Self and Personality

Key Pointers

● The study of self and personality help us to understand ourselves as well as others.
● Self refers to the totality of an individual’s conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts and feelings with regard
to herself or himself.
● The structure of self can be understood in terms of identity of the intended and the development of personal
and social self.
● Identity can be of two types- Personal Identity and Social Identity.
● Personal Identity refers to those attributes of a person that make him/her different from others.
● Social Identity refers to those aspects of a person that link him/her to a social or cultural group or are
derived from it.
● Self as a Subject: Who does something (actor). Self actively engages in the process of knowing itself.
● Self as an Object: Which gets affected (consequence). Self gets observed and comes to be known.
● Kinds of Self: Personal Self and Social Self
● Both of them are formed as a result of the interaction of the biological self with the physical and socio
cultural environment. Biological self is developed as a result of our biological needs.
● Personal Self: Primarily concerned with oneself. Emphasis comes to be laid on those aspects of life that
relate only to the concern of the person, such as personal freedom, personal responsibility, personal
achievement, or personal comforts.
● Social/Familial/Relational Self: Emerges in relation with others. Emphasises such aspects of life as
co-operation, unity, affiliation, sacrifice, support or sharing. This self values family and social
relationships.
● Cognitive & Behavioural Aspects of Self: Self Concept, Self Esteem, Self Efficacy and Self Regulation.

● Self-Concept is the way we perceive ourselves and the ideas we hold about our competencies and
attributes. A person’s self-concept can be found out by asking the person about himself herself.
● Self-Esteem is the value judgement of a person about himself/herself. Assessment presents a variety of
statements to a person and asks him/her to indicate the extent to which those statements are true for him or
her. By 6 to 7 years, children have formed self-esteem in four areas—academic, social and physical/athletic
competence, and physical appearance becomes more refined with age. Overall self-esteem: It is the
capacity to view oneself in terms of stable disposition and combine separate self-evaluations into a general
psychological image of oneself. Self-esteem has a strong relationship with our everyday behaviour.
Children with low self-esteem in all areas often display anxiety, depression, and increasing anti-social
behaviour. Warm and positive parenting helps in development of high self-esteem among children- allows
them to know they are accepted as competent and worthwhile.
● Self-Efficacy is the extent to which a person believes they themselves control their life outcomes or the
outcomes are controlled by luck or fate or other situational factors. A person who believes that he/she has
the ability or behaviour required by a particular situation demonstrates high self-efficacy. The notion of
self-efficacy is based on Bandura’s social learning theory. He showed that children and adults learned
behaviour by observing and imitating others. People’s expectations of achievement also determine the type
of behaviour in which they would engage, as also the amount of risk they would undertake. Strong sense of
self-efficacy allows people to select, influence, and even construct the circumstances of their own life; also
feel less fearful.Society, parents and their 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 refers to the ability to organize and monitor one’s own behaviour. People who are able to
change their behaviour according to the demands of the environment are highly self-monitoring.
Self-control is learning to delay or refer to the gratification of needs. Will-power is the ability to respond to
situational pressure with resistance and control over ourselves. Self-control plays a key role in the
fulfilment of a long-term goal. Indian culture tradition provides certain effective mechanisms (fasting in
vrata or roza and non-attachment with worldly things) for developing self-control.
 Techniques of self-control: 1. Observation of own behaviour: provides necessary information that may be
used to change, modify or strengthen certain aspects of self. 2. Self-instruction: instructs ourselves to do
something and behave the way we want to. 3. Self-reinforcement: rewards behaviours that have pleasant
outcomes.
● Culture and Self:

Indian View Western View

Collectivistic culture Individualistic Culture

Shifting nature of boundary between self and other Boundary is relatively fixed.
(individual self and social self).

Does not clear dichotomies. Holds clear dichotomies between self and other, man
and nature, subjective and objective.

Self is generally not separated from one’s own group; Self and the group exist as two different entities with
rather both remain in a state of harmonious clearly defined boundaries; individual members of the
co-existence. group maintain their individuality.

● Personality- Personality refers to unique and relatively stable qualities that characterize an individual’s
behaviour across different situations over a period of time. Personality is derived from persona (latin word),
referred to as a mask used by actors in Roman theatre for changing their facial make-up. 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.
● Features of Personality- 1. Personality 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; adaptive to situations.
● Approaches to Personality: 1. Interactional Approach. 2. Type Approach. 3. Trait Approach. 4.
Psychodynamic Approach. 5. Behavioural Approach. 6. Cultural Approach. 7. Humanistic Approach.

● INTERACTIONAL APPROACH-
The situational characteristics play an important role in determining our behaviour. People may behave
dependently or independently because of external rewards or threats available in a particular situation. The
behaviour of the individual changes according to their situations.
● TYPE APPROACH-

I. Hippocrates (Greek Physician)

(i) Proposed a typology of personality based on fluid or humour.
(ii) Classified people into four types (i.e., sanguine, phlegmatic, melancholic and choleric); characterised by
specific behavioural features.

II. Charak Samhita (Treatise on Ayurveda)

(i) Classifies people into the categories of vata, pitta and kapha on the basis of three humoural elements called
tridosha.
(ii) Each refers to a type of temperament, called prakriti (basic nature) of a person.

III. Typology of personality based on the trigunas, i.e. , sattva, rajas, and tamas.
(i) Sattva guna- cleanliness, truthfulness, dutifulness, detachment, discipline.
(ii) Rajas guna- intensive activity, desire for sense gratification, dissatisfaction,envy, materialism.
(iii) Tamas guna- anger, arrogance, depression, laziness, helplessness
All the three gunas are present in every person in different degrees. The dominance of any guna leads to a
particular type of behaviour.

IV. Sheldon
Using body built and temperament as the main basis for classification:
(i) Endomorph (fat, soft and round) relaxed and sociable.
(ii) Mesomorph (strong musculature, rectangular, strong body build) energetic and courageous.
(iii) Ectomorph (thin, long, fragile) brainy, artistic and introverted.
This theory has a limited use in predicting behaviour. It’s quite simple and similar to stereotypes.

V. Jung
Grouped people into two types, widely recognized.
(i) Introverts: People who prefer to be alone, tend to avoid others, withdraw themselves in the face of emotional
conflicts, and are shy.
(ii) Extraverts: Sociable, outgoing, drawn to occupations that allow dealing directly with people, and react to stress
by trying to lose themselves among people and social activity.

VI. Friedman and Roesenman

Tried to identify psycho-social risk factors and discovered types.
(i) Type-A (susceptible to hypertension and coronary heart disease): Highly motivated, impatience, feel short of
time, be in a great hurry, and feel like being always burdened with work. Such people find it difficult to slow down
and relax,
(ii) Type-B The absence of Type-A traits.
Moris continued this research and identified:
(iii) Type-C (prone to cancer): Co-operative, unassertive patient, suppress negative emotion, show compliance to
authority.
(iv) Type-D (prone to depression).

*Limitations of Type Approaches- Personality typologies are usually too simplistic as human behaviour is highly
complex and variable. Assigning people to a particular personality type is difficult. People do not fit into such
simple categorization schemes so neatly.

● TRAIT APPROACHES-
What is a Trait? A trait is considered as a relatively enduring attribute or quality on which one individual differs
from another. They are relatively stable over time and generally consistent across situations. Their strengths and
combination vary across individuals leading to individual differences in personality.
I. Allport’s Trait Theory (Gordon Allport)
(i) Individuals possess a number of traits that are dynamic in nature and determine behaviour.
(ii) People use analysed words to describe themselves which provides them a basic understanding for human
personality.
(iii) He categorized these analysed words into 3 sub-categories-
- Cardinal Traits: highly generalized disposition, indicates the goal around . which a person’s entire life
revolves, e.g., Hitler’s Nazism.
- Central Traits: less pervasive in effect, but still quite generalized disposition. e.g., sincere.
- Secondary trai least generalized characteristics of a person, e.g., likes mangoes.
(iii) The way an individual reacts to a situation depends on his/her traits.
(iv) People sharing the same traits might express them in different ways.

II. Personality Factors (Raymond Cattell)

(i) Identified primary traits from descriptive adjectives found in language.
(ii) Applied factor analysis, a statistical technique to discover the common structure on which people differ from
each other.
(iii) Categorized into 2 types of traits-
- Source or Primary Traits (16): stable, building blocks of personality that are described in terms of opposing
tendencies.
- Surface Traits: result out of the interaction of source traits.
(iii) Developed Sixteen Personality Factor (16PF) Questionnaire for the assessment of personality.

III. Eysenck’s Theory (H.J. Eysenck)

(i) Reduced personality into two broad dimensions which are biologically and genetically based and subsume a
number of specific traits.
- Neuroticism (anxious, moody, touchy, restless) VS Emotional stability (calm, even tempered, reliable) the
degree to which people have control over their feelings.
- Extraversion (active, gregarious, impulsive, thrill seeking) vs. Introversion (passive, quiet, caution,
reserved)—the degree to which people are socially outgoing or socially withdrawn.
(ii) Later proposed a third dimension, Psychoticism (hostile, electric, and antisocial) vs. Sociability, considered to
interact with the other two dimensions.
(iii) Developed Eysenck Personality Questionnaires to study dimensions of personality.
(iv) Useful in understanding the personality profile of people across cultures
(v) Consistent with the analysis of personality traits found in different languages and methods

IV. Five Factor Model of Personality (Paul Costa and Robert McCrae)
(i) Openness to Experience- High scorers are Imaginative, curious, open to new ideas, interested in cultural
pursuits whereas Low Scorers are Rigid.
(ii) Conscientiousness- High scorers are achievement-oriented, dependable, responsible, hardworking, prudent
whereas Low Scorers are Impulsive.
(iii) Extraversion- High Scorers are socially active, assertive, outgoing, talkative, fun-loving whereas Low Scorers
are Shy.
(iv) Agreeableness- High Scorers are helpful, co-operative, friendly, caring, nurturing whereas Low Scorers are
hostile, Self-Centered.
(v) Neuroticism- High Scorers are emotionally unstable, anxious, worried, fearful, distressed, irritable whereas
Low Scores are Well-Adjusted.
IV. PSYCHO-DYNAMIC APPROACH

*This approach includes views given by Sigmund Freud and Post Freudians.

Sigmund Freud

- Sigmund Freud was a physician.

- During the course of his clinical practice, he developed his theory to personality.
- Earlier during his career, he treated people with physical and emotional problems using hypnosis.
- He used three techniques- Free Association, Dream Analysis and Analysis of Errors to understand the
internal functioning of mind.
- His theory was divided into four sub-aspects-

A. Level of Consciousness
B. Structure of Personality
C. Ego Defense Mechanisms
D. Stages of Personality Development

A 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 visualizes the human mind at three levels of consciousness.

1. Conscious Level- Thoughts, feelings and action of which people are aware.

2. Preconscious Level- Mental activity which people may become aware only if they attend to it closely.

3. Unconscious Level- Mental activity that people are aware of.

Unconscious Level is a -
- A reservoir of instinctive or animal drives that stores all ideas and wishes that arise from sexual desires.
- Cannot be expressed openly and therefore are repressed or concealed from conscious awareness.
- Constant struggle to find a socially acceptable way to express unconscious awareness.
 - Unsuccessful resolution of conflicts results in abnormal behaviour

Approach Unconscious Level through -

- Free Association - A method in which a person is asked to openly share all the thoughts, feelings and ideas
that come to his/her mind.
- Dream Analysis.
- Analysis of Errors - Mispronunciations, forgetting.

Freud developed a therapeutic procedure i.e. Psycho-Analysis. The basic goal of psychoanalysis is to bring
repressed unconscious material to consciousness, thereby helping people to live in a more self-aware and
integrated manner.

B Structure of Personality

(i) Freud gave an imaginary division of mind that believed in internal dynamics which can be inferred from the
ways people behave.
(iii) Three competing forces i.e. Id, Ego and Superego influence behaviour relative strength of each structure
determines a person’s stability.

Id: Source of a person’s instinctual energy that deals with immediate gratification of primitive needs, sexual
desires and aggressive impulses. Works on the pleasure principle, which assumes that people seek pleasure and try
to avoid pain. Demanding, unrealistic and does not care for moral values, society, or other individuals. Energised
by instinctual forces, life (sexual) instinct (libido) and death instinct.

Ego: Seeks to satisfy an individual’s instinctual needs in accordance with reality. Works on the reality principle,
and directs the id towards more appropriate ways of behaving. Patient and reasonable.

Superego: Moral branch of mental functioning. Tells the id and ego whether gratification in a particular instance is
ethical. Controls the id by internalising the parental authority the process of socialisation. According to Freud,
personality is biologically determined. It is instinctive. Life instinct and death instinct determine behaviour. Life
instinct is dominant in human behaviour.

C Ego Defence Mechanisms

(i) A Defence Mechanism is a way of reducing anxiety by distorting reality unconsciously.

(ii) It defends the ego against the awareness of the instinctual reality.
(iii) It is normal and adaptive; people who use mechanisms are often unaware of doing so.
(iv) Some of the Defence Mechanism are as follows-
- Repression: Anxiety provoking behaviours or thoughts are totally dismissed by the unconscious.
- Projection: People attribute their own traits to others.
- Denial: A person totally refuses to accept reality.
- Reaction Formation: A person defends against anxiety by adopting behaviours opposite to his/her true
feelings.
- Rationalisation: A person tries to make unreasonable feelings or behaviour seem reasonable and
acceptable.

D Stages of Personality/Psychosexual Development (Five Stage Theory of Personality)

(i) The core aspects of personality are established early, remain stable throughout life, and can be changed only
with great difficulty.
(iii) 5 Stages of personality are-
 - Oral Stage (Infancy)
- Anal Stage (2-3 years)
- Phallic (4-5 years)
- Latency (7-Puberty)
- Genital (Puberty)

(iii) Problems encountered at any stage may arrest the development, and have long-term effects on a person’s life.
(iv) At Phallic Stage, a boy child can experience Oedipus Complex and a girl child can experience Electra
Complex.
Oedipus Complex (Male)
Love for mother, hostility towards the father, and fear of punishment or castration by the father.
Accepts his father’s relationship with his mother and models his own behaviour after his father.
Electra Complex (Female)
Attaches her love to the father and tries to symbolically marry him and raise a family.
Identifies with her mother and copies her behaviour as a means of getting (or sharing in) her father’s affection.

Resolution of Complex
1. Identification with same sex parent.
2. Giving up sexual feeling for sex parent.

(v) Failure of a child to pass successfully through a stage leads to fixation to that stage. The child’s development
gets arrested at an earlier stage.
(vi) Regression occurs when a person’s resolution of problems at any stage of development is less than adequate.
People display behaviours typing of a less mature stage of development.

Post-Freudian Approach/ Neo-analytic/ Post-Freudian View (Carl Jung, Karen Horney, Alfred Adler,
Erich Fromm, Erik Erikson).

- Less prominent role to sexual and aggressive tendencies of the Id.

- Expansion of the concept ego.
- Emphasis on human qualities of creativity, competence, and problem-solving.
 - 5 theories under post-freudian view which are as follows:

1. Carl Jung: Aims and Aspirations are the source of energy

(i) Saw human beings as guided by aims and aspirations.
(ii) Pioneered Analytical Psychology
(iii) Personality consists of competing forces and structures within the individual (that must be balanced) rather
than between the individual and the demand of society, or between the individual and reality.
(iii) Collective unconscious consisting of archetypes or primordial images; not individually acquired, but are
inherited which are found in myths, dreams and arts of all mankind.
(iv) The self strives for unity and oneness; for achieving which, a person must become increasingly aware of the
wisdom available in one’s personal and collective unconscious, and must learn to live in harmony with it.

2. Karen Horney: Optimism

(i) Optimistic view of human life with emphasis on human growth and self actualisation
(ii) Challenge to Freud’s treatment of women as inferior. Each sex has attributes to be admire by the other, and
neither sex can be viewed as superior or inferior; countered that women were more likely to be affected by social
and cultural factors than by biological factors.
(iii) Psychological disorders were caused by disturbed interpersonal relationships during childhood.
(iv) When a parent’s behaviour toward a child is indifferent, discouraging and erratic, the child feels insecure and a
feeling called basic anxiety that results in deep resentment toward parents or basic hostility occurs due to this
anxiety.

3. Alfred Adler: Lifestyle and Social Interest source of energy-attainment of personal goals.
(i) Pioneered Individual Psychology
(ii) Human behaviour is purposeful and goal directed.
(iii) Each one of us has the capacity to choose and create.
(iv) Personal goals, goals that provide us with security and help us in overcoming the feelings of inadequacy, are
the sources of our motivation.
(v) Every individual suffers from the feeling of inadequacy and guilt, i.e., inferiority complex, which arise from
childhood.

4. Erich Fromm: The Human Concerns

(i) Social orientation viewed human beings as social beings who could be understood in terms of their relationship
with others.
(ii) Character traits (personality) develop from our experiences with their individuals.
(iii) Psychological qualities such as growth from our experiences of potentials resulted from A desire for freedom.
And striving for justice and truth.
(iv) People’s dominant character traits in a given work as forces in shaping the social processes and the culture
itself.

5. Erik Erikson: Search for Identity

(i) Rational, conscious ego processes in personality development.
(ii) Development is viewed as a lifelong process, and ego identity is granted a central place in this process.
(iii) Identity crisis at the adolescent age. Young people must generate for themselves a central perspective and a
direction that can give them a meaningful sense of unity and purpose.

*Criticism to Psychodynamic Approach to Personality-

1. The theories are largely based on case studies; they lack a rigorous scientific basis.
2. They use small and a typical individual as samples for advancing generalisations.
3. The concepts are not properly defined, and it is difficult to submit them to scientific testing.
4. Freud has used males as the prototype of all human personality development and overlooked female experiences
and perspectives.

V. BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH

(i) According to Behavioural Approach, personality can be best understood as the response of an individual to the
environment.
(ii) Hence, the focus is on learning of stimulus-response (S-R) connection and their reinforcement.
(iii) An individual learns new behaviours in response to new environments and stimuli.
(iv) For behaviourists, the structural unit of personality is the response.
(v) In short, this approach gives importance to outer dynamics of behaviour which is more definable, observable
and measurable.

VI. CULTURAL APPROACH

(i) Considers personality as an adaptation of individuals or groups to the demand of their ecology and culture.
(ii) A group’s economic maintenance system plays a vital role in the origin of cultural and behavioural variations.
(iii) The climatic conditions, the nature of terrain of the habitat and the availability of food determine people’s
settlement patterns, social structures, division of labour, and other features such as child-rearing practices.
(iv) These elements constitute a child’s overall learning environment are skills, abilities, behavioural styles, and
value priorities which are strongly viewed as features to one’s personality.
(v) Ritual, Ceremonies, Religious practices, arts, recreational activities are the means through which a person’s
personality gets projected in a culture.

VII. HUMANISTIC APPROACH

Carl Rogers

(i) Focused on Fully functioning individuals i.e. fulfilment is the motivating force for personality development
(people try to express their capabilities, potentials and talents to the fullest extent possible).
(ii) Assumptions about human behaviour:
- It is goal-oriented and worthwhile.
- People (who are innately good) will almost always choose adaptive, self-actualising behaviour.
(iii) People are constantly engaged in the process of actualising their true self.
(iv) Ideal self is the self that a person would like to be—correspondence between ideal and real self = happiness,
discrepancy = dissatisfaction.
(v) People have a tendency to maximize self-concept through self-actualisation.
(vi) Personality development is a continuous process.
(vii) Role of social influences in the development of self-concept—positive social conditions lead to a high
self-concept and self-esteem, generally flexible and open to new experiences.
(viii) An atmosphere of unconditional positive regard must be created in order to ensure enhancement of people’s
self-concept.
(ix) Client-centered therapy that Rogers developed basically attempts to create this condition.

Abraham Maslow

(i) Attainment of self-actualisation, a state in which people have reached their own fullest potential.
(ii) Optimistic and positive view of man who has the potentialities for love, joy and to do creative work.
(iii) Human beings are considered free to shape their lives and to self-actualisation.
(iv) Self-actualisation becomes possible by analysing the motivations that govern our life.

*Characteristics of Healthy Person

- Healthy become aware of themselves, their feelings, and their limits; accept themselves, and what they
make of their own responsibility; have ‘the courage to be’.
- They experience the ‘here-and-now’; are not trapped.
- They do not live in the past or dwell in the future through anxious expectation and distorted defences.

Assessment of Personality
- A formal effort aimed at understanding the personality of an individual is termed as personality assessment.
- Assessment refers to the procedures used to evaluate or differentiate people on the basis of certain
characteristics.
- The goal of assessment is to understand and predict behaviour with minimum error and maximum
accuracy.
- Besides promoting our understanding, assessment is also useful for diagnosis, training, placement,
counselling, and other purposes.

A) Self-Report Measures-
● It was Allport who suggested that the best method to assess a person is by asking her/him about
herself himself.
● Fairly structured measures, based on theory that require subjects to give verbal responses using
some kind of rating scale.
 ● The method requires the subject to objectively report her/his own feelings with respect to various
items. Responses are accepted at face value, scored in quantitative terms and interpreted on basis of
norms for the test.
● Direct Technique.
● Eg. MMPI, EPQ, 16 PF (Details of these tests are mentioned in the PPT)*
● Limitations of Self-Report Measures- Social Desirability & Acquiescence.

B) Projective Techniques-
● Techniques based on assumption that a less structured or unstructured stimulus or situation will
allow the individual to project her/his feelings, desires and needs onto that situation. These
projections are interpreted by experts.
● Besides promoting our understanding, these assessments are also useful for diagnosis, training,
placement, counselling and other purposes.
● Indirect technique
● Eg. Rorschach Inkblot test, Thematic Apperception Test, Sentence Completion Test,
Draw-A-Person Test, Sentence Completion Test, Rosenzweig’s Picture-Frustration Study (Details
of these techniques are mentioned in the PPT)*
● Benefit of Projective Techniques- Helps in understanding unconscious motives, deep rooted
conflicts, and emotional complexes of an individual.
● Limitations- Interpretation of responses requires sophisticated skills & specialized training. Another
limitation is that there are problems associated with reliability of scoring and validity of
interpretations.

C) Behavioural Analysis-
● Observation of behaviour serves as the basis of behavioural analysis.
● An observer’s report may contain data obtained from methods such as -
- Interview
- Observation
- Ratings
- Nomination
- Situational tests
(Details of these methods are mentioned in the PPT)*