Nature and Nurture, Essay Example

The human personality has such a wide sphere of knowledge that it is almost impossible to define a tight definition. Nevertheless, a number of theories have been put forward including that of Sigmund Freud and Carl Rogers.  With Freud it was the Psychodynamic Theory and Rogers the Phenomological Theory.

Sigmund Freud (1895-1936): Psychodynamic Theory

According to Freud it is possible to categorize the human personality into three types: (i) ID (ii) Ego and (iii) Super ego.  The ID was defined by Freud as being our biological needs of food, water and sex. He cited the analogy of thermodynamics where the source of energy was fire. He considered super ego to be the rules of society and our conscience. This contrasted to ego which is more individualistic and contains a single persons individual thoughts, emotions and personal judgements.  Freud viewed ego as a mediating role that balanced the id and super ego. He maintained that a person was nurtured from birth until adulthood passing through “psychosexual stages of development” (Shinta, 2010).

Behavioral Theories of Personality

The Russian scientist made the early break-through in identification of first conditioning through his experimentation with dogs “While studying digestive reflexes in dogs, Russian scientist, Pavlov, made the discovery that led to the real beginnings of behavioural theory. He could reliably predict that dogs would salivate when food was placed in the mouth through a reflex called the “salivary reflex” in digestion.” (Naik, 2010).  The dogs associated the sound of a moving door with that of feeding time and this stimulated an appropriate response. Many other famous theories were produced from the likes of Darwin, Skinner, and Thorndyke etc. Scientists hold little credence in these today “today there are very few scientists who believe that the behaviourist theory is as comprehensive as it was once thought to be. In spite of the holes in the theory, there can be no doubt as to the usefulness of the research done in the field of behaviourism.” (Shinta, 2010).

Humanistic Theories of Personality

The roots of these theories are based in existential psychology and the study of human traits and personalities “Two American psychologists, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers paved the way for this new approach to understanding personality and improving the overall satisfaction of individuals”. (Psych, 2010).

Works Cited

Naik, P. (2010). Behaviorism as a Theory of Personality: A Critical Look. Retrieved 10 7, 2010, from North Western University: http://www.personalityresearch.org/papers/naik.html

Psych, A. (2010). People are Basically Good. Retrieved 10 7, 2010, from All Psych on line: http://allpsych.com/personalitysynopsis/humanistic.html

Shinta. (2010). Individual differennces and personality theories. Retrieved 10 7, 2010, from FastEssays: http://pdfcast.org/pdf/individual-differences-and-personality-theories