CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY

1. MEANING OF PERSONALITY

The word personality comes from the Latin word persona. In the ancient world, a persona was a mask worn by an actor. While we tend to think of a mask as being worn to conceal one’s identity, the theatrical mask was originally used to either represent or project a specific personality trait of a character

Personality refers to pattern of thought, feelings, social adjustment and behavior consistently exhibited over time by an individual that strongly influences ones expectations, self perception, values and attitude. It can also be defined or seen as the characteristics pattern of thought, feeling and behavior that make a person unique.The study of personality can be said to have its origins in the fundamental idea that people are distinguished by their characteristic individual patterns of behaviour, the distinctive ways in which they walk, talk, or express their urges.

Understanding personality allows psychologist to predict how people will respond in certain situation and the kind of things they will prefer and value. The study of personality is based on the essential insight that all persons are similar in some ways yet different in other ways. Contemporary psychologists agree that personality is that pattern of characteristics thoughts feelings and behavior that distinguishes one person from another and that persist over time.

2. PERSONALITY TYPES

1. Sanguine personality: It is affected by a chemical called dopamine which makes these people curious and creative. Their curiosity can be expressed on their love for reading and usually, they posses high amount of energy so they seen to be restless and spontaneous. This type of personality love the life of luxury, they like to impress others with expensive cloths, designers’ accessories, they are risk takers, they are willing to take risk for the sake of pursuit of their numerous interest. They are also boredom busters. They are very poor at tolerating boredom, routine jobs, repetitive experiences and boring companies annoy and irritate them. Dopamine activity promote motivation and goals oriented behavior as well as enthusiasm, focus assertiveness, incentive and drive to achieve.

2. Phlegmatic Personality: People with phlegmatic personality are unassuming, agreeable, intuitive and they posses the ability of “web thinking”, they have a wonderful skills to gather fact, classify them into categories and then see the relationship between seemingly contradicting element. They are good at memorizing separate unrelated fact. Phlegmatic personality traits are linked to estrogen which is present in both men and women; however, phlegmatic people are predominantly female. These people are imaginative; they like to think abstractly about the things that can only be imagined. Phlegmative personalities are empathetic and compassionate. They are considerate, charitable, sympathetic, trusting and warm. On the negative side, people with phlegmative personality are indecisive, unable to focus on important details, they take criticism as insult and they are prone to depression.

3. Choleric personality: it is associated with testosterone. Although every temperamental make up is represented by members of both sexes, most choleric personality are men.

Generally, choleric are money- oriented people, they are fascinated by stocks, investment, money market and all kind of revenue generation method. They have the ability to systematize everything; this is the reason why they usually enjoy mathematics and other exact sciences like physics, chemistry, geometric, engineering e.t.c which often affect their professional choices. They are goal oriented and have a wonderful focus as they work. E.g if a choleric man is absorbed by anything do not even bother to get his attention because all you are likely to get is disappointment. They are extremely serious minded people. They act in accordance with their motto “Talk is cheap”. They are action people.

4. Melancholic personality: This is associated with serotonin. Men and women with melancholic personality share many traits. They tend to be loyal to their family and friends and extremely careful, respectability and moral issues are particularly important to them and they often love to follow typical norms of the society. They respect authority, follow rules and feel comfortable in hierarchy. The serotonin in them suppresses aggressive tendency. They are calm and self confident. They pay attention to details; they remember details about them, neighbours and colleagues. They are orderly even in  their speech, they express themselves precisely, accurately providing all the relevant information.

3. LEVELS /STRUCTURES OF THE HUMAN MIND

As analysis by Sigmund Freud in 1949, the mind of the man has three basic levels. Freud delineated the mind in distinct levels, each with their own roles and functions.The three levels of the mind are:

1.  Conscious mind contains all of the thoughts, memories, feelings, and wishes of which we are aware at any given moment. This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally. This also includes our memory, which is not always part of consciousness but can be retrieved easily and brought into awareness.

2. The preconscious consists of anything that could potentially be brought into the conscious mind.

3. The unconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories that are outside of our conscious awareness. The unconscious contains contents that are unacceptable or unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety, or conflict.

It consists of information about painful memories and feelings which are very hard and always impossible to bring back into the conscious awareness.

Sigmund Freud belief that behavior is primarily motivated by the unconscious and it is affected by emotion.  The repressed desires, thought and feelings that are in unconscious part of the mind influence behavior, the existence of the unconscious  is revealed through dream and slip of tongue/pen.

STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY

According to Sigmund Freud psychoanalytic theory of personality, personality is composed of three element or structures. They are:

1.The id: it’s the only structure of personality that is present from birth. It is entirely unconscious and include the instinctive and primitive behavior. The id is driven by the pleasure principle, which strive for immediate gratification of all desires, want and need. It does not have direct contact with reality.

2. Ego: It operates base on the reality principle, which strive to satisfy the id’s desire in realistic and social appropriate ways. It weighs cost and benefit of an action before deciding to act or abandon impulses. It has direct contact with reality or real situation of life. It act as a mediator, negotiating a compromise among the pleasures of id, the counter-pleasure of superego and the demand of the reality.

3. Super-ego: It holds all our internalized moral standard and ideals that are acquired from both parents and society. Its our sense of right and wrong.

4. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

It simply means the formation of an individual personality. The principle of personality development includes the following. 

Moral development 

Growth of conscious

Development of ethical values

The principles of personality development are depended on two factors. They are:

1. Heredity/Genetic Factors: It is the process of transmitting biological traits from parents to off springs through genes. It refers to inherited characters of an individual. The major characters that can be inherited which contribute immensely to personality development are intelligent and temperament. 

2. Environment: It has to do with all the external factors affecting an individual. The environment mainly refers to in this context is the society. Factors in the environment which contribute to personality development of an individual include;

1. Pattern of rearing of an individual

2. The influence of religion

3. The influence of school

4. The influence of peers

5. The influence of culture and tradition 

6. The influence of media etc

5. PERSONALITY DISORDERS

These are behavior that deviant from norms or expectations of one’s culture. They are;

1. Anti- social personality- Behavior that disregard the feelings and rights of other people. Such people are law breakers, liars, they also have impaired ability to feel guilty, remorseful and shame. The consequences of this personality disorder are that there is a fade relationship, loss of employment, alcoholism etc.

2. Borderline personality disorder- It is characterized by intense emotional instability in relating with others, they take minor suicidal gesture and self destructive act, they are always bitter and angry. The consequences are depression, alcoholism, drug dependency etc. 

3. Avoidant personality disorder- These are social withdrawers due to intense shyness, fear of rejection etc. consequences are depression, loss of friendship etc.

4. Dependent personality- people that depend on others, they have a severe and disenabling emotional dependent on others.

5. Histrionic personality disorder- They want attention, seek for admiration and feeling of self important.

6. Narcissistic personality disorder- They are pre occupied with details

7. Paranoid personality disorder- They belief that other people are against them, they can easily get annoyed and they are very hostile

8. Schizotypal personality disorder- They engage in odd thinking, speech and behavior

9. Schizoid personality disorder- They are people who isolate themselves from others, they are very secretive.

6. FREUD'S THEORY OF PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT

Sigmund Freud's theory of psychosexual development proposes that human beings progress through a series of developmental stages, each characterized by a primary source of pleasure and conflict. 

Here is an overview of the five stages:

1. Oral stage (Birth- 18 months) It occurs during infancy. Infants gain primary satisfaction from taking in food and sucking on breast, a thumb or some other objects. The month is therefore the sensitive part which sexual energy is been released.

2. Anal stage (from 18 months -3 years) The main source of releasing sexual energy to bring satisfaction is the anal area. The child enjoys sitting down on potty for a very long time. During toilet training, the child is faced with society first attempt to control biological urge.

3. Phallic stage (from 3 years- 6 years) At this stage, the child releases libido (sexual desires) and derive pleasure from fondling and playing with sexual organs, he also becomes sensitive to the physical gender features between male and female. Freud believe that during this stage, the boy acquire Oedipus complex in which he develops unconscious sexual desires for his mother. Because of this, he become a rival with his father and sees him as a competitor. During this time, the boy also develops a fear that his father will punish him for his feelings of love for his mother by castration. Male children are able to resolve the complex through identification with father.

Girls are also belief to go through a similar situation in developing unconscious sexual attraction with their father. (Electra complex) 

4. Latency stage (6 years- puberty) Its during this stage that sexual urges remain dormant or repressed and children interact and play mostly with same sex peers.

5. Genital stage (puberty onward) the main source of energy release and sexual pleasure is the genital. The focus of the adolescent child is on sexual pleasure with his or her peers of the opposite sex unlike the phallic stage when it was the opposite sex parents. Children who escaped been fixated at any of the early stages develop acceptable character at adulthood. They are well-adjusted, matured and able to love and beloved.

Freud believed that successful navigation of each stage is crucial for healthy personality development. Fixation or regression to an earlier stage can lead to various psychological issues and conflicts.

7. PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

It simply means the formation of an individual's personality. The principle of personality development includes the following. 

Moral development 

Growth of conscious

Development of ethical values

The principles of personality development are depended on two factors. They are:

1. Heredity/Genetic Factors: It is the process of transmitting biological traits from parents to off springs through genes. It refers to inherited characters of an individual. The major characters that can be inherited which contribute immensely to personality development are intelligent and temperament. 

2. Environment: It has to do with all the external factors affecting an individual. The environment mainly refers to in this context is the society. Factors in the environment which contribute to personality development of an individual include;

1. Pattern of rearing of an individual

2. The influence of religion

3. The influence of school

4. The influence of peers

5. The influence of culture and tradition 

6. The influence of media etc