Social Psychology: The Four Perspectives Of Personality

Personality can be defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as a set of emotional qualities or ways of behaving that make a person different from the next. This may seem like the easiest way to describe personality but it is definitely more than that. Psychologists use four main perspectives for evaluating personality: humanistic perspective, social cognitive perspective, trait perspective, and lastly psychodynamic perspective. I personally feel like there is a lot that goes into a personality than just emotional qualities. The three most important concepts that elaborate on personality include external environment, process of punishments and rewards, and a person’s expectations. An external environment is classified as a person’s outward surroundings. These outward surroundings can create a positive or negative environment depending on the activities taking place. External environments are highly influential on a person because these are the endeavors …show more content…
John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner, both behaviorist, felt that everything a person or animal does is a response to an environmental stimulus. Social cognitive perspective also states that behavior is governed not just by the influence of external stimuli and response patterns but also by cognitive processes such as anticipation, judging, and memory as well as learning through the imitation of models. I feel this is the most accurate theory presented. I believe everything someone does has a stimulus that caused it. Along with this theory is Bandura’s reciprocal determinism. In Bandura’s model of reciprocal determinism, there are three factors that influence personality and behavior; the first being the environment, then the person, and then the behavior. I like Bandura’s model because it shows that for every action there is a certain environmental influence behind the