Question

Describe the four major theories of personality (psychodynamic, trait or five-factor model, humanistic, and social-cognitive) and identify advantages and disadvantages of each theory.

Answer with 150-1000 words

Answer 1

Stemming from the contributions of Freud, the psychodynamic approach asserts that an individual's unconscious and hidden feelings, thoughts, emotions as well as earlier childhood experiences are important elements that mold a person’s personality. The psychodynamic approach in psychology highlights the way in which the functioning of humans is based upon the relationship of forces and drives within an individual, essentially unconscious impulses. According to Freud, it is one’s hidden and unconscious feelings emotions and thoughts as well as distinct childhood experiences that shape an individual's behavior and personality.

Advantages:

• This perspective allows people to identify their unconscious content which can have an effect on their behavior.
• It makes people feel good and seek therapy again in the future.

Disadvantages:

• It completely overlooks the biological aspects which can be linked with the issue in hand.
• It is solely based on Freud’s workings with his clients. Thus, it is not scientifically tested.

The humanistic perspective says that all individuals are unique and have the free will to alter or modify their lives at any time. It highlights the positive aspects of being a human and emphasizes the wholeness of a person. People are believed to have an inborn capability for reaching their highest potential (self-actualization). Humanists believe that a person’s behavior is linked to his/her self-image and inner feelings.

Advantages:

• This view fulfills the idea of many individuals about the actual purpose of being a human.
• It focuses on more individualistic study methods in various professions like history and criminology.

Disadvantages:

• It may encourage frustration among some people as they may not get the causes of their concerns.
• This perspective may be biased as it is based on the western views of society and ignore the needs of conservative cultures.

The social cognitive theory claims that when individuals observe a model carrying out a specific behavior as well as the outcomes of that action, they remember the series of events and utilize this information to direct succeeding behaviors. Observing an individual can also encourage the viewer to engage in behaviors they already acquired. Depending on whether individuals are punished or rewarded for their actions and the results of that behavior, the person may opt to reproduce the modeled behavior.

Advantages:

• Observational learning has been found to foster artistic creativity in children.
• This kind of learning tends to elevate a person’s self-efficacy and encourages a sense of control in them.

Disadvantages:

• Poor and undesirable behavior demonstrated by the models can promote learning of negative behavior like violence and abuse.
• Learning to take place through observation requires the observer to be motivated to reproduce similar behavior again. Thus, without motivation, observational learning cannot occur.

Proposed by Robert McCrae, along with Paul Costa, the five-factor framework represents a classification of personality traits with respect to five comprehensive dimensions, namely, Openness to experience, neuroticism, agreeableness conscientiousness, and extraversion. This model was created to demonstrate the extent of variability in the personalities of people through a small number of dimensions of traits.

Advantages:

• This framework classifies and organizes the overt behaviors of humans.
• It uses objective standards for assessing as well as classifying behaviors.

Disadvantages:

• It fails to describe all the domains that a human personality is made of.
• It is not believed to be grounded in any scientific theory. Rather, it is just an empirical result that some researchers combined together through factor analysis.