Personality

personality can be defined as the unique patterning of behavioral and mental processes that
characterizes an individual and the induvidual's interactions with the environment. the key word of the
defination of personality is the word individual. personality psychology is the study of induviduals, with
special emphasis on what makes a person unique. Henry Murray once stated that every person is in
someways like all other person, and in still other way no other person(Murray&Kluckholn,1953).

What is personality?---"personality can be defined as the study of consistent patterns of individual

Personality consists of relatively long lasting behavior patterns that yield fairly consistent reactions to a
number of different situations.(McMohon &McMohon 1986).

From these type of defination we can say that personality is a consistent patterns of individual's all
characteristics which exposed in his [Link] is a combination of individual physical
constitution,face,strength,ability and his believe attitude,emotion expression etc .every person has
personality.

Perspective on personality:people have discussed the nature of personality for centuries. for
example,the greeks and romans discussed the nature of personality for [Link] example,the greeks
and romans discussed a four-fold personality classifacation scheme based on the four cosmic
elements-earth,air,fire,and [Link] hippocrates and the roman physician galen suggested that the
way these elements are represent in the personality creates four kinds of human
temperament-melancholic,sanguine,choleric and phlegmatic-corresponding to earth,air,fire and water.

The modern psychologycal study of personality has been marked by the development of four major
perspectives. These are--1)psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund freud. Freud's consistent emphasis was on
biological drives, especially on sexual and aggressive drives.

2)The trait perspective grew out of two criticisms of Freudian approach. First Carl Jung felt that not all
people or even most were primarily motivated by sexual or destractive drives. A second group of critics
felt that freuds theories were not sufficiently supported by evidence.

3)The third major perspective on personality is behavior, or social learning perspective. This perspective
is strongly influenced by the work of [Link] and other learning theorist.

4) the fourth is humanistic perspective, like the trait and behavioral perspectives, it grew out of
dissatisfection with other perspectives.

The Psychoanalytic theory: the work of Sigmund Freud and his followers makes the specific
psychodynamic perspective know as psychoanalytic theory of personality. Freud explored people's
unconscious motives and conflicts using the techniques of dream interpretation and free association. His
central idea was that personality charecteristics, including the symtoms of psychological disorders, grow
out of unconscious conflicts about sexual and aggressive drives. Freud emphasized that personality is
largely determined during the first five years of life, when the person develops charecteristic ways of
dealing with internal drives and conflicts. Freud ideas about the structure ,development, and dynamics
of personality are discussed below.

Structure of personality:

Freud's work with people suffering from various psychological disorders convinced him that the
personality was composed of three different mental structures. He called these the id, the ego and the
super ego.

The Id: Freud held that at birth the child's personality consists solely of unconscious drives for pleasure.
The id strives for immediate satisfaction of its drives for pleasure. According to Freud, this pleasure is
obtained by the elimination of tension. When the id's tension accumulate, satisfection is achieved by
areduction in tension levels.

Freud specified two ways in which the id tries to achieve the reduction of tension. One mechanism is
reflex action, or simply responding reflexively to stimuli in the environment. For example, a child's
sucking on a nipple is reflex action. This reflex reduces tension and quiets aroused an unhappy child. A
second mechanism the id uses is primary process thinking. This types of thinking involves creating a
fantasy about the object or behavior that serves to reduce tension. For example, a child might imagine
nursing. This fantasy partially reduce tension.

The ego: Primary-process thinking alone can not ensure the survival of the child.

Imagining feeding is pleasurable, but it does not satisfy nutritional requirements. For this reason,
another mental structure develops. This mental structure is comprised of information that the child
perceives, remembers and of the cognitive processes that develop to process this information, such as
thinking, reasoning and planning. Freud called this mental structure the ego. The ego is largely
conscious.

One main characteristic of the ego is that it develops in order to help the id obtain real rather than
imaginary satisfaction. It is able to do this because it uses secondary-process thinking, or realistic
thinking. Although it is more realitic than the id the ego derives all its energy from the unconscious
drives of id and exists to find effective ways of satiafaying those drives. The ego is a reality-obtained
mental structure that develops out of early experience to help the id obtain satisfaction.

The superego: the super ego contains moral principles and values, which have been acquired from the
parents and society. It actually consists of two subparts. One part is conscience, which contains moral
prohibitions against certain behaviors. Especially those expressing the sexual and aggressive drives of id.
The other part of the superego is the ego -ideal. This is the image of what one ideally can be and hoe one
ought tobehave. We can think of the conscience as containing dictates about what is immoral, or about
what one should not do, and the ego-ideal as containing models about what is moral, or about what one
should do.

Conscious, Preconscious, Unconscious Regions: Freud felt that the three structure of personality, the id
,ego and superego, functioned within overlapping portions of conscious, preconscious, unconscious
region of the mind. As noted before, the id is unconscious. Its drives operate only in unconscious form.
The ego is largely conscious but has preconcious and unconscious portion as well. The preconscious
portion of the mind contains thoughts, memories, and other kinds of information that are not conscious
but that can easily be brought into consciousness. In addition, a portion of ego is [Link]
portion contains the ego defense [Link] super ego contains conscious, preconscious, or and
unconscious [Link]'s dictates can be felt in consciousness, or they can be preconcious, or they can
operate unconsciously.

The development of personality: Freud believed that at different ages, human beings experience tension
most intencely in different areas of the body, known as erogenious zones. He named the different
psychological stages of development according to zone that in a particular age is most sensitive to
tension and most in need of tension reducing stimulation.

The Oral Stage: Freud proposed that during the first eighteen months of life, the most sensitive zone is
the [Link] the first stage is called the oral stage. The id strives to reduce tension in and around
mouth, this is achieved by sucking, even on a thumb or pacifier.

The first thing that the child perceives and remembers is often related to when it is feed or how it might
be able to obtain care and feeding from its parents.

The Anal Stage:At about the age of eighteen months, the locus of gratification and changes and the child
enters the anal stage. The anal region becomes more sensetive, and the child derives satisfaction from
stimulation in anal region, either from the retention or elimination of feces. Parents begin to toilet train
their children at this age. Parents want to control when and where the child eliminate feces. Achild
pleasure in [Link] eliminating feces at his or her choice of time and place and the parents' efforts
to dictate new times places lead to conflict.

The Phallic Stage: At about the age of three or four years, the genitals become the most sensitive area,
and children derive pleasure from manipulating them. At this point, the child enters the phallic stage.
Again, there is likely to be conflict with parental [Link] typically try to curb behaviors such as
masturbation or at least confine them to private settings.

Freud proposed that all children experience a desire to have a sexual relationship with their parent of
the opposite sex. Boys want to have a sexual relationships with their mothers, and girls with their father.
these sexual wishes are one key aspect of the oedipus and electra complexes. The second key aspect of
these complexes is a related wish to eliminate the parent of the same sex, who stands as a rival for the
affection of opposite sex parent. For example, a young boy may wish that his father were dead so that
could have his mother to himself.

The Latency Period: Freud proposed that once the phallic stage is over ,at about age five, there is along,
quiet period of psychological development in which no major unconscious drives press the ego for
satisfaction. This is called the latency period, and it extends through late childhood to puberty. During
this time children may learn a good deal about the world around them, other people, and their own
skills, capacities, and interests. However, there is little pressure from the id and little internal conflict.

The Genital stage: When the young person reaches puberty, or sexual maturation, he or she enters the
final stage of development the genital stage. In this stage the person feels stronge adult, sexual desires
for first time. There may also be a rewakening of old oedipal sexual and aggressive feelings. From this
point on, the ego will have to work hard to balance the demands of the id for sexual gratification with
the constraints of the reality and the prohibitions and exhortations of the superego. The adult
personality reflects how well the ego manages to do This.

Problems encountered at any one stage, either of deprivation or overindulgence, may produce fixation at
that stage.

The Ego Defense Machanism

The defense mechanisms form a portion of the ego that operates [Link] use them
without being aware of doing so. In this way, the conscious part of the ego is shieded from threating
perceptions, feelings and impulses.

In discussing the defense mechanisms, we will divide most of them into three groups:

1)The behaviour channeling defense mechanisms:

a) Identification b)Displacement c)sublimation

2) Primary Reality distorting defence mechanisms:

a)Repression b)Denial

3)Secondary Reality distorting defense mechanisms:

a) Projection b) Reaction formation c)Rationalization

1)Behavior channeling defense mechanism: These mechanisms direct behavior in ways that protect the
person from conflict or harm. They produce realistic behavior that the person feels is moral.

a)Identification is first used in resolving the oedipal [Link] in life, people who are anxious about
their behavior sometimes resolve their conflicts by identifying another person who appears successful,
realistic and moral, trying to act as much like that person as possible. Freud regarded identification as a
relatively healthy defense mechanism.

b) Displacement directs aggressive behavior away from someone or something that has aroused anger
towerd someone against whom it is both safe and morally acceptable to aggress. for example, a man
who has been angered by his boss might fear being hostile

toward him and might therefore honk his horn at a fellow computer on his way home,shout at his wife,
ridicule his son or kick his dog. In all these instances, he is displacing aggression in a way that will not get
him into trouble.

Sublimation is a defense mechanism. it entails expressing drives for plesure or aggression in socially
acceptable ways. In this way the id obtains partal satisfication while the superego's dictates are followed
. for example,a person might sublimate his sexual drives into painting highly respectable representation
of nudes. aggression drives might be channeled into studying military history or playing contact sports.
Freud selt that sublimation was extremely important for civilized existence and social achievement.

2) Primary Reality-Distorting defence mechanisms: One of the most basic ways the ego protects itself
from feelings or perceptions that cause anxity is simply not to feel or perceive them. The two defense
mechanisms that protect the ego by keeping threatening feelings or perceptions out of awareness are
repression and denial. they are called primary reality- distorting mechanisms because they are the first
line of defense. They protect the ego from even being aware of threats.

a) Repression entails blocking from awareness sexual feelings or impulses, aggressive thoughts or wishes,
or feelings of guilt emanating from the superego. For example, a person who feels guilty for cheating on
an exam may simply repress these feelings and not consciously experience them.

b) Denial is the defense mechanism used to keep threatening perceptions of the external world,rather
then internal drives and feelings, out of awareness. For example, a person living in california may simply
refuse to admit that earthquakes threaten his life and home, or a smoker may deny that cigarettes are
hazardous to her health.

3)Secondary Reality- distorting defenses: The three secondary reality distorting mechanisms we will
discuss projection, reaction formation, rationalization.

a)Projection involves parceiving personal charecteristics in other people that you cannot admit in
yourself. For example, a man might repress his own sexual feelings toward his brother's wife and project
those feeling onto her . Thus, the man will perceive that his brother's wife is sexually interested in him.
Another common example is for people to project feelings of anger felt toward others onto those other
people.

b)Reaction formation is consciously feeling or acting the strong opposite of ones true unconscious
feeling because the true feelings are [Link] example a girl who hates her father may repress
those feelings and consciously experience strong feelings of affection for him instead .These feelings are
due to reaction formation .

c)Rationalization is a very common defense mechanism .It involves generating a socially acceptable
explanation for behaviour that for behavior that may be caused by unacceptable drives . For example a
person may rationalize aggresion by saying that another person deserved to be punished or harmed.