Personality Theories Essay

Personality Theories

NAME

PSY210

DATE

INSTRUCTOR

Personality Theories

The three personality theories that I have chosen are the Psychodynamic Theory, the Humanistic Theory, and the Sociocultural Theory. The three theories all deal with a form of love as being a part of a healthy personality. The Humanistic Theory and Sociocultural Theory are comparable in that both deal with an understanding of the self, the concepts we have of self, and developing part of that concept from how we feel others view us. The Psychodynamic Theory limits the explanation of who we are as simply being driven by basic human driving forces, needs, and desires. The Humanistic Theory and Sociocultural Theory give importance to the needs of love and belonging through social groups, family, and friends, while the Psychodynamic Theory relates that love and belonging to be driven by sexuality, inferiority complexes, developed traits, or social functioning. The theories provide for the self-identification process as happening through environmental experiences; however, the extent of environment and the factors associated within it are drastically different.

Psychodynamic Theory gives no true individual power to personal choice. The theory limits people to functions. Some portions of the theory include unconscious programming, even a collective unconscious, as reasons for why people act in certain ways, rather than providing for learned actions, tradition, family, or a desire to be an individual with a purpose. The Psychodynamic Theory deals specifically with human function, natural drive, and relationships, portraying these as programmed within us through pre-existing conditions. Some of the theorists within this category extended the concept to include the development of humans to come from our interactions with others, but merely on a social level, rather than true identification of self or development of real belonging through others. The Psychodynamic Theory essentially presents every individual as programmed or learned characteristics.

Humanistic Theory, while giving much personal power to each individual, limits the effects of personal choices and environment to a very broad description of choices and environment. The Humanistic Theory deals with all aspects of choice as being completely dependent upon the self, accepting all responsibility for our actions, regardless of reasoning for actions. It does not consider the full extent of environmental causes that may develop a conflict within the self because of the view of others. The theory is broad in its definition of the view of others, in which