Chapter 4: Social Aspect of Personality
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Social Aspect of Personality
a. Importance of Social Aspect in Personality
b. Social Norms and Values.
c. Karen Horney Neurotic Needs and Tendencies
Communication and Body Language
a. Importance of Communication, Listening and Bady Language Skills
b. Barriers and Hindrances in Communication
c. Albert Bandura: Social Learning Theory
Social Aspect of Personality
A person’s social life consists of the various bonds they form with others, such as family, friends,
members of their community, and strangers. It can be measured by the duration and quality of the social
interactions they have on a regular basis, both in person and online.
Social characteristics are elements of an individual's personality that relate to social processes. This
includes traits that are purely social such as introversion and extroversion.
Importance of Social Aspect in Personality
Human beings are social animals, and the tenor of someone's social life is one of the most important
influences on their mental and physical health. Without positive, durable relationships, both minds and
bodies can fall apart.
Individuals begin life dependent for survival on the quality of their relationship with their primary caregiver,
usually their mother. Humanity's survival as a species similarly hinges on the capacity for social living.
Most of human history was spent in small groups in which each individual was dependent on others for
survival; evidence suggests this is the condition to which humans are best adapted.
Technology has changed the ways people interact with others in their daily lives, but it hasn’t affected the
basic need to form supportive bonds with other people.
Social Norms and Values
Values are the basic beliefs that guide the actions of individuals, while norms are the expectations that
society has for people’s behavior. In other words, values tell individuals what is right or wrong, while
norms tell individuals what is acceptable or not.
Values are more abstract and universal than norms, meaning they exist independently of any specific
culture or society. Norms, on the other hand, are specific to a particular culture or society, and are
essentially action-guiding rules, specifying concretely the things that must be done or omitted.
Additionally, values tend to be passed down from generation to generation, while norms can change
relatively quickly.
In short, the values we hold are general behavioral guidelines. They tell us what we believe is right or
wrong, for example, but that does not tell us how we should behave appropriately in any given social
situation. This is the part played by norms in the overall structure of our social behavior.
However, there is often a lot of overlap between norms and values. For example, one of most of society’s
norms is that one should not kill other people.
This norm is also a value, it is something that societies believe is morally wrong.
What Are Norms: Social norms are specific rules dictating how people should act in a particular situation,
values are general ideas that support the norm”.
There are four types of norms we can distinguish:
1. Folkways
Folkways are norms related to everyday social behavior that are followed out of custom, tradition, or
routine. They are less strictly enforced than mores or laws, and violations are typically met with mild
social disapproval rather than serious punishment.
They contribute to the social order by facilitating smooth, predictable social interactions. Folkways
are fairly weak kinds of norm.
For example, when you meet someone, you know on the street, you probably say” hello” and expect
them to respond in a kind way. If they ignore you, they have broken a friendship norm, which might
lead you to reassess your relationship with them; Examples of folkways include etiquette and
manners, such as holding a door open for someone, saying “please” and “thank you,” or not talking
loudly in a library.
2. Mores
Mores are much stronger norms, and a failure to conform to them will result in a much stronger
social response from the person or people who resent your failure to behave appropriately.
Mores refer to the norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance in a society.
These norms are often seen as critical for the proper functioning of a group or society, and violations
are typically met with serious societal disapproval or sanctions.
Mores often dictate ethical and moral standards in social behavior, such as honesty, respect for
human life, and laws against theft or murder.
3. Taboos
Taboos refer to those behaviors, practices, or topics considered profoundly offensive, repugnant,
and unacceptable by a society or cultural group. Societal sanctions, penalties, or ostracism often
back these prohibitions.
The origin of taboos can be traced to religious beliefs, societal customs, or moral codes, and they
usually touch on areas such as sex, death, dietary habits, and social relations.
The violation of these taboos can lead to severe consequences, which might include social
exclusion, legal repercussions, or even physical harm in extreme cases.
4. Laws (legal norms)
A law is an expression of a very strong moral norm that exists to control people’s behavior explicitly.
Punishment for the infraction of legal norms will depend on the norm that has been broken and the
culture in which the legal norm develops.
What Are Values: Values are beliefs that we have about what is important, both to us and to society as a
whole. A value, therefore, is a belief (right or wrong) about the way something should be.
Values are essential in validating norms; normative rules without reference to underlying values lack
motivation and justification. Meanwhile, without corresponding norms, values lack concrete direction and
execution.
Durkheim notes that value consensus continues to exist in modern societies but in a weaker form
because industrialization has resulted in people having greater access to a greater variety of knowledge
and ideas, e.g., through the mass media and science.
Karen Horney Neurotic Needs and Tendencies
Horney viewed these neuroses as a sort of coping mechanism that is a large part of normal life. She
identified ten neuroses, including the need for power, the need for affection, the need for social prestige,
and the need for independence.
According to Horney, basic anxiety (and therefore neurosis) could result from a variety of situations. She
suggested that as children, people often have experiences that contribute to neuroticism, including:
• Excessive admiration • Lack of warmth
• Injustice and discrimination • Over-protection
• Isolation from other children • Parental arguments or hostility in the home
• Lack of respect for needs • Too much or too little responsibility
• Lack of guidance • Unkept promises
Horney's neurotic needs can be classified into three broad categories:
1. Needs that move people toward others: These neurotic needs cause individuals to seek affirmation
and acceptance from others. People with these needs are often described as needy or clingy as they
seek out approval and love.
2. Needs that move people away from others: These neurotic needs create hostility and antisocial
behavior. These individuals are often described as cold, indifferent, and aloof.
3. Needs that move people against others: These neurotic needs result in hostility and a need to
control other people. These individuals are often described as difficult, domineering, and unkind.
Horney's 10 Neurotic Needs: Well-adjusted individuals use all three coping strategies (toward, away,
and against others), shifting focus depending on internal and external factors. According to Horney, it is
the overuse of one or more of these interpersonal styles.
1. The Need for Affection and Approval
Horney labeled the first need as the neurotic need for affection and approval. This need includes the
desire to be liked, to please other people, and meet the expectations of others. People with this type of
need are extremely sensitive to rejection and criticism and fear the anger or hostility of others.
2. The Need for a Partner
The second need is known as the neurotic need for a partner who will take over one's life. This involves
the need to be centered on a partner. People with this need have an extreme fear of being abandoned by
their partner. Oftentimes, these individuals place an exaggerated importance on love and believe that
having a partner will resolve all of life’s troubles.
3. The Need to Restrict One’s Life
The third need centers on the neurotic need to restrict one's life within narrow borders. Individuals with
this need prefer to remain inconspicuous and unnoticed. They are undemanding and content with little.
They avoid wishing for material things, often making their own needs secondary and undervaluing their
own talents and abilities.
4. The Need for Power
The fourth need Horney described is known as a neurotic need for power. Individuals with this need seek
power for its own sake. They usually praise strength, despise weakness, and will exploit or dominate
other people. These people fear personal limitations, helplessness, and uncontrollable situations.
5. The Need to Exploit Others
People with a neurotic need to exploit others view others in terms of what can be gained through
association with them. People with this need generally pride themselves on their ability to exploit other
people and are often focused on manipulating others to obtain desired objectives, including such things
as ideas, power, money, or sex.
6. The Need for Prestige
Individuals with a need for prestige value themselves in terms of public recognition and acclaim. Material
possessions, personality characteristics, professional accomplishments, and loved ones are evaluated
based on prestige value. These individuals often fear public embarrassment and loss of social status.
7. The Need for Personal Admiration
Individuals with a neurotic need for personal admiration are narcissistic and have an exaggerated self-
perception. They want to be admired based on this imagined self-view, not upon how they really are.
8. The Need for Personal Achievement
According to Horney, people push themselves to achieve greater and greater things as a result of basic
insecurity. These individuals fear failure and feel a constant need to accomplish more than other people
and to top even their own earlier successes.
9. The Need for Independence
This need is described as a neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence. These individuals exhibit
a “loner” mentality, distancing themselves from others in order to avoid being tied down or dependent on
other people.
10. The Need for Perfection
People with a neurotic need for perfection and unassailability strive for complete infallibility. A common
feature of this neurotic need is searching for personal flaws in order to quickly change or cover up these
perceived imperfections.
Communication and Body Language
Body language can be a significant part of communication, whether consciously or subconsciously. Non-
verbal behavior, including body language, can offer silent cues and signals that may impact how you speak,
react, and feel. Understanding body language in yourself and others may help you more successfully and
confidently navigate social settings.
a. Importance of Communication, Listening and Body Language Skills
Communication is the process of sharing information, ideas, and feelings between people. It is a way of
getting in touch with others and exchanging information.
Good communication can help to build relationships, resolve conflict, and promote collaboration. In the
workplace, effective communication will improve productivity and foster a positive work environment.
Good communication skills are also essential for personal relationships. This is because the ability to
communicate effectively can help to build trust, understanding, and intimacy.
Active listening is an intentional communication technique that requires the listener to be keenly sensitive to
the speaker's needs and underlying messages, and then provide feedback, without passing judgement or
merely listening to interject and propose one's own agenda. As simple as it seems, this is a vital skill that is
one of the most difficult to master, even for those who are highly experienced and skilled communicators.
Active listening helps us better understand other positions, provides a path to finding common ground;
builds trust, rapport, and connections in our communication with others; and increases our chance of being
heard ourselves.
Body language often plays a significant role in communication and can be as important as the words we
say. It can involve eye contact, head movement, posture, gestures, and facial expressions, all of which can
add meaning to our verbal communication.
These can be universal to all humans, and people may perform them consciously or subconsciously to
convey their thoughts and feelings. Experts say body language usually constitutes about half of what we
are trying to communicate.
In today's digital age, many people rely on social media and text messaging to communicate with each
other. Although virtual interaction may allow people to talk at their leisure and can minimize social pressure
and anxiety for some, certain things can be lost in translation, so to speak.
By being unable to see or hear the other person as you speak with them, you might miss critical nonverbal
cues, as well as verbal ones, like vocal inflection. Online communication is generally becoming the primary
modality for millions of people, and body language may continue to evolve to accommodate this shift.
b. Barriers and Hindrances in Communication
Communication barriers are internal and external factors which impede the quality of communication. They
act as hindrances in the listening or speaking aspect of communication; thus distorting its real nature and
leading to misinterpretations and misunderstandings.
1. Physical Barriers cultural background, this can lead to the cultural
Physical barriers are any kind of physical or barrier. Some cultures are very formal in their
environmental factors that hinder communication interactions with people whereas other cultures
from taking place effectively. These are obstacles are much more informal. Such differences can
present in the environment which makes result in awkward and offensive situations.
communication a difficult task to pursue.
4. Language Barriers
2. Psychological Barriers Due to varying factors such as literacy rate, age,
When the effectiveness of the communication ethnic background etc., the proficiency of
gets hampered due to the psychological states of language might differ from one person to
the sender or the recipient, it can be termed as another, and this can act as a linguistic barrier to
psychological barriers of communication. the smooth flow of communication. Language is
considered the ultimate resource for
As humans experience various complex feelings communication.
and emotions like anger, depression and stress,
mental states and disorders, drowsiness, fatigue, 5. Technological Barriers
frustration, excitement, boredom, disinterest, Although technology has made communication
nervousness etc. are some of the aspects of much easier, there are also newly emerging
psychological states that can act as pawns or issues that must be addressed such as outdated
portray as interference in making communication technology systems, lack of proper network
efficient. connection, issues with the devices etc. and
other secondary issues such as computer
3. Cultural Barriers viruses, a packed inbox, emails being saved in
When the effectiveness of communication gets outboxes rather than getting sent. These issues
affected between people due to differences in the
may come to interrupt the way of having effective involve personality, social style, level of
communication. confidence, clothing, emotions, lack of
knowledge etc. some personality types are more
6. Personal Barrier likely to be expressive about their thoughts and
Personal barriers to communication are personal opinions in comparison to other types of
characteristics that deter communication from personality.
taking place effectively. Personal characteristics
c. Albert Bandura: Social Learning Theory
2. Albert Bandura (Social Learning Theory)
View of human nature
Self-regulation and goal setting. Goal setting is a powerful source of self-motivation. For goals to be
effective motivators, they must be specific and set an appropriate level. When goals are long-term, as they
often are, then sub-goals must be set. Proximal sub-goals provide immediate incentives and guides for
performance, whereas distal goals are too remote to effectively mobilize effort or to direct what one does
here and now.
Self-efficiency. Bandura argued that fear is largely a product of perceived inefficiency. We are afraid in
situations we feel incapable of handling. As efficiency increases, fear diminishes.
Personality Development
Observational learning is the process where a person’s behavior changes as a result of being exposed to
the behavior of another person, the model. Specific components of a model’s behavior are called modeling
cues. Such cues are present almost continually in real life. These can be live or symbolic.
Live modeling refers to observing models “in the flesh” ie. Models that are physically present.
Symbolic modeling involves being exposed to models indirectly, eg. through movies, books, or oral
descriptions of a person’s behavior.
Three stages of observational learning
1. Exposure-observation of action
2. Acquisition- learning an activity
3. Acceptance- whether the observer uses the modeling cues as a guide for his/her behavior
Direct reinforcement of the performance
Bandura believed children develop social behavior patterns by observing successful models. A child has
difficulty in social and personality development was likely exposed to inconsistent reinforcement models.
Three effects of observation and imitation
1. Modeling effect- An observer attends to and imitates a new model, but the behavior must be those they
can do.
2. Disinhibitory effect. Modeling can release a whole class of behavior that is unusually inhibited.
3. Eliciting effect. The observer can match the model’s behavior with response already in their repertoire
or learned behavior.
Observations of models can lead to the acquisition of new responses and change the frequency of behavior
already learned. This is illustrated in aggression, moral adjustments, and delay of gratification.
a. Aggression. Children exposed to aggressive models tend to respond with frustration with considerable
aggression. Meanwhile, equally frustrated children who have observed models displaying inhibited behavior
are relatively less aggressive and tend to match the behavior of this other model. Direct training through
reward, aversive stimulation, and other disciplinary procedures plays a vital role in shaping and maintaining
patterns of social behavior.
b. Moral judgment. Reinforcement patterns play a vital role in the development of self-control. Positive
reinforcement increases the frequency of aggressive responses.
c. Delay of gratification. The ability to delay gratification is determined by the expected outcome as seen
in direct personal experiences of models such as parents, peers, and self-reactions.