Personality theories: what are they, main authors

What are the theories of personality?

The theories of personality are a set of academic constructs raised in personality psychology to explain variations in behavior between individuals and others.

The main author of a theory of personality was Gordon Allport, an American psychologist who in 1936 published the first book on this subject, and in which he proposed two ways of studying personality:

• Nomothetic psychology: studies universal behaviors. Idiographic psychology: studies the psychological traits that differentiate people.

Main theories of personality and their authors

The study of personality has been raised from different points of view in which the influence of genetic, social, environmental factors, etc. is suggested.

Although there are many theories, they can be grouped into 6 main categories. In turn, each of them can have multiple variants, according to the changes or updates suggested by new authors or studies:

Psychoanalytic theory

Psychoanalysis poses the interaction of three parts of the personality:

• It: is the part of the personality that seeks immediate satisfaction. Me: it is the part that realistically tries to satisfy the demands of the self. Super-ego: includes the moral and social aspects, in turn influenced by parental patterns.

Furthermore, this theory states that the early childhood stage is essential for the development of the adult personality, which, in turn, includes 5 phases of psychosexual development:

Oral stage: it is expressed in the first 18 months of life and the baby tries to explore the world through the mouth.

• Anal stage: lasts up to 3 years and is the phase in which the boy controls his sphincters. Phallic stage: lasts up to 6 years and sexual differences begin to be explored. Latency stage: lasts until adolescence and is characterized by the development of the sense of modesty. Genital stage: refers to the physical and psychological changes of adolescence that end in adulthood.

The main authors of the psychoanalytic theory were Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Heinz Kohut.

See also Stages of human development.

Behavioral theory

For behaviorism, external stimuli have an important influence on the formation and reinforcement of the personality. To demonstrate this, behaviorists relied on the scientific method to demonstrate how the interaction of an organism with its environment generated a "reward" for its behavior, causing the behavior to repeat itself. For theorists, this model had three indispensable elements:

• Stimulus: the signal from the environment that generates a response (the baby cries because they have left him alone). Answer: it is the action caused by the stimulus (the mother returns and carries it in her arms). Consequence: it is the association between the stimulus and the response (the baby learns that if the mother leaves him alone, he must cry for her to return).

Subsequently, behaviorism would develop two aspects: classical conditioning, which states, among other things, that the response to a stimulus is always involuntary. For its part, operant conditioning suggests that the response is voluntary, at least most of the time.

The main authors of the behavioral theory were Ivan Pavlov, defender of classical conditioning and Frederick Skinner, creator of the theory of operant conditioning.

Theory of evolution

The theory of evolution explains the development of personality based on Darwin's studies on the origin of species and their subsequent evolution.

According to this approach, personality is the result of processes of natural selection. This involves the expression of traits that will help a subject to survive in a certain environment, such as solidarity, sociability and leadership.

The author of the theory of evolution was Charles Darwin, from whom the psychology of personality took its essential postulates.

See also Evolutionary Psychology.

Cognitive theory

This theory explains the development of personality based on the beliefs or expectations that an individual has about the world around him. These beliefs are called cognitions.

Furthermore, it is argued that cognitive processes have a fundamental role in the personality of the subject. Therefore, thoughts, memory, emotions and value judgments also influence behavior.

The main authors of the cognitive theory of personality were Albert Bandura, Walter Mishel and Cassandra B. Whyte.

Humanistic theory

The humanistic theory of personality proposes the development of personality as a product of the individual's choices, based on his free will and his subjective vision of the world.

Unlike psychoanalytic theory that is based on the pathologies of the individual, humanistic theory focuses on the study of a supposed human need to achieve meaningful goals.

In this sense, for humanistic psychologists there are four dimensions of personality, which are expressed to a greater or lesser degree in each individual:

• Unanimous sense of humor: it is a dimension proper to people who are very friendly, transparent and political. Reality and centered problem: it is a dimension that is expressed in people focused on the conflicts in their environment. Consciousness: it is the dimension that manifests itself in people who live the events of life in an intense and transcendental way. Acceptance: it is the dimension expressed in people who naturally flow with life events.

The main authors of the humanistic personality theory were Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow.

See also:

• Psychology.Clinical psychology.