Personality Theory

Personality theories can be grouped under a number of general headings according to historical and philosophical criteria, and there are also certain characteristics of personality theory that distinguish it from general behavior theory. Hall and Lindzey (1957) cite five such characteristics: 1) dissent from traditional academic theory; 2) concern with practical problems; 3) concern with causes of behavior; 4) treatment of the whole person; and 5) concern with the integration of diverse findings. They also note that those who founded personality theory were all practicing physicians whose daily practice required a rationale and a set of procedures for coping with the psychological problems presented by their pat

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t function is sensation--the awareness of external stimuli through the senses. Jung conceived of this function as limited to supplying us only with information that something exists. Thinking is the second function, and this tells you what that something is--it identifies the object and adds the concept, since thinking involves perception and judgment. Feeling is the third function and defines the emotional connotations of experience. The fourth function is intuition and involves hunches about the meaning behind our experience (Abramson, 1980). Gordon Allport is a theorist particularly concerned with doing justice to the complexity and uniqueness of individual human behavior, and the main trends in the nature of man are seen as displaying an underlying congruence or unity. Conscious determinants of behavior are also seen as of overwhelming importance. Allport is thus led to an emphasis on those phenomena often represented under the terms self and ego. Along with this emphasis on rational factors is a conviction that the individual is a creature more of the present than the past. Allport feels that there is a discontinuity between normal and abnormal, child and adult, animal and man. Psychoanalysis is seen as highly effe
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Approximate Pages = 20 (250 words per page)

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