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Post Development Of Personality

DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY


We can safely presume as, Ruch (1967), says when people refer to personality they are probably using it to mean one of the three things about a person,

• His external appearance and behavior, or social stimulus value,

• His awareness of self as a permanent organizing force in his life,

• His particular pattern or organization of measurable traits, both “inner” and ‘outer’ ones.

The terms, personality, tends to include the whole person; all the abilities, tendencies, and other innate or acquired characteristics that are more or less consistent, from one day to the next and distinguish him from other people.

Personality comes from the Latin word, “Persona”, meaning, "mask". In early Greek drama, the actors wore masks, if they wanted to show the audience that they were performing the hero’s or the villain’s part.

One of the first attempts to describe personality types was that of the Greek physician, Hippocrates (460-377 B.C), who focused upon the four fluids or “humors” of the body, as they were perceived at that time: black bile, yellow bile, were classified as melancholic and presumed to be depressed and pessimistic. The choleric, possessing excessive yellow bile were described as quick tempered and irritable. Persons with a predominance of blood were

One of the first attempts to describe personality types was that of the Greek physician, Hippocrates (460-377 B.C), who focused upon the four fluids or “humors” of the body, as they were perceived at that time: black bile, yellow bile, were classified as melancholic and presumed to be depressed and pessimistic. The choleric, possessing excessive yellow bile were described as quick tempered and irritable. Persons with a predominance of blood were

A German philosopher Eduard Spranger, in a treatise called, Types of Men (1928), classified men according to six basic interests or values: theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political, and religious. His view is evident in psychology today as the framework for a test of personal values, known as the Study of Values (Allport el al., 1960).

Maybe the most widely known of all typologies, are Carl Jung's introvert and extrovert and Sigmund Freud’s oral and anal personalities, to which we will refer later.

At birth, babies differ in many aspects. In general, we may note that some are active, others generally passive and some are in-between. (Gesell & IIg., 1949).

Effects of the early feeding experiences are seen in the prediction of emotional relationship between mother and infant. Similarly, effects of early experiences, like availability, deprivation, parental support and attitudes with their consistency; child- parent interactions of acceptance, rejection, sibling relationships, interaction within the environment schooling, cultural influences, all mould a child’s personality.

The term that psychology uses to encompass the distinct qualities that make each person unique is, Personality, which we can define as, the organization of a person’s cognitive, motivational, and social characteristics.

Most of the theories lay stress on one aspect trait, or the other – either physiological or behavioural, but, we have learnt that no one definition would be applicable, unless it includes all the familial/parenting, educational, environmental and cultural influences in a person’s development of personality. We must also realize that we cannot attribute a trait to a person unless it has been there for a consistent period of time.

A widely known morphological theory is Sheldon’s somato-type theory. According to Sheldon’s classification there are three basic types, each identified with a corresponding personality type.

Endomorphic: tendency towards roundness (person who is very fond of food), apprehensive, social, sleeps well.

Mesomorphic: predominance of muscle and bone- inclined to being adventurous, likes strenuous exercise, dresses informally, and withstands pain easily and willingly.

Ectomorphic: Fragile in built, is asocial, not amiable and lacks a desire for sleep, non adventurous, does not withstand pain easily.


Other popular attempts to understand Personality are based on the individual’s expressive behavior, e.g. handwriting, voice and posture rather than, anatomy.

PERSONALITY THEORIES


Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud divided personality into three distinct compartments:

Id: The storehouse of libidinous impulses, that is, sexual pleasure.

Ego: Controls expression of sexual impulses according to social demands.

Super Ego: Controls ideas of morality, that is, differentiating between good and bad

According to Freud, there are three stages in early childhood of a man: oral, anal and phallic stage. Experiences during these stages are stored in the recesses of unconscious. He maintains that sexuality is the most important part of personality.

Neo-Freudian Theories:

According To Neo-Freudian School Of Thought, personality depends on how a person handles conflicts during oral, anal and phallic stage. For example, when female child sees penis of a male child, she feels as if she is deficient in that. This complex creates ‘penis envy’ in women for time to come.

When there is a conflict between Id (sexuality) and Super Ego (morality) Ego plays its role in distorting defense mechanisms, repression, regression, reaction formation, projection, rationalization, displacement and sublimation.

Repression is the most important whereby unfulfilled instincts are repressed and stored in unconscious.

The Neo-Freudians agreed with importance of sexuality and early age experience but they laid more emphasis on cultural, environmental and social interaction of individuals in development of personality.

Carl Gustav Jung created his own school called analytic psychology whereby he claimed that human beings have a collective unconscious or racial unconscious, which is an important part of collective sensibility of a society.

He said development of personality is done not only early childhood but it goes up to an age of four to six years, called ‘infantile period’. During this period, personality traits are acquired from immediate environment.

Hans Eysenck, in his ‘trait theory’ compartmentalized personality into extrovert v/s introvert and neurotic v/s stable personalities.

Social learning theorist hold that personality is acquired through social learning and it depends of cognitive capabilities of a human being.

According to Humanistic Theories, human being is naturally constructive and creative and personality depends of fulfillment of these instincts. Abraham Maslow has identified the following needs in a person that need actualization:

· Basic or deficiency needs
· Met needs or growth needs

If the basic needs are both physiological and psychological. If these needs are not met during early life, it takes time to be satisfied in coming life. A child who has been deprived of food during youth, will have greater greed for food during entire life, although, he could afford it during his adulthood.

Similarly, if a child did not get sufficient love from his parents during childhood, he is prone to various complexes like inferiority complex and envy, etc. Growth needs are beauty, peace, love, justice and goodness etc.

Personality Measurement

Personality can be measured by using combination of various methods:

· Case histories
· Ratings
· Personality tests
· Personality inventories
· Behavior tests
· Psychoanalysis
· Interviews
· Projective techniques
· Psychometric approach, etc.

Although, personality techniques are being used the world over, especially for recruitment of employees, yet, these techniques cannot be said to be objective, precise and reliable. A sharp person can easily evade such techniques and get better rating than a person far better than him.

Persons who do not fit in the societal norms and modes are called maladjusted and those who perfectly fit in are called adjusted. Those who are maladjusted due to psychological abnormalities are called psychoneurotic and in serious cases psychotic.

People inherit tendencies and not traits. Environmental factors play role in making his traits. To what extent the environmental factors affect, his personality depends on degree of tendencies he has inherited. It means that man is not born with complete traits or personalities but an interaction of tendencies or aptitudes and external stimuli strike a balance somewhere to make a personality.

Parent’s attitude towards their children is a very important aspect in the way personality develops in a child. A well-adjusted family loves and respects their children, in order, to build within them, self-respect and a feeling of self-worth and self-confidence. This in turn gives the child a great advantage in facing his problems. Emotional stability as we may call it.

“A trait is any aspect of Personality that is reasonably characteristic and distinctive”, (Morgan, 1961). Different sets of traits are required for different jobs. Some people are intuitive and can the other are sensing. Intuitive can see the big picture and can do long term planning, while the sensing thinkers can go into details. For an accountant’s job, sensing thinkers are more suitable while for a planning job, the intuitive type is better.

Work, can be a source of stress, as well as, satisfaction. A workaholic is a person who is highly involved in work and drives towards perfection, but displays high levels of stress and low levels of satisfaction. If work is enjoyable, despite high drive, the term work enthusiast is used, instead of, workaholic (Spence & Robbins, 1992).

Careers can present workers with demands that exceed their perceived self-efficiency, which can lead to stress (Jex and Gudanowski, 1992). When stress continues to exceed coping resources, workers risk burnout, a response to long-term stress that involves decreased work motivation and accomplishment and increased emotional difficulties and cynicism (Pines and Aronson, 1988). Job stress does not automatically produce burnout. Some people, because of their personality are far more susceptible than others.

Burnout is more likely when people are in jobs that are not congruent with their personality. This vulnerability to burn out stems from a poor person-job match. This makes the importance of an appropriate career choice even more obvious.

When stress continues to exceed coping resources, workers risk burnout, a response to long-term stress that involves decreased work motivation and accomplishment and increased emotional difficulties and cynicism (Pines and Aronson, 1988). Job stress does not automatically produce burnout. Some people, because of their personality are far more susceptible than others.

Psychologist Howard Gardner (1983) uses this evidence to argue that we do not have intelligence, but multiple intelligences, each independent of the others. In addition to the verbal and mathematical aptitudes assessed by the standard tests, Gardner identifies distinct aptitudes for musical accomplishments, for spatially analyzing the visual world, for mastering movement skills, such as those characteristics of dance, and for insightfully understanding ourselves and others. Psychologist Howard Gardner (1983) uses this evidence to argue that we do not have intelligence, but multiple intelligences, each independent of the others. In addition to the verbal and mathematical aptitudes assessed by the standard tests, Gardner identifies distinct aptitudes for musical accomplishments, for spatially analyzing the visual world, for mastering movement skills, such as those characteristics of dance, and for insightfully understanding ourselves and others.

Psychologist Howard Gardner (1983) uses this evidence to argue that we do not have intelligence, but multiple intelligences, each independent of the others. In addition to the verbal and mathematical aptitudes assessed by the standard tests, Gardner identifies distinct aptitudes for musical accomplishments, for spatially analyzing the visual world, for mastering movement skills, such as those characteristics of dance, and for insightfully understanding ourselves and others.

Conclusion


The following points should be kept in mind about personality:
• Each personality is unique,
• Personality is continuous,
• Personality changes usually occur very slowly,
• Some individuals display patterns of characteristics called syndrome.

Secondly, whenever we try to classify a person in a trait or type him we must keep in mind his:
• Socio-economic,
• Cultural,
• Familial upbringing.

The true person emerges only when:

• Inherited traits,
• Parental supervision,
• Educational guidance,
• Career selections,
• Adjustment modes,
• Cultural influences,
• Economic conditions,
• Social pressures are kept in view.

We must consider only those points of a person as his traits that occur in crosschecking with frequency and without discontinuity, then only can we frame in our mind, the image of a person, we call, “Personality”.
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