Personality Theories
Dena Headley
BEH/225
November 15, 2014
Karen Pasveer

Personality Theories
Personality theory is a large area of psychological research, and there exists many different ideas concerning how personality is formed. A theory will present a systematic way of understanding behaviors and employs specific factors that are considered important. Despite there being a multitude of these theories, there are four theorists who had the largest influence in the development of personality theory. Those theorists include Freud, Jung, Rogers, and Maslow (Coon & Mitterer, 2013).
Sigmund Freud
The most well-known and one of the earliest personality theories were posited by Sigmund Freud. Freud proposed what is known as the psychodynamic perspective. The psychodynamic perspective describes personality in terms of the mind being divided into three functional areas. Freud described the minds functional areas in terms of the id, ego, and superego. According to Freud, the id is the instinctual area of the mind, the ego is the rational or logical control area of the mind, and the superego is the portion of the mind that provides moral standards and values (Coon & Mitterer, 2013). Psychoanalytic theory posits that a personality is developed through the interaction of these three portions of the mind. According to Freud “behavior, is ultimately determined by unconscious sexual and aggressive drives and by the complex intrapsychic conflicts that arise in daily life.” Freud’s theory considers personality to be a result of underlying beliefs and conflicts between the id, ego, and superego that manifest themselves into behavior and traits (Boeree, 1997-2009).
While Freud’s theory is interesting and provides an important concept concerning the subconscious mind impacting behavior, the theories are found highly speculative and subjective reasoning. The