CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

OUTLINE

I.Personality in Perspective

A. The Genetic Factor

1.There is strong evidence in research that many personality traits or dimensions are inherited. However, we can’t explain personality fully and totally by heredity. Whether our genetic predispositions are ever realized depends on social and environmental conditions, particularly those of childhood.

B. The Environmental Factor

1.Each personality theorist in this text has discussed the importance of the social environment. Adler spoke about the importance of a person’s birth order and their position in the family, while Horney believed that the culture and time period in which we are reared shows its effects. She spoke of female inferiority developing from a male-dominated culture. Fromm looked to the influence of past history which he believed shapes different personalities or character types appropriate to the needs of that era.

2.Allport and Cattell, who were trait theorist; agreed on the importance of the environment. Allport perceived genetics as the basic material of personality and the social environment finish the personality. Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development are innate, but the environmental determines the ways in which those genetically based stages are realized. Maslow and Rogers recognized self-actualization was innate but recognized that environmental factors could inhibit or promote the self-actualization need.

3.The time and place where you are born can influence your personality, such as a study showing the 1980’s as a group of people having substantially higher anxiety and neuroticism than people in other time periods. Our jobs can influence personality. Those in high-status jobs increased in positive emotionality and decreased in negative emotionality. Ethnic background and whether you are part of a minority or a majority culture affects such variables as sensation seeking, locus of control, and the need for achievement.

C.The Learning Factor

1.Learning plays a major role in influencing almost every aspect of behavior. Skinner taught learning variables in shaping what others call personality, but which he described as simply an accumulation of learned responses. Bandura believed in models (observational learning) and learning through vicarious reinforcement. Research has been documented that learning will influence self-efficacy (Bandura), locus of control (Rotter), learned helplessness, and optimism versus pessimism (Seligman).

D.The Parental Factor

1.Most theorists have included parental influences on the formation of personality. Adler focused on a child feeling loved or rejected by his or her parents, while Horney wrote from her own experience about a lack of parental warmth and affection can undermine a child’s security and result in feelings of helplessness. Fromm believed the more independent a child is from the primary tie with the parents, the more insecure that child becomes.

2.Allport considered the infant’s relationship with the mother as the primary source of affection and security, while Cattell saw infancy as the major formative period, with the behavior of parents and siblings shaping the child’s character. Maslow believed the parents need to provide safety and physiological needs in the first two years of life, while Rogers spoke of parents’ supplying unconditional positive regard to their children.

3.Parents can be examples for their children and this can determine specific aspects of personality, such as the need for achievement, self-efficacy, locus of control, and learned helplessness or optimism. Parental behaviors influence sensation seeking, and uncaring parents can stifle emerging traits such as extraversion, sociability, agreeableness, and openness to experience.

4.There is evidence that the type or style of parenting can influence personality and that praise can promote a child’s sense of autonomy, realistic standards and expectations, competence, and self-efficacy.

E.The Developmental Factor

1.Research suggests that our basic foundation of enduring personality dispositions remains stable over many years. However, some research has shown that we are not “fixed” at a certain age in terms of changing our personalities. Some theorist that believes more in genetics suggest that change is independent of environmental factors. Other theorists believe in environmental and social influences and in the adaptations we make to them. Changes in jobs, cultural and personal challenges have an impact on personality. McAdams suggested that personality can be described on three levels: (A) dispositional traits, which are inherited traits that remain stable and relatively unchanged from about 30 on, (B) personal concerns that refer to conscious feelings, plans, and goals, and (C) life narratives, which implies shaping the self, attaining an identity, and finding a unified purpose in life.

F.The Conscious and Unconscious Factors

1.Almost every theory in this text has described conscious (cognitive) processes. Freud and Jung focused on the unconscious but still addressed the ego or conscious mind that perceives, thinks, feels, and remembers, enabling us to interact with the real world. Allport believed in those who were not neurotic, would function in a conscious, rational way, while Kelly argued that we form constructs about our environment and about other people and that we make predictions about them based on these constructs. Bandura believed that people have the ability to learn through example and vicarious reinforcement. There is widespread agreement that consciousness exists and is an influence on personality.

2.Freud introduced the notion that thoughts and memories are repressed in the unconscious, and that repression may operate at the unconscious level. Contemporary researchers focus on unconscious cognitive processes and describe them as more rational than emotional. The rational unconscious is often referred to as the nonconscious, to distinguish it from Freud’s unconscious. Studies have shown that the unconscious may have both a rational and an emotional component. The unconscious remains an ongoing topic in psychology, today.