CHAPTER SIX

PERSONALITY

6.1.Meaning of Personality
• The word personality is derived from the
word ‘persona’, which has Greek and Latin
roots and refers to the theatrical masks worn
by Greek actors.
• Personality- has been defined in many
different ways, but psychologists generally
view personality as the unique pattern of
enduring thoughts, feelings, and actions that
characterize a person.
Personality should not be confused with character, which
refers to value judgments made about a person‘s morals or
ethical behavior; nor should it be confused with
temperament, the enduring characteristics with which each
person is born, such as irritability or adaptability.
However, both character and temperament are vital
personalities.
 6.2. Theories of Personality
Personality is an area of the still relatively young
fields of psychology in which there are several ways in
which the characteristic behavior of human beings can
be explained. Though there are different theories of
personality, we will see at least the three ones;
psychoanalytic, trait and humanistic. The specific
questions psychologists ask and the methods they use
to investigate personality often depend on the types of
personality theories they take.
 The psychoanalytic theory of personality

• The psychoanalytic theory was formulated

by the Austrian physician named Sigmund
Freud. According to Freud, personality is
formed within ourselves, arising from basic inborn
needs, drives, and characteristics. He argued that
people are in constant conflict between their
biological urges (drives) and the need to
tame them.
 The psychoanalytic theory includes a theory of
personality structure. In Freud's view,
personality has three parts which serves a
different function and develops at different
times: the id, the ego, and the superego.
According to Freud, the way these three parts of
personality interact with one another to
determines the personality of an individual.
 Id: If It Feels Good, Do It -The first and most
primitive part of the personality in the infant is
the id. The Id is a Latin word that means ―it
―. The id is a completely unconscious amoral
part of the personality that exists at birth,
containing all of the basic biological drives;
hunger, thirst, sex, aggression, for example.
When these drives are active, the person will
feel an increase in not only physical tension
but also in psychological tension that Freud
the instinctual energy that may come into conflict with
the demands a society‘s standards for behavior.
When libidinal energy is high, it is unpleasant for the
person, so the goal is to reduce libido by fulfilling the
drive; Eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, and satisfy
the sex when the need for pleasure is present. Freud
called this need for satisfaction the pleasure principle,
which can be defined as the desire for immediate
satisfaction of needs with no regard for the
consequences. The pleasure principle can be summed up
simply as ―if it feels good, do it.
 Ego: The Executive Director- According to Freud,
to deal with reality, the second part of personality
develops called the ego. The ego, from the Latin
word for ―I, is mostly conscious and is far more
rational, logical and cunning than the id. The ego
works on the reality principle, which is the need to
satisfy the demands of the id and reduce libido only in
ways that will not lead to negative consequences. This
means that sometimes the ego decides to deny the id its
drives because the consequence would be painful or too
unpleasant.
 Superego: The Moral Watchdog- Freud called the
third and final part of the personality, the moral
center of personality, the superego. The superego
(also Latin, meaning ―over the self) develops as a
preschool-aged child learns the rules, customs, and
expectations of society. There are two parts of the
superego: 1.the ego ideal and 2.the conscience.
 The ego-ideal is a kind of measuring device. It is the
sum of all the ideal or correct and acceptable
behavior that the child has learned about from
parents and others in the society.
 The conscience is part of the personality that
makes people pride when they do the right
thing and guilt, or moral anxiety when they do
the wrong thing.
For Freud, our personality is the outcome of the
continual battle for dominance among the id, the
ego, and the superego. This constant conflict
between them is managed by psychological
defense mechanisms.
Defense mechanisms are unconscious tactics that either
prevent threatening material from surfacing or disguise
it when it does. Some of the psychological defense
mechanisms are discussed below.
 Repression is a defense mechanism that involves
banishing threatening thoughts, feelings, and
memories into the unconscious mind.
-Example: an Ethiopian husband who is defeated by his
wife will not remember/ talk it out again.
 Denial: is refusal to recognize or acknowledge a threatening
situation.
-Example; Mr. Geremew is an alcoholic who denies/ doesn‘t accept
being an alcoholic.
 Regression: involves reverting to immature behaviors that have
relieved anxiety in the past.
-Example: a girl/a boy who has just entered school may go back to
sucking her/his thumb or wetting the bed.
 Rationalization: giving socially acceptable reasons for one's
inappropriate behavior.
-Example: make bad grades but states the reason as being knowledge
rather than grade oriented; and grades only showing superficial learning .
 Displacement: the defense mechanism that involves expressing
feelings toward a person who is less threatening than the
person who is the true target of those feelings.
-Example: Hating your boss but taking it out on family members.
 Projection: the defense mechanism that involves attributing
one's undesirable feelings to other people.
-Example: a paranoid person uses projection to justify isolation and
anger.
 Reaction formation: a defense mechanism that involves a
tendency to act in a manner opposite to one's true feelings.
-Example: a person who acts conservation but focuses on violence
in their behavior.
 Sublimation: defense mechanism that involves
expressing sexual or aggressive behavior through
indirect, socially acceptable outlets.
-Example: an aggressive person who loves playing football.
Our use of defense mechanisms is not considered as
inappropriate or unhealthy unless we rely on them to an
extreme level. Remember that all of us use defense
mechanisms to manage our conflict and stress. It may not
be possible to get through life without such defenses. But,
excessive use may create more stress than it alleviates.
 6.2.2. The trait theory of personality
Psychologists who take the trait approach see
personality as a combination of stable internal
characteristics that people display consistently
over time and across situations. Trait theorists seek
to measure the relative strength of the many
personality characteristics that they believe are
present in everyone. The trait approach to
personality makes three main assumptions:
1.Personality traits are relatively stable, and therefore
predictable, over time. So a gentle person tends to stay the
same way across time.
2. Personality traits are relatively stable across situations,
and they can explain why people act in predictable ways in
many different situations. A person who is competitive at
work will probably also be competitive on the tennis court or
at a party.
3. People differ in how much of a particular personality
trait they possess; no two people are exactly alike on all
traits. The result is an endless variety of unique personalities.
•Though the history of the trait theory of personality has
come through different stages, our attention here will be
paid on the five-factor model or the Big Five theory. The
five trait dimensions can be remembered by using the
acronym OCEAN, in which each of the letters is the first
letter of one of the five dimensions of personality.
 Openness
person‘s willingness to try new things and be open to
new experiences.
 Conscientiousness
refers to a person‘s organization and motivation, with
people who score high in the dimension being those who are
careful about being in places on time and careful with
belongings as well. Someone scoring low on this dimension,
for example, might always be late to important social events
or borrow belongings and fail to return them or return in
poor coordination.
 Extraversion is a term first used by Carl Jung, who
believed that all people could be divided into two
personality types: extraverts and introverts.
Extraverts - are outgoing and sociable, whereas
introverts - are more solitary and dislike being the center of
attention.
 Agreeableness - a person, who may be easygoing,
friendly and pleasant (at the high end of the scale) or
grumpy, crabby and hard to get along with (at the low
end).
 Neuroticism refers to emotional instability or stability.
People who are excessively worried, over anxious and
moody would score high on this dimension, whereas those
who are more even-tempered and calm could score low.
 6.2.3. Humanistic theory of personality

•In the middle of the twentieth century, the

pessimism of Freudian psychoanalysis with its
emphasis on conflict and animalistic needs,
together with the emphasis of behaviorism on
external control of behavior, gave rise to the third
force in psychology: the humanistic perspective.
•Humanists such as Carl Rogers and Abraham
Maslow wanted psychology to focus on the things that
make people uniquely human, such as subjective
emotions and the freedom to choose one‘s destiny. As
Maslow‘s theory will be discussed in Chapter Five, in
this chapter the discussion of the humanistic view of
personality will focus on the theory of Carl Rogers.
•Carl Rogers and Self-Concept Like Maslow, Rogers
believed that human beings are always striving to fulfill their
innate capacities and capabilities and to become everything
that their genetic potential will allow them to become. This
striving for fulfillment is called self-actualizing tendency.
An important tool in human self-actualization is the
development of an image of oneself or the self-concept. The
self-concept is based on what people are told by others and
how the sense of self is reflected in the words and actions of
important people in one‘s life, such as parents, siblings,
coworkers, friends, and teachers.
•Real and Ideal Self – are two important components
of the self-concept, the real self ( one‘s actual
perception of characteristics, traits, and abilities that
form the basis of the striving for self-actualization) and
the ideal self (the perception of what one should be or
would like to be). The ideal self primarily comes from
those important, significant others in one‘s life, most
often the parents. Rogers believed that when the real
self and the ideal self are very close or similar to each
other, people feel competent and capable,
 Summary
Personality is the unique pattern of enduring thoughts,
feelings, and actions that characterize a person.
The specific questions psychologists ask and the
methods they use to investigate personality often
depend on the types of personality theories they take.
According to the psychoanalytic theory of Freud,
personality is formed within ourselves, arising from
basic inborn needs, drives, and characteristics.
The trait theorists see personality as a
combination of stable internal characteristics
that people display consistently over time and
across situations.
According to humanistic theorists, personality is
conscious, self-motivated ability to change and
improve, along with people‘s unique creative
impulses.