Cognitive vs Emotional Intelligence in Organisations

2180 Words9 Pages
The concept of "personality" endeavours to explain what makes an individual who they are, based on their idiosyncracies and patterns of behaviour. There are a number of theories that attempt to explain personality and its development in individuals. The earliest and arguably best known personality theorists are the “psychodynamic” theorists, descending from Sigmund Freud. (Weiten, Dunn, Hammer, 2012). Jung and Adler are the most significant theorists to follow Freud in this arena. Other schools of personality theory include: the “behaviourists” - viewing personality as a response tendencies developed through learning, Skinner and Pavlov being the better known theorists in this area; the “humanists” - focusing on the concept of “self” and arguing that incongruence, or the battle between one’s “self-concept” and reality creates anxiety and therefore defensive behaviour; the “biological” or “evolutionary” theorists, such as Eysenck who theorised that inherited differences in physiological functioning can affect an individual's conditioning and thus influence their personality (Weiten, Dunn, Hammer, 2012); and the “Trait” theorists such as Cattell and Allport and the more contemporary McCrae and Costa who have used the statistical procedure of factor analysis to reduce human personality down to five factors of personality known as “The Big Five”. These factors are: “Extroversion vs Introversion”, “Emotional Stabilty vs Neuroticism”, “Open vs Closed (to experience)”, “Agreeable vs Unagreeable”, “Conscientious vs Unconscientious”. Trait theorists argue that all personality traits are derived from these five traits. What follows is an outline of Freud’s theory of psychodynamics, and a description of the biological perspective on personality. Next appears an investigation of the similarities and differences between these theories and their implications. These two
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