What Is Meant By Personality Dynamics Psychology Essay

What Is Meant By Personality Dynamics Psychology Essay Every person is unique not merely, because people are genetically different. On the contrary, identical twins have the same DNA. However, despite the similarity, the twins will still be two different persons. This implies that there are certain qualities that set a person apart from the others. Theoretically, this will involve the manner of nurturance or upbringing. Nonetheless, this does not account on the divergence among different persons thoughts, aspirations, behaviors, preferences, feelings, and reactions. Across the centuries, the notion that thinkers came up with to explain and or describe the similarities and differences in the individuality that each person possess is known as personality. In a stricter sense, Susan C. Cloninger defined personality as the underlying causes within the person of individual behavior and experience (2008; 2). Personalities differ from one group of traits to another. More than 2000 years ago, Hippocrates had already separated four types of temperament to describe people. He made four basic categories namely: choleric, melancholic, sanguine and phlegmatic (Colininger, 2008; 3). Describing personality requires the evaluation of its type, factors and traits. Colininger explained that personality dynamics are the mechanisms by which personality is expressed (2008;5). Motivations influence the personality. Motivations are the underlying reasons or caused that drive the person to act in certain ways. Different psychologists have different speculations about the motivational factors that underlie personality. Freud argued that sexual urges are the source of motivation while Carl Rogers believed that the motivation has developmental roots. Alfred Alder and Rudolf Dreikurs asserts that personality motivations involve being goal-oriented and a process of self-creation (9). In the same context, Henry Murray put forward that there are interrelated motivations that affects the personality. All of these motivational theories imply that people react to the changes in themselves and their environment. Personality dynamics denote that personality is something that develops in the persons consciousness. The reaction shows growth and progress in the individual. Personal dynamics as a whole require the person to adapt and to adjust in his living environment and situation. How do cognitive processes and culture relate to personality dynamics? In the study of personality dynamics and the exploration of motivational factors, it is inevitable to include the process and function of cognition into the equation. For the most part, cognition refers to the manner of perception. Cognitive processes therefore include the thinking and the learning development of an individual. In the Psychoanalytic theory, Freud emphasized that the personality dynamics is consist of the ways in which psychic energy us distributed to the id, ego and superego (Corey, 2009; p. 61). Freuds theory revolves around the idea that the cognitive process only happens during the conscious state. Thus, Freud proposed that conscious thought plays only a limited role in personality dynamics (Cloninger, 2008; p. 5). The ego represents consciousness while the superego represents the unconsciousness. The emphasis given by Freud on the superegos role in personality dynamics raised several questions among the thinkers specifically because behavior are predictable and c oping patterns are recognizable. Moreover, humans are able to distinguish how their experiences or previous knowledge affects their future decisions, actions and reactions. The previous knowledge that the person holds is largely determined by the culture in which the person belongs. Personality is not something innate to the individual. Despite the fact that genes affect the capacity of the human physiology, it is obvious that the beliefs, traditions and even the language that the person holds greatly shaped his personality. Consider how the Christian culture and conservative ideologies are related to introvert personalities. The multiculturalism that the United States espouses encouraged individualism that encourages extraverted and assertive behavior (Cloninger, 2008; p. 6). These observations illuminate the fact that the culture in a society affects the individual personality of a person. Carl Jung developed his analytical psychology, which divided the personality dynamics into introverted and extroverted personality. According to Corey, Jung acknowledged, we are not merely shaped by past events, but we are influenced by our future as well (p. 79). J ung also explained that there is a collective unconsciousà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦containing the accumulation of inherited experiences of human and pre-human species (p. 80). This collective unconscious derived from historical experiences and future insights affects the motivations of a person. What are some important influences on personality development? Clearly, personality is not something that encrypted into the persons mind when he was born. Personality is something that develops out of the persons interaction to other people and the environment. Moreover, personality is not something permanent. It could change or develop or progress depending on the individuals reaction towards event and circumstances in life. In relation to the process of development, Cloninger explained that biological influences and social development influences are the two major factors that affects the development of personality. The biological influences are those behavior that are observable and consistent behavior from birth onwards. This consistency in behavior and emotional reactions present from early life onward is called temperament (Cloninger, 2008 p. 6). Modern scientific findings seems to support the claim that personality is significantly influenced by hereditary (2008, p. 6). This does not mean that genes alone determine the personality of the person because the biological person needs to adapt into the environment as well. In this regard, one could observe that as a person grows older, their personality changes. The person does not only develop physical but also psychologically. The changes in the persons cognitive skills could also help establish the fact that personality develops. Furthermore, most of the theorist in personality believes that the experiences in childhood greatly affect the current psychological state of mind of the adult person. The evidence of this claim lies on the possibiliyu of developing skills and acquiring knowledge. Aside from the cognitive development, the persons emotions are also considered to affect their personality when they enter adulthood. For instance, if the parent-child relationship during childhood years is not satisfactory, then the child also might neglect his/her offspring in the future or they might shower the child with excessive love and affection. This implies that childhood experiences affects personality development. From this perspective, it could be sur mised that personality is not solely determine by genetics and personality could change over time.

Social Constructionism

Social constructionism focuses on meaning and power. It maintains that, as humans, we respond to the meaning of events and objects rather than the actual objects and events themselves. This meaning is actually a construction, a product of social interaction between individuals. Our behaviour is regulated by guidelines, which make everyday life predictable and understandable. These guidelines set boundaries as to what is acceptable behaviour, and are themselves a product of social interaction. They cause us to behave in a certain way – the way that is seen as the norm. It is through social interaction that people â€Å"act and react in relation to others.†Ã‚   Through this social interaction, we learn what is acceptable and what is not. Over time these ‘rules’ become internalised within us, and eventually become a somewhat unconscious part of our lives. We end up just taking them for granted, as we begin to see that what we do is just normal (e.g. habit). Burr (1985) identifies four assumptions that the social constructionist perspective follows: The first is that, as social constructionists, we should â€Å"take a critical stance towards our taken-for-granted ways of understanding the world.†Ã‚   Whereas traditional science assumes that observation can be used to explain the nature of the world, social constructionism is wary of this opinion. It argues that just because we divide people and things in the world into categories, they may not actually be real divisions. Burr uses the example of music – there is nothing in the nature of music that denotes that it should be divided into such categories as ‘pop’ or ‘classical’. The other point Burr raises is that of ‘historical and cultural specificity’. This is the idea that the understanding we have of the world, and concepts in it, are specific to particular cultures and time periods. Burr also insists that these concepts are products of, and dependent on, the culture and the economic arrangements of the culture at that time. Consequently, all medical belief systems operate within a culture with norms, values and expectations that make sense of illness for people in that culture and set the criteria for what, locally, can count as illness. The variation in ways of understanding illness that exists across cultures and across the range of alternative medicines in our own society can also be seen historically. Foucault (1973, 1980) has persuasively argued that such ordering and classifying, with respect to human beings, has played and continues to play a key role in controlling the populace. By classifying people as normal or abnormal, mad or sane and healthy or sick, it became possible to control society by regulating work, domestic and political behaviours. For example, the certified mentally ill may not vote and may be forcibly confined, those who cannot obtain a sick note from their doctor may have no choice but to work and those whose sexuality is deemed unhealthy or abnormal may be denied access to family life. The next point Burr mentions is that people construct their own understanding of the nature of the world through social interaction. Social constructionists are especially interested in how individuals interact, particularly the idea of language. Through communication, we distinguish shared meanings. These shared meanings would be impossible without communication. The interaction that takes place between individuals never ends. Like socialisation, it exists throughout one’s life. It leads to a collective understanding of meanings. Institutions are formed, and rules and policies are put into place. This brings us on to the last of Burr’s assumptions; the idea that knowledge and social action go hand in hand. Each social construction differs, and â€Å"brings with it†¦. a different kind of action from human beings.† It is not only our behaviour that is ‘learnt’. Society affects our thoughts and emotions. Social constructionists believe that our identities in particular are shaped by society (Berger, 1963, p.140). Berger describes identity as being something that is not ‘given’, but something â€Å"bestowed in acts of social recognition.†Ã‚   Through the process of socialisation, we internalise the rules of society, and are compelled to stay loyal to these rules. Various forms of social control exist to keep us ‘in line’ and prevent us from breaking the rules. More formal types of control include law enforcement, whereas there are more subtle forms such as disapproval of deviant acts, followed by guilt and shame. Berger maintains that no society can exist without social control. (Berger, 1963, P.83) Burr argues that personalities do not necessarily exist within a person, but rather between people.   Common words used to describe people’s personalities would be somewhat meaningless if the person being described lived alone (Burr uses the example of living on a desert island). Without other people around them, how can someone be described as having a shy personality? The point Burr is trying to make is that such descriptive words often refer to our behaviour towards other people, and don’t have much meaning if you take other people away from an individual. Similarly, our personalities may change depending on whom we are with. Burr argues that although our personalities may change slightly when we are with different people, it is still ‘us’ in all of them, but each ‘you’ is affected, and socially constructed by the relationships we have with those people. The empirical study showed that managers enact a managerial role that involves portraying themselves as managers, maintaining the visual faà §ade of management, controlling themselves strictly to prevent the mask slipping, and so carrying out the symbolic role of manager. However, to be a manager also requires that there be a managerial Other, and a managerialized order requires the denigration of other participants in the organization and the arrogation of others' rights to self-determination. Managers, who are the materialized metaphysics, so to speak, of capitalist power, are in this perspective a social construction in that they belong in a social world wherein lies the possibility for thinking, and thus practising, things differently. In order to bring about change we have to understand- the mechanisms by which current pillars of power are maintained. Marxism had too simplistic an assumption about how change could be achieved and, indeed, about how the new utopia could be built. Market managerial utopianism sadly has been more successful in imposing its own vision of utopia (Parker, 2002). Postmodernism/post-structuralism, while it has not yet helped us dream the design of the utopia we desire and has, indeed, in a peculiar reverse brought pragmatism to the discussion about utopias, helps us discern and understand those mechanisms. As Laclau (1990) has pointed out, it helps us open the possibilities repressed in the taken-for-granted and seemingly ‘objective' social relations and identities. One of these mechanisms is a language of management which is now so dominant that it crowds out alternative ways of thinking of, speaking about and working in organizations. The language of management is materialized in and through managers. But it is too simple to think of the language of management as nothing more than a language of rationality, autonomy, entrepreneurship, etc. Foucault have taught to explore more deeply into any language, to discover the languages which make possible that language, and thus not to presume that the ideology spoken through the language is all that informs and sustains that power/knowledge formulation signified in writing and speech. In other words, social constructionism, as a study of how power, first, impregnates the language of management that is found in textbooks, of how readers interact with the textbook and, seduced by the language, absorb it to some extent into their identities and thus come into being as managers. Second, it is a study of how managers' identity is permeated through and through with and by the organizations in which they work. It is thus a study of how management is a social construction. All in all, the social constructionist perspective maintains that social interaction and socialisation are incredibly important, as they are the backbone for building individuals. Language is of particular importance to this perspective, and it’s argued that â€Å"language provides the basis for all our thought.†Ã‚   In this sense, it is through language that we can give our experiences meaning. In conclusion, the social constructionist perspective offers a lot of insight into the human world, especially with regards to the construction of society and individuals within it. References Berger, P, 1963, Invitation to sociology, Harmondsworth, Pelican. Burr, V, 1995, An introduction to social constructionism, London, Routledge. De Swaan, A, 2001, Human societies, Cambridge, Polity. Foucault, M., 1979, The Birth of the Clinic, London: Routledge. Foucault, M., 1980, Power/Knowledge, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Jenkins, R, 1996, Social identity, London, Routledge. Laclau, E., 1990, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time, London: Verso. Macionis, J., and Plummer, K, 2002, Sociology: a global introduction, Harlow, Prentice Hall. Oakley, A., 1985, Sex, gender and society, London, Gower. Parker, Martin, 2002, Utopia and the Organizational Imagination: Outopia. In Parker, Martin (ed.) Utopia and Organization, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 1-8. Taylor, S., 1999, Sociology: issues and debates, Basingstoke, Palgrave. What is social constructionism? http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk Sociology online www.sociologyonline.co.uk

Analysis of Vampire Scene in Chapter 3 Dracula Essay

Freud suggests that fear is â€Å"linked in some way to an earlier emotional response that has been repressed.† In chapter 3 Hawker experiences a great amount of fear when he is attacked by the Brides of Dracula, in a dramatic, highly sexual scene. Hawker’s submission and confusion as to whether he is experiencing pleasure of pain could, to follow Freud’s theory, be linked to a past memory in which he repressed his sexual desires. In the prudent society in which Stoker was writing, the rampant, overt eroticism of the Brides would have been shocking, and in some ways liberating. Stoker writes: â€Å"There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips.† The Brides are wholly sexual beings, who are guided solely by their desires, and this need contrasts completely against the typical 19th century men and women- John, Lucy and Mina. This liberation from repression would and did terrify and shock society, making vampires seem more like animals, monsters. Freud wrote about the Superego, Ego and Id, the three parts of the human psyche. The Id is natural, animalistic desires, such as sex and hunger and it is the Ego’s job to ensure that these desires are controlled, in order for a human to live in an ordered society. This links well with the idea that repression leads to fear. Freud also wrote about the ‘uncanny’ which in German translates to ‘unheimlich,’ which means un-homely. The idea of uncanny is that â€Å"within the concept of the homely is the notion of concealment itself,† that where we feel safest may not be that safe at all, and that â€Å"home is a place of secrets.† In Chapter three Harker seeks comfort in a room â€Å"where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars.† He seeks safety and comfort in familiarity, however within the place where he appears to be safest in the castle the Brides of Dracula descend on him. Stoker writes that: â€Å"The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it,† however the Brides have appeared and suddenly the atmosphere changes from that of safety and sleep to sexually charged domination. At the climax of the scene, the vampires are just about to bite Hawker’s neck, and Hawker completely and utterly submits: â€Å"I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart.† It is this uninhibited pleasure that Hawker experiences that makes the scene so significant, almost as if his unconscious Id has completely taken over his Superego. The Brides do not think, they act, they are, according to Freud, the complete opposite to how normal human beings think they should behave.

The Abolition Of The Brazilian Slaves Essay - 3208 Words

The Abolition of the Brazilian Slaves Slavery in the Americas started with Christopher Columbus at the end of his first voyage, west of the Atlantic. When Columbus saw the Indians (as he called them) and he thought they would make great servants to overlords in Europe. The author writes, â€Å"he promised to bring Ferdinand and Isabella as many slaves as they required† (Nowara 10). This was a suitable proposition because the lifestyle of slavery was already embedded in the minds of the Europeans during the medieval times. The Portuguese and the Spanish were already using slaves from Africa while Columbus was discovering the Americas and the Caribbean. During sometime between 500 A.D – 1500; the Iberian Peninsula became a gateway for slavery after Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms drove out Muslim kingdoms and battled them in the North of Africa. Another place that was conquered by the Portuguese was Morocco and the city of Ceuta which was a strait in the peninsula. Giving the Portuguese control and power of t rade routes of gold and slaves. This soon brought the Portuguese west and down Africa coastline. But African slaves was already well known in parts of west and central Africa. The author writes â€Å"slavery was a well-rooted institution in the African societies with which they traded† (Nowara 12). There is proof of trade routes dating before the Atlantic slave routes, coming from the Saharan and Indian Ocean region. But the Atlantic slavery trade routes had a lot more captivesShow MoreRelatedThe Abolition of Slavery in Brazil1102 Words   |  5 PagesThe Abolition of Slavery in Brazil, 13 May 1888 Next year sees the 120th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Brazil. Some contemporary writers saw the period as an horrific maltreatment of our fellow human beings while others saw through this and viewed the patriarchal and familial advantages that society, especially slaves received. 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