According to Freud, aggressive and sexual instincts are the major determinants of our personality.
Humanistic Theory:
The main psychologists associated with this theory are Maslow and Roger’s. They believed that individuals possess an inner drive to succeed and better themselves and consequently see human nature as healthy and constructive. This contrast’s with Freud’s rather pessimistic view of humans. The critical concept in connection with this theory is self-actualization. This is the ongoing process whereby individuals seek to achieve their full potential. Maslow developed a hierarchy of needs, which has self-actualization at the pinnacle, but before it can be reached, lower order needs to have been met. Roger’s theory is based around the therapy he used to treat individuals, and he believed that in order for our personality to develop fully we need to be accepted, have unconditional positive regard and not have others’ values imposed upon us.
Critical Analyse:
Whilst both the psychodynamic and humanistic theories are able to offer an explanation as to how personality develops, both focus on the detailed investigation of individuals. Neither theory has played a significant role in the links between personality and sport.
Trait Theory:
The main belief to this theory is that individuals possess certain personality traits that are relatively stable and enduring over time. Therefore it means that if traits can e identified, behaviour can, to a point, be predicted. A predisposition toward a certain trait does not mean that individuals will always act in that way but there is a strong likelihood. For example, a person who has a high level of trait competitiveness would be expected to be competitive in a range of different situations.
Multi-trait theories aim to identify the range of traits that are central to personality and hence give an indication of the person as a whole. The assumption of these theories is that we all share the same basic personality structure but we differ in the amount we display particularly traits. The two main trait theorists are Eysenck and Cattell.
Eysenck studied 700 neurotic, battle-fatigued soldiers and used factor analysis to analyse their personality data. From this proposed that personality could be broken down into two main dimensions:
- Extroversion-introversion
- Neuroticism-stability
The belief was that most people would fall around the central point of these, suggesting a normal distribution. He later added a third dimension: psychoticism, the majority of people falling at the lower end of this scale. Although Eysenck’s theory is a trait approach to personality, he proposed that the individual differences in extroversion and neuroticism were related to the individual’s nervous system, and hence biological in origin. For example, extroverts have lower levels of cortical arousal and therefore seek stimulation in order to enhance their arousal levels, whilst introverts have too much cortical arousal and therefore do not actively seek further arousal. Stable individuals have a nervous system that is fairly slow to respond to stressful situations, whilst neurotic individuals’ nervous systems respond quickly and strongly. To measure personality he developed the ‘Eysenck Personality Inventory’ (EPI).
Cattell’s work led to the proposal of a more complex theory of personality. He began by collecting more than 18,000 words that could be used to describe personality, and his aim was to reduce these to a number of ‘traits’ using factor analysis. The initial analysis revealed fifteen source traits, which, when further analysed, led to the emergence of sixteen factors. Twelve of the factors were close to the original source traits, three of these source traits failed to re-emerge and four new ones emerged. These sixteen factors led to the development of Cattell’s ‘16 PF’ as a tool for measuring personality.
Single-trait theorists are not aiming to investigate the whole of personality; rather they are focusing on one aspects of personality and attempting to explain how that personality trait influences behaviour. These include theories such as ‘Rotter’s locus of control’ and ‘McClellend’s need for achievement’.
Critical Analyse:
Trait theories have generated an enormous amount of personality research and offer an appealing approach to the explanation of personality. However, critics argue that identified traits are quite poor predictors of actual behaviour, as people do not always behave in exactly the same way. Trait theories also fail to take into account individuals’ experience and the knowledge they have gained about themselves.
Social Learning Theory:
According to social learning theory, behaviour is not a result of unconscious motives; rather it is learnt through the environment. Therefore personality traits are less important as the environment is salient. The main ways in which our personalities develop, according to this theory, re modeling, learning through observation and through reinforcement (behaviors that are reinforced are likely to be repeated).
