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Personality Paper
Christina M. Bartlett
PSY/211
June 11th, 2013
Dr. Kathlyn J. Kirkwood Personality Paper Often it is thought that people’s personality is just who they are. “Personality is defined as an individual’s unique and relatively consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving” (Hockenbury, Chapter 10, 2014). But often personality is what people observe, are taught, or even a conditioned process based on events that they have been through. There are several personality theories within psychology, which gives different ideas and attempts to give an explanation about the way personalities develops. “A personality is an attempt to describe and explain how people are similar, how they are different, and why every individual is unique” (Hockenbury, Chapter 10, 2014). Over the years, there have been multiple personalities theories analyzed and discussed. Many of the theories are defined under four major perspectives: the Psychoanalytic Perspective, the Humanistic Perspective, the Social Cognitive Perspective, and the Trait Perspective. Each of these perspectives defines, recognizes, and simplifies the ability to understand the human personality.
For instance, Sigmund Freud was considered an influential contributor based on his contribution and development of the Psychoanalytic Theory. “ Psychoanalysis is a theory that stresses the influence of unconscious mental processes, the importance of sexual and aggressive instincts, and the enduring effects of early childhood experience on personality”(Hockenbury, Chapter 10, 2014). Freud believed that much of development of the personality happens in a person’s unconscious mind. Sigmund Freud’s Psychoanalytic theory of personality breaks up personality in to three categories. These parts would include the id, the Ego, and the Superego. The id is considered the pleasure seeking side, which

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