Personality Theories. November 6th, 2018.

Susana Dickson 1

Personality Theories: Application to Myself

Susana Dickson

Salt Lake Community college

Marci Campbell-Psychology 2250

The way psychologists can analyze individuals’ personality is just amazing. I found very

helpful to have many different theories to pick from to get a close study to better understand

humans’ personalities. Even though every human is different and unique, there are many

common aspects that personality theories help us to analyze such as behaviors, thoughts,

feelings, abilities, etc.

According to Erikson who is the want who based his theory on the stages of

psychosocial development. He said that we need to solve crisis to establish our identity. He

believed in cognitive process, adaptation, individual differences, culture, biological influence,

and epigenetic principle. For He based this psychosocial analysis in eight stages that are

developed through virtues.

1. Hope: trust vs. mistrust (0-18 months)

2. Will: autonomy vs. shame & doubt (1-3 years)

3. Purpose: initiative vs. guilt (3-5)

4. Competence: industry vs. inferiority (6-11)

5. Fidelity: identity vs. identity diffusion (adolescence)

6. Love: intimacy vs. isolation (emerging adulthood)

7. Care: generativity vs. stagnation (adulthood)

Personality Theories. November 6th, 2018. Susana Dickson 2

8. Wisdom: integrity vs. despair (older adults)

One of that stages I remember I fit in is industry vs inferiority. When I was in school in my

country, Peru, I remember that elementary was not the best experience, I suffered from bullying.

My personality was being influenced. My feeling, my thoughts, my emotions and even my

behavior was being impacted by that horrible experience. I came from a family where I raised

without the presence of my father because he had to come to the United States to work since I

was little. My mother was always traveling out of the state due to her job. The things where I

was living were not good enough for my parent to give me and my siblings the economic

stability. it is why I has been always tried to deal and solve problems by myself unless I need

other’s help. Therefore, when I entered to Jr. high, I decided to stop the frustrated situation I was

living in. I was scared because most of the kids that were the bullies were going to the next grade

level with me. Could you imagine how a girl in her 10 years old was feeling in that moment? Just

thinking about it was a torture. Yes, it was too much for her. So, I knew I had to do something to

end the bad experiences and change how I was growing.

Being competence and becoming popular was an option for me. my parents had always

been very demanding with my progress in school and requiring me to get the best grades. I

always worked hard to accomplish their and my expectations. When I was in Jr. high school, I

made the decision to enroll in different programs to become popular. Also, I worked so hard to

be in the Honor list (I keep the second place out of 45 students and 20th place out of 200

students) I participated in different competences (academic, sports). Everything was going great

until my classmates started bothering me because I was not in the patriotic team march (group of

six girls who march in two lines of three being the one in the middle of the line the lead who

carry the flat) who represents the school. I was not good enough and they did not select me as
Personality Theories. November 6th, 2018. Susana Dickson 3

part of the team. There were more than 300 girls who were trying to get in. It was hard and

embarrassing because the selection was in front of all the students in the school. I felt frustrated.

I feel I was not goof enough. I started criticizing myself because I failed. However, there were a

few people who believed in me and push to try again. I started working harder and harder for

about a month to participate in the selection of the team lead (the most important title). After a

lot of work and sacrifices I was selected (1 out of 150). I became the team lead. I was incredibly

surprised how much I had to persist to accomplish my goal.

According to Erikson and based on my story life, he would say that I overcome my fears

and solve the crisis in the stage of industry and inferiority by working so hard in my tasks to

achieve my perseverance. Instead of being a person who stayed just feeling inferior because she

failed, I decided to overcome those negative feelings and keep going. I think sometimes we need

to solve difficulties before we can accomplish other things because if we keep the negative

feeling it won’t be healthy for the future and there will be a moment where that will influential.

Another good way to analyze my personality is using Behaviorism which is based on

how personality develops from responses and actions. According to B.F Skinner theory of

operant condition, he states that “behavior followed by pleasant consequence is likely to be

repeated and unpleasant consequence less likely to be repeated.” I remember so many times

where punishment and reinforcement have been applied in my behavior through my life. I will

focus in one specific experience to analyze my personality. According to this theory everything

that shapes and develops our personality is due to our decisions and experiences, the way we

behave in life will bring consequences for future. When I was a child was at the university in my

country, my father used to reward me every time I pass the semester with good grades. He

promised paying my university tuition for next semester if I end the semester successfully. It was
Personality Theories. November 6th, 2018. Susana Dickson 4

a drive to keep me motivated to not give up. I remember one time when I got a low score in one

of my classes, my mom stopped paying my modeling classes where I was learning things such

social etiquette, make up techniques. I was 18 years old. It meant a lot because I really loved

taking those classes. But I knew it was a consequence of my poor academic progress but also

because I was spending more time with those classes than the university. Since that happened I

leaner that according to my behavior, my future could be different. I decided to put things in

priority to no fail again.

Carl Rogers stablished “Person Centered Theory” which is based on how individual’s

personality develops through the process of self-actualization. He believed that people search for

meaning in their life.

Based on Roger’s theory, I will try to do my best to identify my real self and my idealized self to

analyze my incongruences. My Real Self is passionate, self-motivated, jealous, independent,

detail-oriented, caring, persistent. While my Idealized self tends to be organized, relax, less

stressed, fun, extroverted, secured,

One area of incongruence in my life is that I am a detail-oriented person. Most of the time

I always aware of details, things that most of the people don't realized about such as feeling,

gestures, emotions, etc. in others. This sometimes led me to be too stressed. My Idealized self

pretends to be a relax person. How can I be a relax person if I am always taking care of

everybody? I like people to see me as person who can be there for anything when needed; even

though, I am, in that moment, dealing with a lot of stress due to all the things that are going on in

my life. Deeply, I would like to become a more relax person. it would help me to become freer

person.
Personality Theories. November 6th, 2018. Susana Dickson 5

Another area of incongruence that I found is that pretending to be a secured person when

talking about abilities, feelings, etc.; makes me to give a lot of effort to hide my fears. I am a

jealous person, but I am always pretending that nothing happens or that I don't really care.

On the other hand, I feel sometimes that I don't work enough to develop my abilities and

be successful while everybody around me say that I am a hardworking person who fight for

accomplishing her goals. Most of them believe that I am a very confident person while I really

deal with a lot of fears to no fail in life.

By identifying my real-self and idealized-self have led me to better understand how much

time and energy I am wasting pretending to a person who I am not. I could use this time and

energy to live a better life being free to be who I am. This would help me to develop my real self

and enjoy me more to live my Good Life.

This helped to give myself a higher value. I am not perfect, but I can be better every day.

So, by taking time to understand my incongruences made me understand that we can always

change. Therefore, I only need to keep working to become who I want to be without

underestimating my "Real Self" which makes me the person I am now.

Every single human is different and unique. However, we can find some

behaviors, though and feelings in common. It is why we study all the different theories to get a

better understanding of how to analyze a person's personality.

By analyzing my own personality has been the hardest time. It was because it has been

always hard to talk about myself. I don't really know why. Maybe because how I can know that I

am being fair when talking about myself or that I not lying. Anyways, I had a good time working

on this paper. It has helped me understand myself better in a certain way.

Personality Theories. November 6th, 2018. Susana Dickson 6

Most of the theories address basic and effective aspect in humans personality, however I

believe working individually won’t be enough effective as taking a few to better understand

people’s personalities.