Psychology

1. THEORIES OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

2. Objectives
By the end of the lesson the learner should be able to
• Define what is personality
• Discuss the factors that affect personality
• Describe the theories of personality
• Explain the relevance of personality in nursing

3. Personality
Definition
• Personality comes from the Greek word "persona", meaning "mask“
• It is the totality of qualities and traits that are associated to a specific person
• The totality of the distinctive and consistent characteristics and qualities of an
individual that makes a person unique, peculiar and different others
• It includes:
• Traits
• Patterns of thinking perceiving
• Feeling and behaving

4. Personality
• Definition
• In some ways we are all the same
• We all have the same human nature
• We share a common humanity
• We all have human bodies and human minds
• We all have human thoughts and human feelings

5. Personality
• Definition
• Yet in other ways we are all completely different and unique
• No two people are truly alike
• No two people can ever have the same experience of life, the same perspective or
the same mind
• NB: Even identical twins are unique in this respect.

6. Factors that contribute to personality differences
The physiological factors. These include:
• The physique of the individual (his size, strength, looks)
• Physical appearances and deficiencies
Example:
• Excess insulin secretion may make the individual fatigued or anxious
• Hypothyroidism may cause sluggishness, inertia or dullness, slowness or stupidity
• Hyperthyroidism may cause nervous tension, excitement and over activity

7. Factors that contribute to personality differences
The environmental or social factors
• Reactions of other people and reactions to other people
• Example: relationships in the home and the family
• An atmosphere of peace, love, mutual understanding
• Repressive home atmosphere will result in rebellious
• Personality of the teacher, richness of the curriculum

8. Factors that contribute to personality differences
Mental Or Psychological Factors
• Motives, interests, activities
• Will and character, intellectual capacities
• Reasoning, attention, perception and imagination
The reactions or behaviour;
• They are results from the interaction of the individual and the stimuli

9. Theories Of Personality

10. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
• He compared the human mind to an Iceberg
• Conscious: our current awareness
• Preconscious: all the information that is not currently “on our mind”
• But that we could bring into consciousness if called upon to do so
• For example, the name of a prominent person such as a president
• Unconscious: a storehouse of impulses, wishes, and, inaccessible memories
that affect our thoughts and behavior

12. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
• Freud believed in determinism of human behavior
• Psychological determinism is the doctrine that all thoughts, emotions and actions
have causes
• Freud maintained that most are caused by unsatisfied drives and unconscious
wishes
• He argued that dreams, humor, forgetting and slips of the tongue
• All serve to relieve psychological tension by gratifying forbidden impulses
or
• Unfulfilled wishes

13. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
• As we saw previously:
• Freud postulated psychosexual stages of human development
• He believed that special problems at any stage could arrest/fixate development
and have a lasting effect on personality
• For example:
• Early weaning denies a child sucking pleasure and as an adult, the
individual may become excessively dependent on others and overly fond
of oral pleasures such as eating and drinking
• Fixation at the anal stage may result to an individual abnormally
concerned with cleanliness, orderliness perfectionism

14. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
• Freud’s psychoanalytic theory holds that many behaviors are caused by
unconscious motivations
• Personality is determined primarily by biological drives of sex and aggression and
by experiences that occur during childhood

15. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
• Freud postulated a structural model of personality that comprised of three
structures namely:
• Id
• Ego
and
• Superego

16. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
Id:
• According to Freud, we are born with our Id
• Freud believed that the Id is based on our pleasure principle
• The Id wants whatever feels good at the time, with no consideration for the
reality of the situation
• When a child is hungry, the id wants food, and therefore the child cries
•
• When the child is uncomfortable, in pain, too hot, too cold, or just wants
attention, the id speaks up until his or her needs are met
• The id doesn't care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own
satisfaction.

17. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
Ego:
• The ego is based on the reality principle
• The ego understands that other people have needs and desires and that sometimes
being impulsive or selfish can hurt us in the long run
• It’s the ego's job to meet the needs of the Id, while taking into consideration the
reality of the situation.

18. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
Superego:
• By the age of five, or the end of the phallic stage of development, the Superego
develops
• The Superego is the moral part of us and develops due to the moral and ethical
restraints placed on us by our caregivers
• Many equate the superego with the conscience as it dictates our belief of right and
wrong

19. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
• Ego satisfies the needs of the id and tries not to upset the superego
• It takes into consideration the reality of every situation
• If the id gets too strong, impulses and self gratification take over the person's
life
• If the superego becomes to strong, the person would be driven by rigid morals,
would be judgmental and unbending in his or her interactions with the world.

20. Psychoanalytic theory: Sigmund Freud
• On the other hand:
• Freud postulated that personality was topographically comprised of the:
• Conscious
• subconscious (preconscious)
and
• the unconscious
• Freud believed that the majority of what we experience in our lives, the
underlying emotions, beliefs, feelings, and impulses are buried in our
unconscious.

21. Behaviorist Theories
• Emphasizes the importance of environmental /situational determinants of behavior
• Environmental conditions shape behaviour through learning; a person’s behaviour,
in turn, shapes the environment
• To predict behavior, know how the characteristics of the individual interact with
those of the situation.

22. Social learning theory
• According to social learning theorists, behavior is influenced by:
• Internal cognitive processes influence
• Observation of the behaviors of others
and
• The environment in which behavior occurs
• The relationship between the environment and behavior is reciprocal
• The environment influences our behavior and vice versa

23. Social learning theory
• The internal personal sources of control develop through:
• observation of the behavior of others
or
• by reading
or
• hearing about it
NB: We do not need to actually perform the behavior we observe, instead, we
can note whether those behavior were rewarded or punished and store that
information in the memory

24. Areas for further Reading
• Psychodynamics Theory
• Humanistic theory
• Other Contemporary theories of personality
• Personality Assessment (give specific examples)
• Personality and culture