CHAPTER -1 INTRODUCTION

Transcription

1 CHAPTER -1 INTRODUCTION

2 CHAPTER- I INTRODUCTION Personality is dynamic and multi-dimensional concept, which varies from person to person. While interacting with outer world the personality of a person is the prime reflector of his individuality. It can be said that personality is the identity of a person. It is on the basis of personality traits that opinion about a person, viz his being easy-going, aggressor, ambitious or average fellow, is formed. Since man is a social animal, what other persons are thinking or taking him for is very important for him. Here lies the importance of studying and analyzing personality of an individual. Personality is the product of physical and non-physical attributes. Physical attributes are those, which are apparent to outside world. It consists of a person s built, height, complexion, facial features and way to carry oneself. Non-physical attributes of personality consist of attitudes, preferences, expressions and manners. While in former case the genetic setup plays important part, in latter case the environment and upbringment has crucial bearing. As shadow position of a thing under the Sun keep on changing with advancement of day, in the same manner for an individual both physical as well as non-physical attributes of personality keep on changing over the period. Between the two, the physical attributes are more fickle as compared to non-physical ones. The reason is factors affecting physical

3 2 attributes of personality are aplenty and in direct contact with outer world while on other hand non-physical attributes are relatively less, and take time and positive inclination to leave their impact on the individual. In an individual, various hues of personality keep on becoming dominant and recessive over the period depending upon change in priorities. This moulds his drive to act or not to act in a particular situation. Personality of a person affects and get affected even by personalities of other persons. The age, socio-economic condition and culture too affect it. Personality is such an important aspect that it covers whole gamut of a man s life. It decides, inter alia, one s priorities of need in life, his likings and dislikings and behaviour. Psychologists have worked on personality and discovered a lot about it from their own personal and research experiences, thus formed a theory of its makeup and working principles, which informs about the nature of humans. Many of the personality theories were formulated by professional psychotherapists in order to help them understand what went wrong in the development or functioning of personality and what should be ideal development and functioning for the people. Assessing personality requires knowledge of these theories of personality as it can aid in deciding the ideals for healthy personality and the good life. As personality has been studied in a number of different ways, therefore, some broad approaches about the make up of the personality have been propagated. The four categories of approaches are: Dynamic Approach, Humanistic Approach, Learning and Behavioural Approach, and Type and Trait Approach.

4 3 (1) DYNAMIC APPROACH: This approach focuses on interactions between hidden motives, needs and impulses to produce person s behaviour. Psychoanalytical Theory of Freud and Erikson s Contemporary Psychoanalytic Theory are the main theories under this category. Sigmund Freud s Classical Psychoanalytic Theory of Humans: Freudian brand of psychology is known as The Science of the Unconscious. To him, mysteries of the mind could be unraveled only by plumbing the deepest recesses, the hidden forces that make people to behave in strange way at times. People are more influenced by internal forces which are predominately unconscious. For him, conscious activity and behaviour are largely determined by unconscious motives and conflicts. Freud divided the psyche according to the level of consciousness as conscious, pre-conscious and unconscious. Unconscious is the largest portion of this psyche, having its own operating principles. Operations of unconscious are revealed through dreams, memory lapses, slips of speech and most convincingly by personality disorders. Freud viewed the personality as being divided into three warring systems known as - Id, Ego and Superego. The Id is the most primitive portion of the personality; a source of unconscious urges and follows the pleasure principles. Ego is the controlling system, the administrator of the personality, whose function is to follow the

5 4 reality principle. Whereas Superego is the moral and ethical component of the personality. Behaviour of the person is the result of the interaction between these three systems. In its role as administrator, the Ego frequently experiences conflict and attempts to resolve such conflicts and make efforts to produce harmony within personality. Confronted with anxiety, the Ego may either use its abilities to solve problems or it may engage in defence mechanisms. Freud differentiated four stages of personality growth. He termed these stages psychosexual stages of development because he assigned its significant role to the sexual instinct in the formation and development of personality. According to him, the first few years of life are decisive for the formation of personality. In the course of normal development the personality passes through a series of welldefined stages until it reaches maturity. Each stage of development during the first five years is defined in terms of the modes of reaction of a particular zone of the body. Four psychosexual stages of development are known as: the oral, the anal, the phallic and the genital stage. Each stage has been reported to possess specific needs. A person may be fixated if needs are not properly gratified or due to frustration. The Fixation is responsible for the unevenness in personality development. Erik Erikson s Contemporary Psychoanalytic Theory: However, Erikson(1964) built his theory on Freud s psychosexual stages but with the emphasis on the social determinants

6 5 of the personality growth. He proposed the view that personality development consists primarily of the growth of the ego as the person confronts the major tasks of life. He viewed ego as an active agency within personality that coordinates the needs of the organism with the demands of the environment. Many conflict results from the clash between the child s non-sexual needs and desires and the expectations and limitations of his or her culture. Because there is throughout life a total interaction between a person and his or her environment, personality growth and change cannot be restricted to the early years of life. Erikson divided the life cycle into eight stages. These eight stages are: (a) basic trust versus mistrust, (b) autonomy versus shame and doubt, (c) initiative versus guilt, (d) industry versus inferiority, (e) identity versus role diffusion, (f) intimacy versus isolation, (g) generatively versus stagnation, and (h) ego-integrity versus despair. Each stage is distinct and unique with particular problem and needs as well as cultural expectations and limitations. Problems in each stage, if successfully resolved, adds something to the ego. Erikson (1964) referred these ego attainments as Ego Strengths. If not that can undo the psychological damage, can take any forms of abnormality. This ego strength increases ones potential for living effectively does foster healthy personality growth and functioning. (2) HUMANISTIC APPROACH: Humanistic theorists as a group all agree that personality should be studied with the human model not that personality is much more than a mechanical mirror of the environment.

7 6 Roger s Self Theory and Maslow s Need Hierarchy Theory are the main theories of this category. Rogers s Person-Centered Theory: Rogers is associated with the phenomenological approach, which refers to the study of subjective experiences as the major determinants of behaviour. The self-concept is the key internal source of behaviour. He held that psychological imbalances and disharmony results from a discrepancy between the conception of self and the real self. Congruity between self and self-awareness promotes healthy personality growth and functioning. Rogers (1951) My theory pictures the end point of personality development as being a basic congruence between the phenomenal field of experience and the conceptual structure of the self - a situation which, if achieved would represent freedom from internal strain and anxiety, and freedom from potential strain; which would represent the maximum in realistically oriented adaptation; which would mean the establishment of an individualized value system having considerable identity with the value system of any other equally well adjusted member of the human race. As self is the most important source of behaviour, thus distortions of the self-concept cause abnormal behaviour. Helping the person to discover and be his or her true self was the most effective remedy for dealing with such abnormal behaviour. To be a fully functioning person is Rogers s ideal. When a fully functioning he or she is giving expression to much more of what his

8 7 or her potential are. Both the sense of freedom and actual freedom are increased. According to Rogers, the good life may be described by attributes such as enriching, challenging, rewarding, meaningful and exciting. Maslow s Need Hierarchy Theory: Maslow (1954) attempted to synthesize a large body of research related to human motivation. Prior to Maslow researchers generally focused separately on such factors as biology, achievement, or power to explain what energizes, directs, and sustains human behaviour. Maslow posited a hierarchy of human needs based on two groupings: deficiency needs and growth needs. Within the deficiency needs, each lower need must be met before moving to the next higher need. Once each of these needs has been satisfied, if at some future time a deficiency is detected, the individual will act to remove the deficiency. The four levels of need are: - (1) Physiological: hunger, thirst, bodily comforts, etc; (2) Safety/security: out of danger; (3) Belongingness and love: affiliate with others, be accepted; and (4) Esteem: to achieve, to competent, gain approval and recognition. If and only if the deficiency needs are met then the individual becomes ready to act upon the growth needs. Maslow s initial conceptualization included only one growth need i.e. self-

9 8 actualization. Self-actualized people are characterized by: (a) Being problem-focused; (b) Incorporating an ongoing freshness of appreciation of life; (c) A concern about personal growth; and (d) The ability to have peak experiences. Maslow later differentiated the growth need of self-actualization, adding two growth needs prior to self-actualization and one beyond that level. They are: - (5) Cognitive: to know, to understand, and explore the world, to appreciate it and accept it for what it is, to learn the nature of truth and wisdom (6) Aesthetic: to prefer symmetry; have a liking for order and to look for beauty; (7) Self-actualization: to find self-fulfillment and realize one s potential; to exhibit a continued freshness of appreciation, to discriminate between means and ends; (8) Transcendence: to help others find self-fulfillment and realize their potential, assisting in the development of other s character, relationships to the unknown. Maslow s basic position is that as one becomes more selfactualized and transcendent, one becomes more wise (develops wisdom) and automatically knows what to do in a wide variety of situations. Maslow held that what some psychologists consider normal behaviour may also be forms of personality disorder. He in 1971

10 9 termed these disorders 'Metapathlogies because they are the illness resulting form frustration or deprivation of needs. Deprivation of a need produces some form of illness. The deprivation of deficit needs may be directly experienced. Deprivation of the growth or metaneeds is not clearly felt but the consequences may be evident. Whether or not the individual experiences the needs, does not change the fact that their frustrations hinder growth and functioning of personality. The result of disorder includes the immature, the inadequate and the infantile personality types and other character disorders. The person may lack social feeling or may not develop a sufficient conscience to maintain control of impulses or may fail to develop values such as generosity, considerateness or respect for the good opinion of others. (3) LEARNING AND BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH: The behavioural view emphasizes Skinner s idea, which stresses the importance of operant condition in determining personality. According to these theorists, the behaviour that makes a personality is conditioned/leamed while social learning theorists believe that behaviourists didn t study how people process information about their world. According to them, cognitive process mediates the relationship between the environment and the behaviour. Skinner s Radical Behaviourism and Early Social Learning Theory of Dollard and Miller are the main theorists of this group.

11 10 Skinner s Radical Behaviourism: Skinner (1953) doesn t present structural internal aspects of personality, as do Freud and others. He maintains that what is commonly referred to, as personality is only a set of learned behaviours that are described in various ways by different theorists. What is important is that the behaviour is learnt and this learning is on the basis of principles of Operant Conditioning. He sees personality development as a series of experiences involving reinforcement. The manner in which a person behaves at a given stage is determined by a combination of hereditary limitations and one s experience with positive and negative reinforcements. On the basis of these experiences, individuals will achieve different levels of satisfaction and will learn to perform different types of behaviour which are grouped under the heading personality. Change one s reinforcement contingencies and you change one s behaviour; change one s behaviour and what is called one s personality also changes. During the process of development the individual learns to discriminate between those behaviours that lead to reinforcement and those that don t. For each individual, the nature of those discriminations differ. The critical point made by Skinner is that one s personality develops in response to the reinforcements which are presented during one s life and that the ability to make judgments or discrimination about the possibility of receiving a reinforcement improves with the development.

12 11 Dollard and Miller s Early Social Learning Theory: Dollard and Miller s (1950), theory of learning is one example of learning theory approach to the study of personality. They tried to reconcile psychoanalytic concepts and behaviour theories but unlike Freud, they based their theory on assumption that behaviour is learned. There are four key concepts in their formulations; drive, cue, response and reinforcement. Drive is motivation; it is anything that impels action. Some drives are innate and some are learned. Learned drives are acquired on the basis of innate drives. Their concept of drive is in some ways much like the Freudian notion of innate impulses that direct behaviour. Cues are the stimuli that give information about how, when and where of a response. The concept of response is self-explanatory. They asserted that certain responses are more likely to occur in certain situations than others. By rewarding certain responses we are changing hierarchy of responses. The satisfaction of any drive is rewarding. Dollard and Miller s formulation of drive reducing property of reinforcement is very similar to Freud s concept of pleasure principle. Individual as seeking reduction of the tension set up by drive. Just as there are primary and learned drives, there are learned reinforcement. (4) TYPE AND TRAIT APPROACH: The defining characteristic of the members of this family of theories is the quest for a taxanomy - a systematic set of characteristics that can be used to summarize an individual s personality. Behaviour is viewed as a joint function of person s characteristics and situational features. Allport s Personalitic Psychology

13 12 Theory and Murray s Motivational Psychology Theory are the main theories of this category. Allport s Personalistic Psychology Theory: Allport (1961) has been termed as humanistic psychologist because he held strictly to the view that humans alone are the objects of psychology. He advocated the intensive study of the unique individual. According to Allport (1961), The psychology of the personality is the science of the individual case. He held that each person is highly unique and can be understood only through discovery of the principles of his or her own behaviour. Allport s theory is often referred to as a Trait Psychology. Personality structure is primarily represented in terms of traits and at the same time behaviour is motivated or driven by these traits. Traits may be divided into cardinal, central and secondary, depending upon amount of influence they exert over behaviour. He believed that stunting of personality is a result of unpleasant circumstances in childhood that may be due to parental deficiencies such as child abuse and neglect, failure to serve as proper role models. In addition to this, he believed that environmental stress and poor genes hampers the growth of personality. Murray s Motivational Psychology Theory: Murray (1938) coined the term 'personology which means 'the scientific study of the total person. He had introduced a large number

14 13 of concepts to represent the factors that must be understood in describing, explaining, predicting and controlling personality phenomena. His concepts encompassed the personality, the environment and the history of the organism. He had a bewildering list of factors to represent a single personality. He placed a great deal of stress on the 'needs as the basic driving forces in personality. He stressed the role of needs as determinant of behaviour. The happenings in a person s life are brought about by the individual. The individual make things happen, and even the things that happen to the person are interpreted within a framework of his or her needs. Alter the need structure of a person, and one can alter his or her whole personality and its relation to the person s environment. According to Murray, a need is a construct which stands for a force in the brain region, a force which organizes perception, apperception, intellection, conation and action in such a way as to transform in a certain direction of existing unsatisfying situation. A need is sometimes provoked directly by internal processes of a certain kind but more frequently by occurrence of one of a few commonly effective environmental factors/forces. Thus, it manifests itself by leading the organism to search for or to avoid encountering or when encountered to attend and respond to certain kind of environmental force. Each need is characteristically accompanied by a particular feeling or emotion and tends to use certain modes to further its trend. It may be weak or intense, momentary or enduring. But usually it

15 14 persists and gives rise to a certain course of overt behaviour (or fantasy) which changes the initiating circumstances in such a way as to bring about an end situation which stills the organism. Figure 1 : Showing how the need influences the behaviour: The figure explains the relationship between the need and behaviour. Needs motivate people to think about different things and take different course of action. Thus need supply motive, which lead to thought, and action. Murray states that existence of a need can be inferred on the basis of: - (1) The effect or end result of the behaviour. (2) Particular pattern or mode of behaviour involved. (3) Selective attention and response to a particular class of stimulus object. (4) Expansion of a particular emotion. (5) Expression of satisfaction when a particular effect is achieved or disappointment when the effect is not achieved.

16 15 Subjective report regarding feelings, intentions and goals provide additional criteria. Murray classified needs into following categories: (1) Viscerogenic and Psychogenic Needs: The two major classes of needs are viscerogenic, which relates to bodily functioning and the psychogenic, which are qualities of the personalities. The two classes are interdependent. Culture has the greatest influence on the psychogenic needs. Viscerogenic needs have a definite zone of body that serves as the source of tension, the psychogenic needs are experience without any particular localization, e.g. there is no bodily organ involved in feeling lonely. Viscerogenic needs are rhythmical and cyclical. The needs come and go periodically as a result of the requirement of the living organism. Psychogenic needs are more dependent upon press or circumstances and do not occur in a set cycle. They also come but the rhythm is not regular. Generally viscerogenic needs are more directly related to survival than are the psyschogenic needs, thus they are more potent than psychogenic needs. Under certain conditions, however a psychogenic needs may take priority over viscerogenic needs. Illustrative of viscerogenic needs are needs for air, water, food, sex, lactation, urination, and defecation. Examples of psychogenic needs are need for construction, achievement, recognition, etc.

17 16 (2) Overt and Covert Needs (Manifest and Latent): Here we are differentiating between those needs that are permitted more or less direct and immediate expression and those that are generally restrained, inhibited or repressed. Overt needs express themselves in motor behaviour while covert needs usually belong to the world of fantasy or dreams. (3) Proactive and Reactive Needs: Proactive needs is one that is largely determined from within, one that becomes spontaneously kinetic as the result of something in the person / rather than environment. Reactive needs are activated as a result of or in response to some environmental event. (4) Process Activity, Modal Needs and Effect Needs: Effect needs are needs that lead to some desired state or end result. Process activity and modal needs are tendencies to perform certain acts for the act of performance itself. The random, uncoordinated non-functional operation of various process (vision, hearing, thought and speech) that occurs from birth onwards. Modal involved doing something with a certain degree of excellence or quality. Inter-Relation of Needs : Needs do not operate in complete isolation from each other, and the nature of this interaction or mutual influence is of crucial theoretical importance. Murray accepts the fact that there exists a

18 17 hierarchy of needs with certain tendencies taking precedence over others. The concept of 'pre-potency is used, to refer to needs that become regnant with the greatest urgency if they are not satisfied. Thus, in a situation where two or more needs are aroused simultaneously and motivate incompatible responses, it is pre-potent need (pain, hunger and thirst) that ordinarily will be translated into action, as pre-potent needs cannot be postponed. A minimal satisfaction of such needs is necessary before other needs can operate. Needs sometimes fuse with each other so they are reflected in the same act i.e. a single action satisfies two needs. Needs can also act in the service of one another - for example, a person may have a need for order which supports and works to the benefit of a more general need for achievement. Needs may conflict with one another as well, for instance the need for autonomy can conflict for the need for affiliation. Just as the concept of 'need represents the significant determinant of behaviour within the person, so the concept of 'press represents the effective or significant determinant of behaviour in the environment. The term 'press stands for the stimulus for a particular person. A press does something to or for a person. The notion of press is that the environment may force the person into certain postures or predicament. Just as needs tell us about the determining tendencies within the individual so press provide us with knowledge of the environment for a particular person. Knowledge of needs

19 18 would be insufficient without knowledge of the significant environmental factors. From the above discussion, it is clear that there are various methods to assess personality as delineated by various theorists. Different psychologist evolved different concepts for studying the personality of an individual. They stressed that in order to understand personality of an individual, these concepts must be studied. Present investigation follows the approach adopted by Murray to study personality to whom needs are the patterns that describe people s personality. Therefore, study of need patterns becomes quite necessary to understand the behavioural patterns of the organism. What are needs and what are their relative importance in human behaviour is clear from the above theories. Since the purpose of present investigation is to study needs across life span, it becomes imperative to throw some light upon the concept 'life span. Life span refers to a number of periods in the life cycle. The life cycle can be divided into following periods, namely: prenatal, infancy, early childhood, middle and late childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. The prenatal period represents the time from conception to birth. It is time of tremendous growth. There are environmental hazards that can significantly alter the entire course of the life cycle. Infancy is usually recognized as extending from the birth to two years. It is time of extreme

20 19 dependence upon adults and many physiological and psychological activities just beginning. Early childhood starts from the end of infancy to about five to six years. The tasks mastered in this stage are the ability to take care for oneself and development of school readiness skills. Middle and late childhood extends from about six to ten years. Fundamental skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic are mastered. Thought processes usually are very concrete. Adolescence is the period that starts from approximately at years to years. It is a time for readying the developing mind and body for an independent, productive life in the adult world. The development of identity and abstract thought also characterize adolescence. More and more time is spent outside the family. Early adulthood usually begins from 20 years to 30 years. It is a time for establishing personal and economic independence. Career development becomes very important for some adults and for many adults, selecting mate, enjoying with others, starting a family take up a great deal of time. Middle adulthood characterizes the phase of the life cycle from years to years. It is time of expanding personal and social involvement and responsibilities for adjusting to the physiological changes of middle age. Late adulthood lasts from approximately years of age until death. It is a time for adjustment to decreasing strength and health. Establishing affiliations with members of one s age group and adapting to social roles. From the above review it becomes clear that besides varying physiological stages people of different age group have their own preferences and attitude to perceive the process of life and with the passing of years their thinking and priorities keep on changing. Preferences, attitude, thinking are some of the crucial ingredients of need patterns. Needs

21 20 keep on changing with advancement of age and there is definitely a difference in the need patterns of a young boy of 16 and an aged man of 70 years. We can better understand influence of age on the need pattern by taking an illustration. If different psychological needs are represented in bulbs then these bulbs switch on and off at different age levels. Not only this but the bulbs illuminate with varying intensity at the same time pointing that while in some stages of life span some psychological needs may be dominant and others recessive, in some other stages of life vice versa happens. Further, it can be said that in a particular age group some psychological needs will generally be present. However the intensity of one of these over the other will differ from individual to individual. While it may be very common to find a high level of exhibition need in young age it is equally normal to find a high need for deference and nurturance in advanced age. However there are factors other than aging which influences equally the need patterns and thus personality. Economic status is one of them. With sufficient access to worldly resources an individual can not only ensure mental advancement by having easy access to education but can also afford to have a healthy life because of his capacity to acquire medical facilities. With his resources, he can buy entertainment, enjoyment, outings and thus release any building up of mental tension and frustration. The middle and lower classes with limited resources, are mostly are entangled in meeting the necessities of life. They tend to emulate rich but their financial resources do not allow such emulation. This continued failure to reach their status bring element of disappointment, irritation and frustration and affects their needs. After age and economic status of an individual, the other factor, which has

22 21 salutary effect on need pattern, is environment in which he interacts. Need pattern doesn t develop in vacuum and it has to have reference to its surrounding. In its large perspective, the environment covers, health, education, customs and tradition, occupation and social roles. All these are organic sub-systems of society, which are responsible for the needs which people have differ in both kind and amount. With this much background we may now pass on to next chapter dealing with the review of pertinent literature.