Explanations of Personality Development

Explanations of Personality Development

According to Sigmund Freud, what we do and why we do it, who we are

and how we became this way are all related to our sexual drive.

Differences in personalities originate in differences in childhood

sexual experiences. In the Freudian psychoanalytical model, child

personality development is discussed in terms of "psychosexual

stages". In his "Three Essays on Sexuality" (1915), Freud outlined

five stages of manifestations of the sexual drive: Oral, Anal,

Phallic, Latency, and Genital. At each stage, different areas of the

child's body become the focus of his pleasure and the principal source

of sexual arousal. Differences in satisfying the sexual urges at each

stage will inevitably lead to differences in adult personalities.

Conflicts between the sex drive and rules of society are present at

every stage. A proper resolution of the conflicts will lead the child

to progress past one stage and move on to the next. Failure to achieve

a proper resolution, however, will make the child fixated in the

present stage. This is believed to be the cause of many personality

and behavioural disorders.

Freud believed that personality has three structures: the id, the ego,

and the superego. The id is the Freudian structure of personality that

consists of instincts. In Freud's view, the id is totally unconscious

i.e. it has no contact with reality. As children experience the

demands and constraints of reality, a new structure of personality

then emerges called the ego, the Freudian structure of personality

that deals with the demands of reality. The ego is called the

executive branch of personality because i...

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affects their sense of self. Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial

Development has eight distinct stages, each with two possible

outcomes. According to the theory, successful completion of each stage

results in a healthy personality and successful interactions with

others. Failure to successfully complete a stage can result in a

reduced ability to complete further stages and therefore a more

unhealthy personality and sense of self. These stages, however, can be

resolved successfully at a later time. Erikson suggested that in the

first year of life the psychological conflict is about trust in

intimate relationships and that the positive outcome would be to be

trusting and the negative outcome would be mistrust. Personality

development is considered successful if the individual was more good

traits than bad traits.