The Theory Of Personality Psychology - 1292 Words

Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses on the differences between people’s behaviors in terms of patterns, cognitions, and emotion. Personality psychology has been around for centuries, since Hippocrates’ Four Humors. Personality psychology has taken on many forms and has continued to develop throughout the centuries. Personality psychology is also developed with and from other fields of psychology like child development, behavioral, cognitive, and few others. Personality psychology started its development from Hippocrates’ Four Humors, although it did not truly become it’s own field of psychology until Sigmund Freud developed his theory of personality. Freud practiced what he called the psychoanalytical†¦show more content†¦Freud claimed that personality is developed by age five. He further stated that each stage of development was defined as an erogenous zone of the body (Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital) (S chultz, 2013). Although Freud had many followers, few of them agreed with every one of Freud’s developed theories. These followers take the neo-psychoanalytical approach. One of the most well known neo-psychoanalysts was Carl Jung. Jung studied under Freud and Freud treated him like a son. Jung’s first major point that differed from Freud was that Jung believed that Freud focused far too much on sexuality. Jung expanded some of Freud’s definitions to limit the role of sexuality. Further, Jung believed that although the past does play a role in the development of personality, a person is equally shaped by their future goals and aspirations. Finally, Jung felt that Freud minimized the role of the unconscious (Schultz, 2013). Another Neo-psychoanalytical psychologist is Alfred Adler. In addition to Jung’s disagreement with Freud in terms of sexuality being a defining role in his theory, Adler also disagreed with the role that the unconscious played i n developing personality. Also, he disagreed with the biological and genetic approach that both Jung and Freud agreed upon. Adler theorized that human beings were innately social beings that were individually different from other people (Schultz, 2013). Finally, Karen Horney is the final