SELF AND PERSONALITY
Self and personality refer to the characteristic ways in which we define our existence. They also refer to the ways in which our experiences are organised and show up in our behaviour. From common observation we know that different people hold different ideas about themselves.These ideas represent the self of a person. We also know that different people behave in different ways in a given situation, but the behaviour of a particular person from one situation to another generally remains fairly stable. Such a relatively stable pattern of behaviour represents the“personality” of that person.Thus,different persons seem to possess different personalities. These personalities are reflected in the diverse behaviour.
The attributes they have used for identification tell us about their personal as well as social or cultural identities. Personal identity refers to those attributes of a person that make her/him different from others. When a person describes herself/himself by telling her/his name (e.g., I am Sanjana or Karim), or her/his qualities or characteristics (e.g., I am honest or hardworking person), or her/his potentialities or capabilities (e.g., I am a singer or dancer), or her/his beliefs (e.g.,I am a believer in God or destiny. s/he is disclosing her/his personal identity. Social identity refers to those aspects of a personthat link her/him to a social or cultural group or are derived from it. When someone says that s/he is a Hindu or a Muslim, a Brahmin or an adivasi or a North Indian or a South Indian, or something like these, s/he is trying to indicate her/his social identity.
These Descriptions characterise the way people mentally represent themselves as a person. Thus, self refers to the totality of an individual's conscious experiences, ideas,thoughts and feelings with regard to herself or himself. These experiences and ideas define the existence of an individual both at the personal and at social levels.
Kinds of Self
There are several kinds of self. They get formed as a result of our interactions with our physical and socio-cultural environments. The first elements of self may be noticed when a newborn child cries for milk when it is hungry. Although this cry is based on reflex, this later on leads to development of awareness that ‘I am hungry’. This biological self in the context of socio-cultural environment modifies itself. While you may feel hungry for chocolate, an Eskimo may not. A distinction is made between ‘personal' and ‘social’ self. The personal self leads to an orientation in which one feels primarily concerned with oneself. We have talked about how our biological needs lead to the development of a ‘biological self’. But, soon a child’s psychological and social needs in the context of her/his environment lead other components of personal self to emerge. Emphasis comes to be laid on those aspects of life that relate only to the concerned person, such as personal freedom, personal responsibility, personal achievement, or personal comforts. The Social self emerges in relation with others and emphasises such aspects of life as cooperation, unity, affiliation, sacrifice,support or sharing. This self values family and social relationships. Hence, it is also referred to as familial or Relational self.
COGNITIVE AND BEHAVIOURAL ASPECTS OF SELF
Psychologists from all parts of the world have
shown interest in the study of self. These studies have brought out many aspects of our behaviour related to self. As Indicated earlier, all of us carry within us a sense of who we are and what makes us different from everyone else. We cling to our personal and social identities and feel safe in the knowledge that it remains stable in our lifetime.The way we perceive ourselves and the ideas we hold about our competencies and attributes is also called self-concept. At a very general level, this view of oneself is,overall, either positive or negative. At a more specific level, a person may have a very positive view of her/his athletic bravery, but a negative view of her/his academic talents. At an even more specific level, one may have a positive self-concept about one’s reading ability but a negative one about one’s mathematical skills. Finding an individual’s self-concept is not easy. The most frequently used method involves asking the person about herself/himself.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is an important aspect of yourself. As persons we always make some judgment about our own value or worth.This value judgment of a person about herself/himself is called self-esteem. Some People have high self-esteem, whereas others may have low self-esteem. In order to assess self-esteem we present a variety of statements to a person, and ask her/him to indicate the extent to which these statements are true for her or him.
Studies indicate that by the age of 6 to7 years, children seem to have formed self-esteem at least in four areas: academic competence, social competence, physical/athletic competence, and physical appearance, which become more refined with age. Our capacity to view ourselves in terms of stable dispositions permits us to combine separate self-evaluations into a general psychological image of ourselves.This is known as an overall sense of self-esteem.
Self-esteem shows a strong relationship with our everyday behaviour.
For example, children with high academic self-esteem perform better in schools than those with low academic self-esteem, and children with high social self-esteem are more liked by their peers than those with low social self-esteem.
On the other hand, children with low self-esteem in all areas are often found to display anxiety, depression, and increasing antisocial behaviour. Studies Have shown that warm and positive parenting helps in the development of high self-esteem among children as it allows them to know that they are accepted as competent and worthwhile. Children, whose parents help or make decisions for them even when they do not need assistance,often suffer from low self-esteem.
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy is another important aspect of ourselves. People differ in the extent to which they believe they themselves control their life outcomes or the outcomes are controlled by luck or fate or other situational factors, e.g. passing an examination. A person who believes that s/he has the ability or behaviours required by a particular situation demonstrates high self-efficacy. The notion of self-efficacy is based on Bandura’s social learning theory. Bandura’s initial studies showed that children and adults learned behaviour by observing and imitating others. People's Expectations of mastery or achievement and their convictions about their own effectiveness also determine the types of behaviour in which they would engage, as also the amount of risk they would undertake. A strong sense of self-efficacy allows people to select, influence, and even construct the circumstances of their own life. People with a strong sense of self-efficacy also feel less fearful. Self-efficacy can be developed. People With high self-efficacy have been found to stop smoking the moment they decide to do so. Our society, our parents and our own positive experiences can help in the development of a strong sense of self-efficacy by presenting positive models during the formative years of children.
Self-regulation
Self-regulation refers to our ability to organise and monitor our own behaviour. People, who are able to change their behaviour according to the demands of the external environment, are high on self-monitoring.Many situations of life require resistance to situational pressures and control over ourselves. This becomes possible through what is commonly known as ‘will power’. As human beings we can control our behaviour the way we want. We often decide to delay or defer the satisfaction of certain needs. Learning to delay or defer the gratification of needs is called self-control. Self-control plays a key role in the fulfilment of long-term goals. Indian cultural tradition provides us with certain effective mechanisms (e.g.,fasting in vrata or roza and non-attachment with worldly things) for developing self-control.A number of psychological techniques of self-control have also been suggested.Observation of own behaviour is one of them. This provides us with necessary information that may be used to change,modify, or strengthen certain aspects of self. Self-instruction is another important technique. We often instruct ourselves to do something and behave the way we want to. Such instructions are quite effective in self-regulation. Self-reinforcement is the third technique. This involves rewarding behaviours that have pleasant outcomes.For example, you may go to see a movie with friends, if you have done well in an examination. These techniques have been tried out and found quite effective with respect to self-regulation and self-control.
CULTURE AND SELF
Several aspects of self seem to be linked to the characteristic features of the culture in which an individual lives. Analysis of self carried out in the Indian cultural context reveals a number of important features that are distinct from those found in the Western cultural context.The most important distinction between the Indian and the Western views is the way the boundary is drawn between theself and the other. In the Western view, this boundary appears to be relatively fixed. The Indian view of self, on the other hand,is characterised by the shifting nature of this boundary. Thus, our self at one moment of time expands to fuse with the cosmos or include the others. But at the next moment, it seems to be completely withdrawn from it and focused fully on individual self (e.g., our personal needs or goals). The Western view seems to hold clear dichotomies between self and other,man and nature, subjective and objective.The Indian view does not make such clear dichotomies. In the Western culture, the self and the group exist as two different entities with clearly defined boundaries. Individual Members of the group maintain their individuality. In Indian culture, the self is generally not separated from one’s own group; rather both remain in a state of harmonious co-existence. In the Western Culture, on the other hand, they often remain at a distance. That is why manyWestern cultures are characterised as individualistic, whereas many Asiancultures are characterised as collectivistic.
CONCEPT OF PERSONALITY
The term ‘personality’ often appears in our day-to-day discussion. The literal meaning of personality is derived from the Latin Word persona, the mask used by actors in the Roman theatre for changing their facialmake-up. After putting on the mask,the audience expected the person to perform a role in a particular manner. It did not,however, mean that the person enacting the given role necessarily possessed those qualities. For a layperson, personality generally refers to the physical or external appearance of an individual. For example,when we find someone ‘good-looking’, we often assume that the person also has a charming personality. This notion of personality is based on superficial impressions, which may not be correct. In psychological terms, personality refers to our characteristic ways of responding to individual individuals and situations. People can easily describe the way in which they respond to various situations. Certain Catchwords (e.g., shy, sensitive, quiet,concerned, warm, etc.) are often used to describe personalities. These words refer to different components of personality. In this sense, personality refers to unique and relatively stable qualities that characterize an individual’s behaviour across different situations over a period of time.If you watch closely, you will find that people do show variations in their behaviour. One is not always cautious or impulsive, shy or friendly. Personalitycharacterises individuals as they appear in most circumstances. Consistency in behaviour, thought and emotion of an individual across situations and across time periods characterises her/his personality. For example, an honest person is more likely to remain honest irrespective of time or situation. However, situational variations in behaviour do occur as they help individuals in adapting to their environmental circumstances.In brief, personality is characterised by the following features:
1.It has both physical and psychological components.
2.Its expression in terms of behaviour is fairly unique in a given individual.
3.Its main features do not easily change with time.
4.It is dynamic in the sense that some of its features may change due to internal or external situational demands. Thus,personality is adaptive to situations.Once we are able to characterize someone's personality, we can predict how that person will probably behave in a variety of circumstances. An Understanding of personality allows us to deal with people in realistic and acceptable ways. For example, if you find a child who doesn't like orders, the most effective way to deal with that child will be not to give orders, but to present a set of acceptable alternatives from which the child may choose. Similarly, a child who has feelings of inferiority needs to be treated differently from a child who is self-confident.
MAJOR APPROACHES THE STUDY OF PERSONALITY
Psychologists interested in the study of personality, try to answer certain questions about the nature and origin of individual differences in personality. You may have observed that two children in the same family develop dramatically different personalities. Not only, they look physically different but they also behave differently in different situations. These observations often generate curiosity and force us to ask: “Why is it that some people react differently in a given situation than others do? Why is it that some people enjoy adventurous activities, while others like reading, watching television or playing cards? Are these differences stable all through one’s life, or are they just short-lived and situation-specific?”
A number of approaches and theories have been developed to understand and explain behavioural differences among individuals, and behavioural consistency within an individual.
These theories are based on different models of human behaviour. Each throws light on some, but not all, aspects of personality. Psychologists distinguish between type and trait approaches to personality.
The Type approach attempts to comprehend human personality by examining certain broad patterns in the observed behavioural characteristics of individuals. Each behavioural pattern refers to one type in which individuals are placed in terms of the similarity of their behavioural characteristics with that pattern.
In Contrast, the trait approach focuses on the specific psychological attributes along which individuals tend to differ in inconsistent and stable ways. For example,one person may be less shy, whereas another may be more; or one person may be less friendly, whereas another may bemore. Here “shyness” and “friendliness”represent traits along which individuals can be rated in terms of the degree of presence or absence of the concerned behavioural quality or a trait.
The interactional approach holds that situational characteristics play an important role in determining our behavior. People may behave as dependent or independent not because of their internal personality trait, but because of external rewards or threats available in a particular situation. The cross-situational consistency of traits is found to be quite low. The compelling influence of situations can be noted by observingpeople’s behaviour in places like a market,a courtroom, or a place of worship.
TYPES OF APPROACH
As we explained above, personality types are used to represent and communicate a set of expected behaviours based on similarities. Efforts to categorise people into personality types have been made since ancient times.
The Greek physician Hippocrates had proposed a typology of personality based on fluid or humour. He classified people into four types (i.e.,sanguine,phlegmatic,melancholic and choleric); each characterised by specific behavioural features.
Ayurvedic Approach
In India also, Charak Samhita, a famous treatise on Ayurveda, classifies people into the categories of vata, pitta and kapha on the basis of three humoural elements called tridosha. Each refers to a type of temperament, called prakriti (basic nature) of a person.
Apart from this, there is also a typology of personality based on the trigunas, i.e. sattva, rajas, and tamas. Sattva guna includes attributes like cleanliness, truthfulness, dutifulness,detachment, discipline, etc. Rajas guna includes intensive activity, desire for sense gratification, dissatisfaction, envy for others, and a materialistic mentality, etc.
Tamas guna characterises anger,arrogance, depression, laziness, feeling of helplessness, etc. All the three gunas are present in each and every person indifferent degrees. The dominance of one or the other guna may lead to a particular type of behaviour.
In recent years, Friedman and Rosenman have classified individuals into Type-A and Type-B personalities. The two researchers were trying to identify psychosocial risk factors when they discovered these types.
People Characterised by Type-Apersonality seem to possess high motivation, lack patience,feel short of time, be in a great hurry, and feel like they are always burdened with work.
Such people find it difficult to slow down and relax. People with Type-A personality are more susceptible to problems like hypertension and coronary heart disease(CHD). The risk of developing CHD withType-A personality is sometimes even greater than the risks caused by high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, or smoking.
Opposite to this is the typeB personality. We can be understood the absence of Type-A traits. This typology has been further extended.
Morris has suggested a Type-C personality, which is prone to cancer. Individuals characterized by this personality are cooperative,unassertive and patient. They suppress their negative emotions (e.g., anger), and show compliance to authority.
More Recently, a Type-D'Personality has been suggested, which is characterised by proneness to depression. Personality typologies are usually very appealing, but are too simplistic. Human behaviour is highly complex and variable.Assigning people to a particular personality type is difficult. People do not fit into such simple categorisation schemes so neatly.
Trait Approach
These theories are mainly concerned with the description or characterisation of basic components of personality. They try to discover the ‘building blocks’ of personality. Human beings display a wide range of variations in psychological attributes, yet it is possible to club them into smaller numbers of personality traits.
Trait approach is very similar to our common experience in everyday life. For Example, when we come to know that a person is sociable, we assume that s/he will not only be cooperative, friendly and helping, but also engage in behaviours that involve other social components.
Thus,trait approach attempts to identify primary characteristics of people. A trait is considered as a relatively enduring attribute or quality on which one individual differs from another.
They Include a range of possible behaviors that are activated according to the demands of the situation.To summarise,
(a) traits are relatively stable over time,
(b) they are generally consistent across situations, and
(c)Their strength and combination vary across individuals leading to individual differences in personality.
A number of psychologists have used traits to formulate their theories of personality. We will discuss some important theories.
Allport’s Trait TheoryGordon
Allport is considered the pioneer of the trait approach. He proposed that individuals possess a number of traits,which are dynamic in nature. They determine behaviour in such a manner that an individual approaches different situations with similar plans. The traits integrate stimuli and responses which otherwise look dissimilar.
Allport argued that the words people use to describe themselves and others provide a basis for understanding human personality. He analysed the words of the English language to look for traits which describe a person. Allport, based on this, categorised traits into cardinal, central, and secondary. Cardinal traits are highly generalized dispositions.
They indicate the goal around which a person’s entire life seems to revolve. Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violenceand Hitler’s Nazism are examples of cardinal traits. Such traits often get associated with the name of the person so strongly that they derive such identities as the ‘Gandhian’ or ‘Hitlerian’ trait.
Lesspervasive in effect, but still dispositions, are called central traits. These traits (e.g., warm, sincere,diligent, etc.) are often used in writing a testimonial for job recommendation for a person. The least generalized characteristics of a person are called secondary traits. Traits such as ‘like mangoes’ or ‘prefers ethnic clothes’ are examples of secondary traits. While Allport acknowledged the influence of situations on behaviour, he held that the way a person reacts.
Psychodynamic Approach
This is a highly popular approach to studying personality. This view owes largely to the contributions of SigmundFreud. He was a physician, and developed this theory in the course of his clinical practice. Early in his career he used hypnosis to treat people with physical and emotional problems. He noted that many of his patients needed to talk about their problems, and having talked about them,they often felt better. Freud used freeassociation (a method in which a person is asked to openly share all the thoughts,feelings and ideas that come to her/his mind), dream analysis, and analysis of errors to understand the internal functioning of the mind. Levels of Consciousness.
Freud’s theory considers the sources and consequences of emotional conflicts and the way people deal with these. In doing so, it visualises the human mind in terms of three levels of consciousness. The first level is conscious, which includes the thoughts, feelings and actions of which people are aware.
The second level is preconscious, which includes mental activity of which people may become aware only if they attend to it closely.
The third level is unconscious, which includes mental activity that people are unaware of.
According to Freud, the unconscious is a reservoir of instinctive or animal drives.It also stores all ideas and wishes that are concealed from conscious awareness,perhaps, because they lead to psychological conflicts. Most of these arisefrom sexual desires which cannot beexpressed openly and therefore arerepressed. People constantly struggle to find either some socially acceptable ways to express unconscious impulses, or to keep those impulses away from being expressed. Unsuccessful resolution of conflicts results in abnormal behaviour.Analysis of forgetting, mispronunciations,jokes and dreams provide us with a means to approach the unconscious. Freud Developed a therapeutic procedure, called psychoanalysis. The basic goal of psychoanalytic therapy is to bring the represented unconscious materials to consciousness, thereby helping people to live in a more self-aware and integrated manner.
Structure of Personality
According to Freud’s theory, the primary structural elements of personality are three, i.e. id, ego,and superego. Theyreside in the unconscious as forces, and they can be inferred from the ways people behave. Let us remember that Id, ego and superego are concepts, not real physical structures. We will discuss these terms in some detail.
Id: It is the source of a person's instinctual energy. It deals with immediate gratification of primitive needs, sexual desires and aggressive impulses. It works on the pleasure principle,which assumes that people seek pleasure and try to avoid pain. Freud considered much of a person’sinstinctual energy to be sexual, and therest as aggressive. Id does not care for moral values, society, or other individuals.
Ego : It grows out of id, and seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual needs in accordance with reality. It works by the reality principle, and often directs the id towards more appropriate ways of behaving. For example, the id of a boy, who wants an ice-cream cone, tells him to grab the cone and eat it. His ego tells him that if he grabs the cone without asking, he may be punished. Working on the reality principle, the boy knows that the best way to achieve gratification is to ask for permission to eat the cone. Thus, while the id is demanding, unrealistic and works according to pleasure principle, the ego is patient, reasonable, and works by the reality principle.
Superego : The best way to characterise the superego is to think of it as the moral branch of mental functioning. The superego tells the id and the ego whether gratification in a particular instance is ethical. It helps control the id by internalising the parental authority through the process of socialisation. For Example, if a boy sees and wants an ice-cream cone and asks his mother for it, his superego will indicate that his behaviour is morally correct.
Ego Defence Mechanisms
According to Freud, much of human behavior reflects an attempt to deal with or escape from anxiety. Thus, how the ego deals with anxiety largely determines how people behave.
Freud believed that people avoid anxiety mainly by developing defence mechanisms that try to defend the ego against the awareness of the instinctual needs.
Thus, a defence mechanism is a way of reducing anxiety by distorting reality. Although some defence against anxiety is normal and adaptive, people who use these mechanisms to such an extent that reality is truly distorted develop various forms of maladjustment.
Freud has described many different kinds of defence mechanisms. The most important is repression, in which anxiety-provoking behaviours or thoughts are totally dismissed by the unconscious.
When people repress a feeling or desire,they become totally unaware of that wish or desire. Thus, when a person says, “I don't know why I did that '', some repressed feeling or desire is expressing itself.
Other major defence mechanisms areprojection, denial, reaction formation and rationalisation. In projection,people attribute their own traits to others.
Thus,a person who has strong aggressive tendencies may see other people as acting in an excessively aggressive way towardsher/him. In denial, a person totally refuses to accept reality. Thus, someone suffering from HIV/AIDS may altogether deny her/his illness. In reaction formation, a person defends against anxiety by adopting behaviours opposite to her/his true feelings.
A person with strong sexual urges,who channels her/his energy into religiousfervour, presents a classical example ofreaction formation. In rationalisation, a person tries to make unreasonable feelings or behaviour seem reasonable and acceptable.
Behavioural Approach
This approach does not give importance to the internal dynamics of behaviour. The Behaviourists believe in data, which they feel are definable, observable, and measurable. Thus, they focus on learning of stimulus-response connections and their reinforcement. According to them, personality can be best understood as the response of an individual to the environment. They see the development simply as a change in response characteristics, i.e. a person learns new behaviours in response to new environments and stimul.
Cultural Approach
This approach attempts to understand personality in relation to the features of the ecological and cultural environment. It Proposes that a group’s ‘economic maintenance system’ plays a vital role in the origin of cultural and behavioural variations. The climatic conditions, the nature of terrain of the habitat and the availability of food (flora and fauna) in it determine not only people’s economic activities, but also their settlement patterns, social structures, division of labour, and other features such as child-rearing practices. Taken together these elements constitute a child’s overall learning environment. People’s skills,abilities, behavioural styles, and value priorities are viewed as strongly linked to These features. Rituals, ceremonies,religious practices, arts, recreational activities, games and play are the means through which people’s personality gets projected in a culture. People develop various personality (behavioural) qualities in an attempt to adapt to the ecological and cultural features of a group’s life. Thus, the cultural approach considers personality as an adaptation of individuals or groups to the demands of their ecology and culture.
Humanistic Approach
The humanistic theories are mainly developed in response to Freud’s theory. Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow have particularly contributed to the development of a humanistic perspective on personality. We will briefly examine their theories.
The most important idea proposed by Rogers is that of a fully functioning person.
He believes that fulfilment is the motivating force for personality development.
People try to express their capabilities, potentials and talents to the fullest extent possible. There is an inborn tendency among persons that directs them to actualise their inherited nature.
Rogers makes two basic assumptions about human behaviour.
One is that behaviour is goal-directed and worth while.The second is that people (who are innately good) will almost always choose adaptive, self-actualising behaviour.
Rogers’ theory grew out of his experiences of listening to patients in his clinic. He noted that self was an important element in the experience of his clients.
Thus, his theory is structured around the concept of self. The theory assumes that people are constantly engaged in the process of actualising their true self.
Rogers suggests that each person also has a concept of an ideal self. An ideal self is the self that a person would like to be. When there is a correspondence between the real self and ideal self, a person is generally happy.
Discrepancy between the real self and ideal self often results in unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Rogers Basic principle is that people have a tendency to maximise self-concept through self-actualisation. In this process, the self grows, expands and becomes more social.
Rogers views personality development as a continuous process. It involves learning to evaluate oneself and mastering the process of self-actualisation.
He recognises the role of social influences in the development of self-concept. When social conditions are positive, the self-concept and self-esteem are high.
In contrast, when the conditions are negative, the self-concept and self-esteem are low. People with high self-concept and self-esteem are generally flexible and open to new experiences, so that they can continue to grow and self-actualise.
This situation warrants that an atmosphere of unconditional positive regard must be created in order to ensure enhancement of people’s self-concept. The Client-centred therapy that Rogers developed basically attempts to create this condition.
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