Running head: Personality Theories Personality Theories PSY/211 Personality Theories The existence of personality theories correspond to how scholars analyze and assess the development of human identity and behavior. Each viewpoint provides a specific understanding of what cultivates personality and the corresponding factors that influence such behavior. One way to analyze personality is through the lens of psychoanalytic theory. The main argument of this theory is that problems or issues pertaining to psychology can be rooted to one’s unconscious (McLeod, 2007). Specifically, the problems are influenced by latent issues surfacing in the conscious mind.
Rotter believed that a psychological theory should have a psychological motivational principal, and that people were motivated to seek out positive reinforcement or stimulus and to avoid the negative of either. (Mearns). His publication Social Learning in Clinical Society (1954) integrated the concepts of this learning theory with the personality theory. Overall Rotter’s social learning theory suggests that behavior is influenced by social context or environmental factors, and not psychological factors alone. In the 1960’s Albert Bandura expanded on
Running head: ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY 1 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Miranda Buchanan Georgetown College ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY 2 Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a cognitive-behavioral model of psychotherapy. It is based on the Relational Frame Theory, also known as RFT, which focuses on how human language influences cognition. The basic theory of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT for short, is that psychological suffering is mostly caused by the combination of human language, and the control of human behavior by direct experience. Acceptance and Commitment Theory suggests that trying to change difficult feelings and thoughts as a way to cope might be counter productive and that the best way to cope includes new powerful alternatives to the usual difficult thoughts and feelings (Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, 2011). The goal of ACT is to change the relationship people have with their own thoughts and feelings that are often feared or avoided; this is proclaimed to increase psychological flexibility, which is the primary goal of ACT (American Psychological Association, 2006).
Prejudice can be defined as being an attitude, such as dislike towards a given minority. The following essay aims to outline and evaluate research studies into prejudice. A piece of research done by Sigall and Page (1971, cited in Baron and Byrne, 2003, pg 203) looked at an approach known as the ‘bogus pipeline’. The aim of this research was to look at social pressure and whether attitudes towards minority groups are indeed affected by this. Prejudice is mostly assessed through self- report questionnaires, responses to questionnaires are influenced by social desirability Bias, which is the tendency to give socially approved answers, (Eyesnck, 2000).
Psychophysiology notes that “Self-serving attributions occur when negative personal outcomes are ascribed to external circumstances and when positive outcomes are ascribed to internal factors. Individuals strategically employ the self-serving bias to maintain and protect positive self-views. “(Page 511) Stereo Typing Brown, Rupert (2010). Prejudice: Its Social Psychology (2nd ed.). Stereotypes lead people to expect certain actions from members of social groups.
Kiefer T. 2005, ‘Feeling bad: Antecedents and consequences of negative emotions in ongoing change’, Journal of Organizational Behavior, vol. 26, no. 8, pp. 875–897. Marks, M. L. 2006, ‘Workplace recovery after mergers, acquisitions, and downsizing: Facilitating individual adaptation to major organizational transformations’, Organizational Dynamics, vol.
The ID is considered part of the unconscious personality, and is driven by impulses to seek pleasure and satisfaction. The Ego experiences and reacts to the world as well as mediating between the sometimes contrary drives of the ID and super ego. This is often considered to be a front put on for society, and is part of the pre conscious and conscious parts of the conscience according to Freud’s iceberg. Finally the Super-Ego is the ‘censor’ of the personality, and is used to restrain the ID, due to its association with guilt. When a person interprets some form of disapproval from society, this is ‘internalised’ to form the super-ego.
“The general strain theory departs from traditional strain theories by emphasizing the role of individual’s affective responses to negative life experiences in fostering deviant behavior.” (Aseltine, Gore, & Gordon, 2000, p. 256). In simpler terms, the general strain theory is known for being separate from the traditional strain theories because it puts its emphasis on the role of a person’s reaction to negative experiences that have occurred in their life resulting in deviant actions. “Most recently, Agnew has argued that strain may result not only from the failure to achieve positively valued goals, but also from the inability to escape legally from painful situations. If one draws on the above theories as well as the stress, equity/justice, and aggression literatures one can begin to develop a more complete classification of the types of strain.” (Agnew,1992, p.50). Agnew went on to not only explain how the general strain theory addressed the criticisms that arose with the social strain theories, but as well proclaimed that there was three different types of strain-inducing stimulants.
Perception The Role Perception Plays in Decision Making Tracey Redmann Axia College of University of Phoenix Perception 2 What is perception? Before looking at the role perception plays in the decision making process one should have a clear understanding of what perception is. According to Oxford Reference Online Premium (2009), perception is: The faculty of acquiring sensory experience. Study of the processes by which we gather and interpret visual information is largely the province of social psychologists, who have identified several general principles (‘laws’) of perception, and also some effects upon it of (among other things) motivation and attention. The former includes the phenomenon of the ‘figure-ground contrast’; that is, how we perceive objects distinctly from their surroundings.
• Social Cognitive Therapy According to Sue et al (1997:350) this form of therapy makes use of a psychodynamic styled approach in treating an individual’s depressive state by working on their social skills with others. In achieving this, the methods used in other styles of treatment, such as mental-habitual remedial treatment, are applied. The rationale associated in this type of treatment is that depressive states of mind take place as a result of social situations, in which the need to deal with certain conflictions and problems need be sorted out amicably. At this level the individual is provided with an internal look at what the conflicts are and how they need be resolved. This is done by teaching the clientele how to establish issues