Psychological Needs Paper

Psychological Needs

Learning Team C

PSY/211

July 3, 2014

Mr. Phillip Cuaresma

Personality Paper

        There are a quite a few different perspectives on personality but there are four main perspectives. The four perspectives are psychoanalytic, humanistic, social cognitive and trait perspective. The psychoanalytic theory of personality came from Sigmund Freud. One of Sigmund’s beliefs was that some of our unconscious thoughts often came out sometimes without awareness. One example of this is when we have a dream and things like what we feel and think come out in the dream. Sigmund also believed that human personality was generated from sexual urges. The humanistic perspective on personality focused on free will, self-awareness, and psychological growth. The basic idea is that humans are naturally kind hearted. Humans are born with good will and it is the environment and culture around them that can affect this good will. The social cognitive perspective on personality is that your conscious thoughts come out different according to each situation. It is also believed that your sense of self will is affected according to the situation that you are in. The Trait perspective on personality focuses on the different characteristics of a person such as being shy, talkative or outgoing. They also would focus further on these traits by categorizing them into a group such as being an introvert or extrovert.

        There are a few different theories when it comes to personality development. Sigmund Freud believed in the psychosexual stages being age related development periods. He believed that the results of an adult personality were developed from the first five years of life. With each psychosexual stage there was a different focus of sexual energies. Carl Jung had a different theory on how the personality was developed. Jung believed that personality was developed through meaningful ways throughout life. He believed that people were motivated by energy that pushes them to develop and grow psychologically. Karen Horney had another view on how personality was developed. Horney’s theory on how personality is developed focused on the cultural and social factors and influences. In this theory it was also believed that social relationships played a large role in the development of personality. Horney also believed that a negative problem in a relationship could affect a person and create psychological problems.