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Adam, A. (2002). Cyberstalking and Internet pornography: Gender and the gaze. Ethics and Information Technology, 4(2), 133-142.

Allport, G. W. (1955). Becoming; basic considerations for a psychology of personality (Vol. 20). Yale University Press. – this is not properly cited according to APA style.

Bennett, B. E., Bricklin, P. M., Harris, E., Knapp, S., VandeCreek, L., & Younggren, J. N. (2006). Assessing and managing risk in psychological practice: An individualized approach. The Trust. – this is not properly cited according to APA style.

Fleeson, W. (2004). Moving personality beyond the person-situation debate: The challenge and the opportunity of within-person variability. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(2), 83-87.

Rosenberg, M. (1986). Conceiving the self. RE Krieger. – this is not properly cited according to APA style.

Scarr, Sandra; Webber, Patricia L.; Weinberg, Richard A.; Wittig, Michele A. (1981). “Personality Resemblance among Adolescents and Their Parents in Biologically Related and Adoptive Families”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  40  (5): 885–898. – this is not properly cited according to APA style. 

Younggren, J. N., & Harris, E. A. (2008). Can you keep a secret? Confidentiality in psychotherapy. Journal of clinical psychology, 64(5), 589-600.

Winter, D. (2013). Personal construct psychology in clinical practice: Theory, research and applications. Routledge. – this is not properly cited according to APA style.