Personality is the combined characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character. Everyone has a unique personality. The way that people form and express those personalities are also unique. This paper will look at seven major concepts of personality. These concept models will include: Psychodynamic, Neurobiological, Trait, Cognitive, Behavioral, Interpersonal, and Self-Psychology. These concept models will be used to develop an integrative personality theory.
Included Concepts
Psychodynamic Model
From the psychodynamic model, Erikson’s concept of Epigenetics has been included. There is no single determinate when talking about a person’s personality. Both nature and nurture have to …show more content…
There are some theorists, like Sigmund Freud, who believe that personality is genetically determined while others believe that people are a product of their environment. Erikson conducted studies on rats that proved that a person’s personality came from both genetics and environmental influences. With Erikson’s epigenetic theory, neurobiologist Michael Meaney and geneticist Moshe Szyf did a study on rats, where they were able to show that environmental factors played a role in changing a person’s genetic code. In here study, they took pups from an attentive mother and put them with a mother that was inattentive. The pups showed a change in their epigenetic code after being with a parent that was unlike their own (Hurley, 2013)
Neurobiological Model
From the Neurobiological model, Thomas and Chess’ concept of temperament have been included. This concept was chosen because it involves many different categories of temperament. Thomas and Chess observed a large number of children from birth to their adolescent years (book cite).
While conducting this research they were able to put temperament into nine categories: Activity level, rhythmicity, approach and withdrawal, adaptability, threshold of responsiveness, intensity of reaction, quality of mood, distractibility, and attention span and persistence. These nine categories were later reduced to two categories. Activity, which …show more content…
Unhealthy personality would include actions that involve lying, mocking others, irritability and hostility (Kudryavtsev,2016). Johoda (1958) says that positive mental health could be displayed in a person’s degree of exhibiting aspects like personal integration, perception of reality, and the attitude they have toward themselves.
Heredity, the Environment, and Epigenetics
Heredity is the physical or mental characteristics being passed on genetically from one generation to the next. A person can inherit many things from their parents. Their eye color, height, facial features and personality can be inherited from previous generations. Environment is the surroundings and conditions where a person lives and operates.
Epigenetics is the study of changes to gene expression rather than to the genetic code itself. Epigenetics can be effected by the environment and by genetic code itself. Epigenetics was thought to have occurred during fetal development but was later shown to have an effect on our methyl groups well into adulthood.
Assessment and