Personality Development Theories: Freud, Traits, and Types Essay

This essay delves into the multifaceted realm of personality development, examining the key factors and prominent theories that shape an individual's unique characteristics. The essay begins by introducing the concept of personality, emphasizing its significance in social interactions and highlighting the contributions of Sigmund Freud's psychodynamic theory. The core of the essay explores Freud's perspective, focusing on the interplay of the id, ego, and superego, and how conflicts during childhood development influence personality formation. It then transitions to discuss trait theory, including the five-factor model (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), and type theory, such as the MBTI. The essay critiques Freud's theory and concludes by summarizing the factors shaping personality, emphasizing the interplay of heredity and environment, and the importance of resolving internal conflicts for healthy personality development. The essay also includes references to books and journals.

ESSAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ESSAY ............................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTION
Personality could be described as something which people thinks about. When meeting
with new people at any place it is often the personality which is focused immediately.
Personality development was major area interest for different prominent thinkers in the
psychology. Sigmund Freud considered as father of the psychiatry provided Freudian theory for
personality. The theory argued human personality is formed by the conflicts among the 3
fundamental structures of human mind which are ego, id and superego. Essay will discuss about
the factors that shapes individual personality.
ESSAY
Human personality emerges as the composite of earlier childhood experiences on the
basis of how such experiences are unconsciously or consciously processed within the human
developmental stage and also how such experiences shape personality. As per Freud most of the
human sufferings are determined during the childhood development. Emphasis was placed
mainly over five stages of the psychosexual developments. Child passing through the five stages
face unresolved conflicts between the social expectations and physical drives (Peck & Whitlow,
(2019)). During these stages of human development, experiences are refined through 3 levels of
human mind. The structures & inherent conflicts arising in minds shapes the human personality.
As per Freud personality is developed from interactions between fundamental structures
of human mind that are superego, ego and id. The conflicts between the structure and efforts for
finding balance between what each desires is determine human behave and also approach world.
Id: It is egocentric centre of human universe. The Freud believed that in this level, id constantly
fights to have the way in everything undertaken. This is concerned with instant gratification of
the basic physical urges & needs. This operates completely unconsciously (Smarandache, 2018).
For example: If the id walked past by stranger eating the ice cream, it is most likely that it may
take ice cream. It does not cares or know that it's bad to take anything which belongs to someone
other, it only cares that it wanted ice cream.
Superego: It functions at conscious level and serves as type of the screening centre about what is
going in mind. On this level parental guidance and society is weighed against the personal
pleasures and gains as directed by ids. This puts the situation ripe for the conflicts. It is
concerned with the social moral or rules which is also called as conscience or moral compass .
For example: if superego passed by same stranger then, it will not take ice cream as it knows it is
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bad. But if, superego and id were involved and id is strong to override the superego than person
will still take ice cream.
Ego is like judge in the trial, the experiences processed once through id and superego fall into
ego for mediating satisfactory outcomes. Freud originally used ego to highlight sense of the self
but revised later to mean set of the psychiatric functions like judgement, tolerance, control,
testing, synthesise of the information, memory and intellectual functioning (Guntrip, (2018)). It
balances the demand of superego an id in the practical world. For example: if persons passed
stranger once more, ego will make conflict between id( want ice cream now) and the superego
( wrong to snatch other's ice cream) and decide to buy own ice cream.
It is believed by Freud that ego, superego and id have constant conflicts and adult
behaviour and personality is rooted deep in results of the internal struggles done throughout the
childhood. It is believed that individual with strong ego has strong healthy personality and the
imbalances in system could lead to unhealthy behaviours and neurosis.
Trait Theory
Theory states that personality traits are the enduring patterns relating to, perceiving and
also thinking about oneself and environment which are exhibited in wide range of the personal
and social contexts. Traits are the stable, enduring attributes or the characteristics of person. As
per Gordon Allport, there are various types of traits called as dispositions (Wang, (2020)). The
central traits are building blocks of the personality and are basic traits. The secondary traits ones
that are not obvious and peripheral. The cardinal traits are ones that define life of a person. Trait
theory provides five factor model of personality development which are openness,
conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism.
Type theory
It classifies people in different categories. Main difference between type and trait is that
trait come in the varying degree where type is absolute. The trait theory suggest extraversion and
introversion are part of the continuous dimension and the people are in middle. The type theory
classify the people as extroverts and introverts and nothing between. It provides MBTI theory
which is psychometric questionnaire framed for measuring psychological preferences of the
people and how it perceives world and then makes decisions (Henriques, (2017)). MBTI uses
four scale structure which identifies and categorises behavioural preferences of the individual.
Criticism
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Though Freud's theory has helped to expand the psychological understanding of the
personality. There is single emphasis laid over structure of human mind and paid no attention to
impact of the environment culture or sociology. The theories were focused highly on the
pathology and also ignored the normal healthy functioning. It is also criticised as not supported
by the empirical data (Willmott & et.al., (2018)). Taking more scientific look over ideas , many
were not able to be supported for making theory scientifically valid and it is possible to disprove
it with the experimental evidences.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that personality is sum total of the mental
characteristics which makes the individual unique in comparison with the others. Thoughts and
emotions are there that individual experiences, causes them to behave in the manner they does.
At the superficial level, a personality comes from emotional tone or disposition. Personality is
represented by beliefs, values and the expectations of the person. Factors shaping human
personality are result of the heredity and environment they are exposed to. Freud provides that
person with good strength can handle the human conflicts properly and build healthy personality.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Peck, D., & Whitlow, D. (2019). Approaches to personality theory. Routledge.
Smarandache, F., (2018). Neutropsychic Personality: A mathematical approach to psychology.
Infinite Study.
Guntrip, H.Y., (2018). Personality structure and human interaction: The developing synthesis of
psychodynamic theory. Routledge.
Wang, J., (2020). An Analysis of Salieri in Amadeus from Freudian Personality Theory: Id, Ego,
Superego.
Henriques, G., (2017). Character adaptation systems theory: A new big five for personality and
psychotherapy. Review of General Psychology. 21(1). pp.9-22.
Willmott, D., & et.al., (2018). Motivation: A critical consideration of Freud and Rogers’ seminal
conceptualisations. Polish Psychological Bulletin.
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