The main theories of personality

Personality, understood as the relatively stable set of tendencies and patterns of thought, information processing and behavior that each of us manifested throughout life and through time and different situations, is one of the main aspects that have been studied and analyzed by the Psychology. Different currents and authors have established different theories and models of personality.

Some of the major theories of personality are briefly explained below., which start from different approaches such as the internalist, the situationist and the interactionist or the correlational, the experimental or the clinical.

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The most important personality theories in Psychology

These are the contributions to the study of personality that have traditionally had more weight throughout the history of Psychology. However, not all of them are still valid today.

1. Freud's personality theory

The psychodynamic current has contributed various theories and models of personality

, the best known being those of the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. For him, behavior and personality are linked to the existence of impulses that we need to carry to the practice and the conflict that this need entails and the limitation that reality supposes for its compliance. It is a clinical and internalist model.

In his first topic, Freud proposed that the human psyche was structured in three systems, an unconscious one governed by the search for stress reduction and works through the pleasure principle, a conscious one that is governed by the perception of the outside world and logic and the reality principle and a preconscious in which the unconscious contents can be made conscious and vice versa.

In the second topic Freud determines a second great structure of the personality compatible with the previous one, in which the psyche is configured by three psychic instances, the Id or It, the I and the Superego. The Id is our most instinctive part, which governs and directs the internal energy in the form of impulses and from which all other structures start.

The I would be the result of the confrontation of impulses and drives with reality, being a mediating structure and in continuous conflict that uses different mechanisms to sublimate or redirect the energies coming from the impulses. Finally, the third instance is the superego or the part of the personality that is given by society and whose main function is to judge and censor behaviors and desires that are not socially acceptable.

Personality is built throughout development, in different phases, based on conflicts existing between the different instances and structures and the defense mechanisms applied to try to solve them.

2. Jung's personality theory

Besides Freud, many other components of the psychodynamic current have proposed their own personality structures. For example, Carl Jung proposed that personality was configured by the person or part of our personality that serves to adapt to the environment and that is it relates to what others can observe and the shadow or the part that includes those parts of the Self that are not admissible for the subject himself.

Also from the archetypes acquired by the collective unconscious and the different complexes that we adopt in our development towards identity different types of personality are generated depending on whether the concerns are directed inward or outward, if they are more sensitive or intuitive and if they tend to focus more on thinking or feeling, being to think, feel, intuit and perceive the main psychological functions.

• Related article: "The 8 personality types according to Carl Gustav Jung"

3. Carl Rogers' phenomenological theory

From a humanist-phenomenological perspective with a clinical approach, Carl Rogers proposes that each person has their phenomenological field or way of seeing the world, the behavior depending on said perception.

Personality is derived from the self-concept or symbolization of the experience of one's own existence, which arises from the integration of the tendency to update or tendency to improve oneself with the needs to feel love on the part of the environment and self-esteem derived from the contrast between their behavior and the consideration or response they receive from the environment. If there are contradictions, defensive measures will be used such with which to hide this incongruity.

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4. Kelly's personal construct theory

What example of personality theory derived from cognitivism and constructivism we can find Kelly's theory of personal constructs, also with a clinical approach. For this author, each person has their own mental representation of reality and acts in a scientific way trying to explain what surrounds them.

It is considered that the personality is constituted as a hierarchical system ofdichotomous personal constructs that influence each other, which form a network with nuclear and peripheral elements through which we try to respond and make predictions for the future. What motivates the behavior and the creation of the construct system is the attempt to control the environment thanks to to the prediction capacity derived from them and to the improvement of said predictive model by means of the experience.

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5. Allport's Ideographic Personality Theory

Allport considers each individual to be unique in the sense that he has an integration of the different characteristics different from other people (it is based on the ideographic, on what makes us unique), as well as what we are active entities that focus on the fulfillment of goals.

This is one of the authors who considers that the personality that works the personality from structural and stable elements, the traits. For him, we try to make our behavior consistent and act in such a way that we create a system from which we can make different sets of stimuli equivalent, so that we can respond in a similar way to different stimulations.

Thus, we develop ways of acting or expressing behavior that allow us to adapt to the environment. These traits have different importance depending on the influence they have on our behavior, being able to be cardinal, central or secondary.

The set of traits would be integrated into the propium or itself, which is derived from the self-perception and self-awareness generated and composed of the experience of identity, perception, corporeality, interests and self-esteem, rationality and intentionality.

6. Cattell's personality theory

The personality theory of Raymond Cattell It is one of the most famous and recognized factorial theories of personality. Structuralist, correlational and internalist like Allport and starting from the analysis of the lexicon, He considers that personality can be understood as a function of a set of traits, which are understood as the tendency to react in a certain way to reality.

These traits can be divided into temperamental (the elements that tell us how to act), dynamic (the motivation of the behavior or attitude) or aptitude (the abilities of the subject to carry out the conduct).

The most relevant are the temperamental ones, from which Cattell would extract the sixteen primary factors of personality that are measured in the 16 FP (which would refer to affectivity, intelligence, ego stability, dominance, impulsiveness, daring, sensitivity, suspicion, conventionality, imagination, cunning, rebellion, self-reliance, apprehension, self-control and tension).

Personality dynamics also depend on motivation, finding different components in the form of dynamic traits or attitudes among which find ergs (way of acting in the face of specific stimulations such as sex or aggression) and feelings.

7. Eysenck's personality theory

From an internalist and factorial position focused on the biological, Eysenck generates one of the most important explanatory hypotheses of personality from a correlational approach. This author generates the PEN model, which proposes that personality differences are based on biological elements that allow processes such as motivation or emotion.

Personality is a relatively stable structure of character, intellect, temperament, and physique, each of them contributing respectively the will, the intelligence, the emotion and the biological elements that allow.

Eysenck finds and isolates three main factors into which all the others can be grouped, these being psychoticism or tendency to act tough, neuroticism or emotional stability and extraversion / introversion or focus on the outside world or inside.

The author would consider that the level of extraversion depended on the activation of the ascending reticular activation system o SARA, limbic system neuroticism and psychoticism, although a clear correlate has not been identified, tends to be linked to the level of androgens or the relationship between dopamine and serotonin.

The three factors of the PEN model integrate the different personality traits and allow the body to react in certain ways to environmental stimulation from more or less specific behavioral responses and frequent.

8. Costa and McCrae's Big Five theory

Another of the great factorial theories and based on a lexical approach (based on the idea that the terms with which we explain Our behavior allows after a factorial analysis to establish the existence of groupings of characteristics or traits of personality), the Big Five or theory of the big five of Costa and McCrae is one of the most widespread personality models.

Through factor analysis, this model indicates the existence of five major personality factors that we all have to a greater or lesser degree. Its about neuroticism or emotional adjustment, extraversion as the quantity and intensity of personal relationships, cordiality as the qualities expressed in interaction, responsibility or awareness, organization, control and motivation towards goals and openness to experience or interest in to experience.

Each of these great factors is made up of features or facets. The different features are related to each other, and together they account for the way of perceiving the world and reacting to it.

9. Gray's BIS AND BAS model

Gray proposes a factorial and biological model in which he considers that there are two dimensions that allow elements such as emotion and learning, starting from the combination of Eysenck's extraversion and neuroticism factors.

In this case, he proposes that anxiety, as a combination of introversion and neuroticism, would act as a behavior inhibitory mechanism (BIS or Behavior Inhibition System), while that impulsivity (which would be equivalent to a combination of extraversion and neuroticism) would act as a mechanism for approximation and motivation to action (BAS or Behavior Approximation System). Both systems would work together to regulate our behavior.

10. Cloninger model

This model considers the existence of temperamental elements, these being the avoidance of pain, dependence on reward, the search for novelties and persistence. These elements of a biological and acquired character would account for the behavioral pattern that we apply in our lives, and largely depend on the neurochemical balance of the brain when it comes to neurotransmitters.

It also incorporates elements of character that help to place one's own self in reality, these being cooperation as social behavior, self-direction or autonomy and self-transcendence as an element that integrates us and gives us a role in the world.

11. Rotter's theory of social learning

This author considers that the pattern of conduct that we habitually employ is an element derived from learning and social interaction. It considers the human being an active element and uses an approach close to behaviorism. We act based on the existence of needs and the visualization and assessment of both these and the possible behaviors that we have learned to carry out. Although close to interactionism, it is situated in a situationist perspective

Behavioral potential is the probability of performing a certain behavior in a specific situation. This potential depends on elements such as expectations (both the ability to influence the results and the result itself and the possible obtaining of benefits after the behavior) and the consideration or value awarded to the consequences of performing the conduct in question, as well as the way in which the person processes and assesses the situation (known as situation psychological).

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12. The interactionist approach

Throughout history there have been many authors who have one of two positions: that personality is something innate or that it is derived from learning. However there is a third option, defended by authors such as Mischel, in which the personality is formed by the interaction between innate elements and the phenomena that we live.

This position explores personality characteristics through the study of the existence of consistency of behavior across situations, temporal stability, and predictive validity of the features. The findings indicated that different types of categorizations of traits should be used, since these do not reflect a fully valid predictive model as it is more innate. He argues that it is more efficient to talk about competencies, values, expectations, constructs and self-control.

Other authors such as Allen reflect that consistency can vary according to the person, as well as the main values ​​and the aspects that best predict behavior. In this way, the traits would be consistent but only if those that are most relevant for each person are taken into account.

Bibliographic references:

• Bermúdez, J. (2004). Psychology of personality. Theory and research. (Vol I and II). Didactic Unit of the UNED. Madrid.

• Hermangómez, L. & Fernández, C. (2012). Personality and Differential Psychology. CEDE Preparation Manual PIR, 07. CEDE: Madrid.