Personality Theory and Why It Matters
Introduction

What shapes the human personality? What factors impact the development of the individual’s cognition, behaviors, and outlook? These questions have longed been considered by psychologists and researchers. Early on, some believed nature played a more dominant role; later, psychologists began to examine the role of a nurturing environment in the formation of the personality. Over the decades, it has become more and more evident that the human personality is complexly impacted both by nature and nurture. To assess personality, therefore, one needs a holistic understanding of the human subject. This paper will discuss major concepts in behavioral, interpersonal and self-psychology models of personality theory. It will describe the roles of hereditary and environmental factors in personality development. It will also describe the assessment method that is most useful in assessing personality, as well as provide personal and career applications.

Major Concepts

Behavioral

Behaviorism focuses on how people develop learned behaviors and responses to stimuli. Seligman added to the field of behaviorism by developing the concept of learned helplessness. He asked the question, “Why do people become hopeless, feeling that there is nothing they can do to make matters better for themselves or to change something in their lives?” He theorized that people develop a sense of “learned helplessness,” which is why they feel defeated no matter what the situation is (Lecci, 2015). This is an important concept because it explains why people enter into modes of acting that seem completely self-destructive: they have learned that this is the only way for them to act. What they need is an example of how to overcome their situations.

Interpersonal

Sullivan was responsible for developing the idea of self-esteem, which he saw as something that deeply impacted how one’s personality is formed. Self-esteem is what helped a person to reduce anxiety and feel more personally secure. The more self-esteem a person had the more self-actualizing he could become. It stemmed from Maslow’s (1943) theory of human motivation, in which it was posited that self-actualization was the final accomplishment of individuals after their esteem needs were met. What makes Sullivan’s concept so important is that he argued that individuals need to learn how to function in high-anxiety situations. The more successful they are in these types of situations, the better able they will be to handle anything that comes their way. They will be full of confidence and self-esteem. Self-esteem thus became known as an important quality of people who achieve success: they believe in themselves. It was an answer in some ways to Seligman’s problem of learned helplessness.

Self-Psychology Models

The important concept hat Kohut emphasized in his approach to self-psychology was that people need to empathize with others, and that parents who fail to empathize with their children is what most commonly leads to psychopathology. Empathy as a concept was not new, but in terms of application Kohult described how a therapist could use empathy as a form of vicarious introspection that would enable the therapist to develop more insight more quickly into the needs of the client (Lecci, 2015). This concept is the most important in this model because it is what facilitates the learning process and helps to lay the foundation for improvement in the human personality when psychopathology has developed.

The Roles of Heredity and Environment

Heredity and environment impact the development of the personality in big ways. Essentially, it is a combination of nature and nurture that determines the pathway of the personality. Nature is set up through biology, i.e., through hereditary transmission of DNA. But DNA itself is not necessarily going to be the last word on the development of the personality. Indeed, researchers have shown that DNA can be unlocked in a way by nurturing parents. Erikson’s concept of psychosocial development gives a view of the epigenetic principle and explains that it is essentially the notion that nature and nurture work together to develop the human personality (Lecci, 2015).

The epigenetic principle is important in understanding how nature and nurture work together to explain the development of the personality. Weaver et al. (2004) and Hurley (2013) both have researched this principle. The example that Weaver et al. (2004) give of how nature and nurture work together is the rat mother who licks her pups; the DNA of those pups is read differently by the body during its development because the licking has triggered a response in the body. Those pups go on to lick their own pups. Hurley (2013) built on those findings by looking at how rats born to attentive mothers have lower levels of glucocorticoid receptors in their hippocampus and rats born to inattentive mothers have high levels of glucocorticoid receptors. Both researchers essentially showed that neither nature nor nurture work in a vacuum but that both...…because it can help me to be more empathetic towards others, as Kohut says is need in the self-psychology model. It also helps to remind me that not everyone who presents for a disorder is going to be the same. Some are going to be impacted more by nature (by hereditary factors, fon example) and some are going to be more impacted by their environment (by the degree to which they were nurtured growing up). For everyone it will be a mix, and it must be determined what the individual is dealing with today in order for a proper approach to be developed.

It is also helpful because rather than expecting everyone to be homogenous and the same in every way, personality theory reminds me that everybody is different because of different innate characteristics and different experiences that have affected the person. The better one understands personality, the better able one will be to use social and emotional intelligence skills to foster communication and build relationships. All of this can be very helpful from a psychological point of view in a clinical setting because the better that one understands what is going on with the client the better situated the therapist will be to assist that client. Better relationships allow for trust to be established, and with trust as a foundation the ability to provide real help and support for a client is strengthened.

Conclusion

Personality theory contains a great many different views and models. The various behavioral, interpersonal and self-psychology models and concepts are all important in helping one to understand how people can develop. The concept of learned hopelessness is important, for instance, because it explains why people come to a kind of place of self-defeat. The concept of self-esteem is important because it explains how people come to a place of self-actualization. The concept of empathy is important because it is what helps therapists assist patients quickly in identifying their issues and addressing them in a positive manner. Various assessments are useful, depending on the situation—whether it is a clinical setting or a non-clinical setting. Overall, personality is informed both by nature and nurture and one should see how his own biology and environment have influenced him. For professionals in the field, it means using the tools of personality theory to help others understand themselves and address any issues that need to be addressed.

References

Hurley, D. (2013).…