Essay examples --

Personality is seen to be the characteristic thought, emotional and behavioural patterns of an individual combined with the psychological mechanisms which cause these patterns. Personality can be looked at under two sub-headings. These are nomothetic and idiographic. Nomothetic approaches deal with general rules and everyone is described on the same set of traits whereas idiographic approaches deal with unique aspects of personality and suggest that people form different personalities based on their experiences. There are four approaches to the study of human personality: trait, psychodynamic, humanistic-existential and social cognitive. The trait theory is a nomothetic approach while the other three theories are ideographic approaches. Each different theory has its own way of measuring personality. As with other areas of psychology, it’s difficult to be certain about which approach measures personality the most accurately because the mind cannot be examined easily. Personality is subjective. To one person someone may seem simply introverted but to another they may seem psychotic. Different characteristics also overlap to create one overall person and inner desires are hidden in the subconscious. This is what makes studying personality so difficult. Although there are four approaches this essay will briefly look at only two of these approaches to show why so many different theories are required through the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. One of the approaches looked at will be the nomothetic trait theory approach and the other will be the ideographical psychodynamic approach. Trait approach Allport and Odbert (1936) found that there were 17,953 different words in the English dictionary that could be ... ...e way humans interact with other people or with the world, it more focuses on what people don’t do rather than what they actually do. Conclusion Both the trait theory approach and the psychodynamic approach take completely different stances on what personality is. Although they are not mentioned, the other approaches do this as well. The trait theory attempts to categorise people’s personality and work out correlations between each of the different traits whereas the psychodynamic approach attempts to focus more on the unconscious part of the mind and what the individual secretly desires rather than what they actually do. It is because of these differences that there needs to be more than one approach. Personality is too complex to only have one way of looking at it, there needs to be different theories to highlight different parts of the mind and how it works. Essay examples -- Personality is seen to be the characteristic thought, emotional and behavioural patterns of an individual combined with the psychological mechanisms which cause these patterns. Personality can be looked at under two sub-headings. These are nomothetic and idiographic. Nomothetic approaches deal with general rules and everyone is described on the same set of traits whereas idiographic approaches deal with unique aspects of personality and suggest that people form different personalities based on their experiences. There are four approaches to the study of human personality: trait, psychodynamic, humanistic-existential and social cognitive. The trait theory is a nomothetic approach while the other three theories are ideographic approaches. Each different theory has its own way of measuring personality. As with other areas of psychology, it’s difficult to be certain about which approach measures personality the most accurately because the mind cannot be examined easily. Personality is subjective. To one person someone may seem simply introverted but to another they may seem psychotic. Different characteristics also overlap to create one overall person and inner desires are hidden in the subconscious. This is what makes studying personality so difficult. Although there are four approaches this essay will briefly look at only two of these approaches to show why so many different theories are required through the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. One of the approaches looked at will be the nomothetic trait theory approach and the other will be the ideographical psychodynamic approach. Trait approach Allport and Odbert (1936) found that there were 17,953 different words in the English dictionary that could be ... ...e way humans interact with other people or with the world, it more focuses on what people don’t do rather than what they actually do. Conclusion Both the trait theory approach and the psychodynamic approach take completely different stances on what personality is. Although they are not mentioned, the other approaches do this as well. The trait theory attempts to categorise people’s personality and work out correlations between each of the different traits whereas the psychodynamic approach attempts to focus more on the unconscious part of the mind and what the individual secretly desires rather than what they actually do. It is because of these differences that there needs to be more than one approach. Personality is too complex to only have one way of looking at it, there needs to be different theories to highlight different parts of the mind and how it works.