Personality Analysis of Person of Interest through Humanistic Approach

Personality Analysis of Person of Interest through Humanistic Approach Assignment number 01: Analyze personality of person of your interest by using one of approaches. Introduction Personality, deeply ingrained and relatively enduring patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior, usually refers to that, which is unique about a person, the characteristics that distinguish him or her from other people. Thought, emotion, and behavior as such do not constitute a personality, which is, rather, the dispositions that underlie these elements. Personality implies predictability about how a person will act or react under different circumstances. And Personality can be defined as a dynamic and organized set of characteristics possessed by a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various situations. The word "personality" originates from the Latin persona, which means mask. Significantly, in the theatre of the ancient Latin-speaking world, the mask was not used as a plot device to disguise the identity of a character, but rather was a convention employed to represent or typify that character. The pioneering American psychologist, Gordon Allport (1937) described two major ways to study personality, the nomothetic and the idiographic. Nomothetic psychology seeks general laws that can be applied to many different people, such as the principle of self-actualization, or the trait of extraversion. Idiographic psychology is an attempt to understand the unique aspects of a particular individual. The study of personality has a broad and varied history in psychology, with an abundance of theoretical traditions. The major theories include dispositional (trait) perspective, psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, behaviorist and social learning perspective. There is no consensus on the definition of "personality" in psychology. Most researchers and psychologists do not explicitly identify themselves with a certain perspective and often take an eclectic approach. Some research is empirically driven such as the "Big 5" personality model whereas other research emphasizes theory development such as psychodynamics. There is also a substantial emphasis on the applied field of personality testing. In psychological education and training, the study of the nature of personality and its psychological development is usually reviewed as a prerequisite to courses in abnormal or clinical psychology. Theorists emphasize different aspects of personality and disagree about its organization, development, and manifestation in behavior. Approaches to study personality • The four humors theory • Trait and type theory • Psychoanalytic theory • Behavioral theory • Social cognitive theory • Humanistic theory As have been mentioned earlier, personality is a broad subject matter which must be discussed in detail in order to perfectly understand personality of individual, if it is conversed by all theories of scholastic approaches. In clear sense, here in order to realize individual personality, it is needed to utilize all approaches and analyze that person personality by applying those theories which are mentioned above. But, in this particular analysis of personality, we are told to choose one theory among of those and analyze person of interest. Therefore, I have chosen Humanistic approach to analyze personality of person of my interest. Humanistic theory for personality In humanistic psychology it is emphasized people have free will and they play an active role in determining how they behave. Accordingly, humanistic psychology focuses on subjective experiences of persons as opposed to forced, definitive factors that determine behavior. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers were proponents of this view, which is based on the "phenomenal field" theory of Combs and Snyggz. Maslow spent much of his time studying what he called "self-actualizing persons", those who are "fulfilling themselves and doing the best they are capable of doing". Maslow believes all who are interested in growth move towards self-actualizing (growth, happiness, satisfaction) views. Many of these people demonstrate a trend in dimensions of their personalities. Characteristics of self-actualizers according to Maslow include the four key dimensions: 1. Awareness - maintaining constant enjoyment and awe of life. These individuals often experienced a "peak experience". He defined a peak experience as an "intensification of any experience to the degree there is a loss or transcendence of self". A peak experience is one in which an individual perceives an expansion of his or herself, and detects a unity and meaningfulness in life. Intense concentration on an activity one is involved in, such as running a marathon, may invoke a peak experience. 2. Reality and problem centered - they have tendency to be concerned with "problems" in their surroundings. 3. Acceptance/Spontaneity - they accept their surroundings and what cannot be changed. 4. Unhostile sense of humor/democratic - they do not like joking about others, which can be viewed as offensive. They have friends of all backgrounds and religions and hold very close friendships. Maslow and Rogers emphasized a view of the person as an active, creative, experiencing human being who lives in the present and subjectively responds to current perceptions, relationships, and encounters. They disagree with the dark, pessimistic outlook of those in the Freudian psychoanalysis ranks, but rather view humanistic theories as positive and optimistic proposals which stress the tendency of the human personality toward growth and self-actualization. This progressing self will remain the center of its constantly changing world; worlds that will help mold the self but not necessarily confine it. Rather, the self has opportunity for maturation based on its encounters with this world. This understanding attempts to reduce the acceptance of hopeless redundancy. Humanistic therapy typically relies on the client for information of the past and its effect on the present, therefore the client dictates the type of guidance the therapist may initiate. This allows for an individualized approach to therapy. Rogers found patients differ in how they respond to other people. Rogers tried to model a particular approach to therapy- he stressed the reflective or empathetic response. This response type takes the client's viewpoint and reflects back his or her feeling and the context for it. An example of a reflective response would be, "It seems you are feeling anxious about your upcoming marriage". This response type seeks to clarify the therapist's understanding while also encouraging the client to think more deeply and seek to fully understand the feelings they have expressed. Rationale In this research I would like to understand: • What is really personality mean by? • How to understand approaches by applying it? • How to apply theory in analyzing personality of person and so on Methodology Research design I have chosen descriptive research design to investigate study. Technique of gathering data (instruments) Selected instrument: interview and questionnaire which are semi-structured. In this study I used interview and questionnaire to collect the information according to humanistic theories. Sample Size of sample: 1 participant. He is my best friend. Place: university of PERADENIYA. Data analysis Qualitative approach: In data analysis I hope to use qualitative approach to analyze data got from sample. After getting those data, I analyzed them by using humanistic theory. Ethic Even though I am a best friend of him, in this particular study I did not tend to harm his veneration. I got his permission before I took interview and gave him my questionnaire. There were no forceful influences in matter of mentally or behaviorally. Discussion Before involving analyzing the person of interest let have a glance to his basic-daily characteristics or some general characteristics, I have found from his behaviors when I interact and live with him. He is not quick-angry, but getting angry when he is in work, if someone disturbs and involves nonsense shouting and talking a lot, able to work alone for a long time with academic and arts works, Clever to study: studious, mostly interested in arts: he can paint but is not as perfectly as well-known artist. Likewise, He doesn’t like to hang around with others, like go on trip in the purpose if entertainment and recreation, but for education he will and likes to listen to music not rocking, rapping and disco, but classical which calm his mind down. He is normal and simple in living style. With regard to development, Carl Rogers described principles rather than stages. The main issue is the development of a self concept and the progress from an undifferentiated self to being fully differentiated. “Self Concept ... the organized consistent conceptual gestalt composed of perceptions of the characteristics of 'I' or 'me' and the perceptions of the relationships of the 'I' or 'me' to others and to various aspects of life, together with the values attached to these perceptions. It is a gestalt which is available to awareness though not necessarily in awareness. It is a fluid and changing gestalt, a process, but at any given moment it is a specific entity.” As I have been observed and known, yes my friend is really well-known of who he is. That is meant that he has fully understanding of himself to reach particular goal, the self actualization. According to what mentioned above, Carl Rogers believes that the person who is with clear-awareness of himself or herself, is possible to raise themselves to fully actualized situation. Looking through theory of self concept of Carl Rogers, the clear- self concept of my friend exists within him as I have discussed with him in sometimes and through understanding his academic works. And according to Carl Rogers maintained, in the development of the self concept he saw conditional and unconditional positive regard as key. Those raised in an environment of unconditional positive regard have the opportunity to fully actualize themselves. Those raised in an environment of conditional positive regard only feel worthy if they match conditions (what Rogers describes as conditions of worth) that have been laid down by others. So, there is another question emerged that whether my person of interest, if he has been successful on what he has set himself goal, raised himself in an environment of unconditional positive regards or in an environment of conditional positive regards. According what he has mentioned (and I have known about him) he really raised and still raising himself to his actualization in an environment of unconditional regards; that means he tends to achieve his goal which is set by himself, with his best, even though society doesn’t overrate what he has done or what he had done or not. Furthermore, in accordance with what he had mentioned before (in some works in which I have involved with him) “I know that society is always being positive, optimistic and admire me of what I had done, I have done and supposed to do, but I don’t care about their criticism, because it is nothing to me and I know that I am fully responsible of my business” he needs conditions of worth which is, according to what Rogers pointed out, generally needed by fully functioning people, but if he never restrict his successfulness of his tasks. So here it shows that his self-actualization accompany with mostly environment of unconditional regards that helped him to develop his own positive personality, rather than with environment of conditional regards and likewise, here it illustrates that the particular characteristic of my person of interest is existed in Maslow’s theory what he called "self-actualizing persons", those who are "fulfilling themselves and doing the best they are capable of doing". In the same way, analyzing my best friend’s character in the view of humanistic theories as positive and optimistic proposals, his character stresses that he has positive and optimistic tendency of the human personality toward his growth and self-actualization. Likewise, I would like to emphasize that my friend is a person comprised of experiential freedom. In my view, as having observed his behavior, this is not to say, of course, that he is free to do anything at all: he also believes that he is surrounded by a deterministic universe, so that, he say I live my own way but I don’t tend to harm the world around me. It means that he feels free when choices are available to him. This particular character of him, accepts Rogers’s saying that the fully-functioning person acknowledges that feeling of freedom and takes responsibility of his choice. As you know the entire theory of Carl Rogers is built on a single “force of life” that he calls the actualizing tendency. It can be defined as the built-in motivation present in every life-form to develop its potentials to the fullest extent possible. We’re not just talking about survival: Rogers believes that all creatures strive to make the very best of their existence. I wonder here again that whether my best friend has this particular characteristic or not. To the fact which I have mentioned earlier, my friend always tries his best to fulfill his job assigned by others or himself. So, according to the theory of actualizing tendency or the force of life, my person of interest is analyzed perfectly by the theory. With my carefully observation of his academic works and others as well, especially to what he has expressed, he is the person of fully built-in motivation present in every life- form and fully positive and optimistic personality to develop and maintain his potential to the fullest possible extent planned by him. Here the expression that proves: “I have planned to reach every target of mine, so I am the figure of my successfulness of my day-to- day activity. I am capable to successfully face all obstacles come before my achievement. ….and I never allow failure to hinder me, physically or even mentally” Through analyzing his personality, I have noted that, as humanistic theorists believe the self-actualizing person has free-will; my friend has human-centered personality development and free-will to advance forwards. Moreover, he builds motivation within himself and strongly faces all challenges. The aspect of his being that is founded in the actualizing tendency, follows organismic valuing, needs and receives positive regard and self-regard, according to Rogers; it is called the real self. On the other hand, Rogers also maintains that, to the extent that our society is out of synch with the actualizing tendency, and we are forced to live with conditions of worth that are out of step with organismic valuing, and receive only conditional positive regard and self-regard, we develop instead an ideal self. This gap between the real self and the ideal self, the “I am” and the “I should” is called incongruity. The greater the gap, the more incongruity; the more incongruity, is the more suffering. According this particular analysis, is there is a greater or huge gap between ideal self and real self in my friend’s personality towards his growth? Is another question should be conversed. In accordance with my experiences got through interacting with him and with the fact he pointed to, he has more real self rather than ideal self, but don’t misunderstand that there is a huge gap between both, because he always says that we are social being, but I don’t do what people need me to do, I don’t care their criticism, because I am fully responsible of what I do, I am confidential enough of what I do. According to, Rogers’s theory, if there is greater gap between both: real self and ideal self; how my friend actualizes himself. Here what I am trying to make clear is, there is no incongruence in personality development of my friend; if so he never be able to be successful person as he mentioned. Moreover my friend is open to his experiences (according to Rogers and Maslow, this is not desires like sexuality, aggression and so on, that person tries to hide under unconsciousness instead of expressing them, but it is an ability of acceptance ones’ real feeling).it means that he has accurate perception of one's experiences in the world, including one's feelings. It also means that he is able to accept reality, again including one's feelings. Even though, he is rare to express his feeling, in special situation of better sake of others he tell me directly about my bad behaviors and if someone, may be me, shows his mistake or typo and bad habits and characters he always is ever-ready to acknowledge those critics, (he says), if he is really wrong. My person of interest is reality-centered, which means he could differentiate what is fake and dishonest from what is real and genuine. Besides being reality-centered, problem-centered, meaning he treated life’s difficulties as problems demanding solutions, not as personal troubles to be railed at or surrendered to. He also has a different way of relating to others. First, they enjoyed solitude, less talking (not talkative: if he talks only something meaningful) and is comfortable being alone. And he enjoyed deeper personal relations with a few close friends and family members, rather than more shallow relationships with many people. He enjoys autonomy, a relative independence from physical and social needs. And he resisted enculturation, that is, he is not susceptible to social pressure to be "well adjusted" or to "fit in" – he is, in fact, nonconformists in the best sense. He has a quality which is called acceptance of self and others, by which is meant that he would be more likely to take you as you are than try to change you into what he thinks you should be. This same acceptance applied to his attitudes towards himself: If some quality of his isn’t harmful, he let it is, even enjoying it as a personal quirk. On the other hand, he is often strongly motivated to change negative qualities in himself that could be changed. Along with this comes spontaneity and simplicity: he prefers being himself rather than being pretentious or artificial. In fact, for all his nonconformity, he found that he tended to be conventional on the surface, just where less self-actualizing nonconformists tend to be the most dramatic. Maslow emphasized that all of the preceding four levels he calls deficit needs, or D-needs. If you don’t have enough of something - i.e. you have a deficit - you feel the need. But if you get all you need, you feel nothing at all! In other words, they cease to be motivating. Contrary to Maslow’s perspective, my friend’s personality development made its own way differently from the theory. it means, as I was told, in his childhood he tend to find a lot positive regards-such as love, empathy, kindness- from adults, but unfortunately he did not get them. Here is shows that needs of belongingness is lacking in his life (not at all). Despite being lacking, he is not motivated to fulfill or fixate on (no strong relationship with girls or other relatives) instead, he maintains that attachment leads me to sadness. Conclusion As the result of analyzing individual personality through using theory, here I do not expect to give conclusion to my friend personality, but would like to come into conclusion that only one theory is impossible to analyze perfectly personality of people and theory is not perfect; it has mistake and deficit, in my view. References Print sources 1. Rathus, Spencer. A. (2004). Psychology: concepts and connections, brief version. Belmont: Thomson wadsworth. 2. Coon, Dennis. (2005). Psychology: A journey. Belmont: Thomson wadsworth. Electronic sources 1. C. George Boeree. (2006).Carl Rogers. Retrieved June 15, 2010 from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/rogers.html 2. C. George Boeree. (2006). Abraham Maslow. Retrieved June 15, 2010 from http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/maslow.html