Perez, Mary Ann H.

BSA-4102

I. INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITY

The Meaning of Personality

-Personality is the embodiment of feelings and behavior which make man the unique person
that he is.

-Personality has been defined also as the overall pattern or integration of a person's structure,
modes of behavior, attitudes, aptitudes, interests, intellectual abilities, and many other
distinguishable personality traits.

-Personality is the conglomeration of the following components: physical self intelligence,

character traits, attitudes, habits, interests, Personal discipline, moral values, principles and
philosophies of life.

-Personality refers to the total Person in his overt and covert behavior.

Sewey and Humber (1966) define personality as the way an individual is interrelated through his ideas,
actions, and attitudes with the many nonhuman aspects of his environment and his biological
heritage.

A man consists of three selves.

1. The self which the person thinks he is

2. What others think about him
3. True real self

The Id, Ego, and Superego

Sigmund Freud -says that the organization of the total personality depends upon psychodynamics.

Psychodynamics- explains human behavior in terms of man's inner motivations based on his origin.

It is the harmonious functioning or the ID, EGO, and SUPEREGO which merge together to form one's
personality.

Three psychodynamic forces that underlie behavior

1. The ID is the most primitive of the three forces. As far as the ID is concerned, the world exists to
provide him pleasure, happiness and satisfaction. When the person is ID-dominated, he becomes
aggressive, spoiled, self centered, arrogant and selfish and always want to profit in any undertaking.

2. The EGO prevails over the ID when a child becomes exposed to environmental constraints. A childs
tendencies are tempered because of his exposure to parental prohibitions, social norms and conduct,
school training and teachings, and peers standard and influences.
3. The third psychic force is the SUPEREGO. When the child grows and has absorbed many parental
prohibitions and sanctions and moral concepts, a part of his ego becomes his third force. Most of his
functions are carried on the subconscious level. This is now the conscience which establishes what is
right and what is wrong. It becomes the original moral foundation of behavior. It sets goals or standards
which the ego is completed to follow.

Components of Personality

1. Habits- actions so often repeated at regular intervals until they become fixed characteristics.

2. Attitudes -are certain ways or viewing things as in grained, acquired, and developed through the
years of exposure to mans family, school, and community. Immediate older members of the
family who pattern their behavior after their father and mother greatly influence the attitude of
young children, whose early acquisition of attitudes becomes deep, thus these impressions
leave an indelible mark in the subconscious.

3. Interest- is that natural inclination to focus one's concern towards a specific area of work. The
inherent aspect is predisposed, but it is greatly influenced through environmental stimulation.
Exposures at an early age are carried through the years in a family setting, school, and
community, gradually shaping the interests of the adult

4. Values- are ways of upholding certain priorities in accordance with the hierarchy or needs by
Abraham Maslow. Values are best learned and reinforced through actual practice, actions, and
application in one's everyday life. One's value system can be assessed by making one choose his
priorities among money, career, love, religion, education, or family.

5. Principles -are guides to a person in making judgment. The individual is consistent in his
application of these principles which are in consonance with his norms of morality.

The following are some of the principles commonly adopted by some people and used as guides in
their endeavors in life.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows. Helen Keller

what you can do tomorrow will depend largely on your thinking today. Ralph Waldo Emerson

You cannot change the world of man without changing his mind, and you cannot change his mind
without changing his heart. Anonymous

Choose a job to love and you will never have to work a day in your life Confucius

Work spares us from the great three evils: boredom, vice and need Voltaire

If you like your work, you work no more. For work, when you like it, it is work no longer but sheer
enjoyment. H.L. Neri
DEVELOPING ONE'S PERSONALITY

Although heredity sets the limit of one's development in personality, the environment provides the
greater influence. The individual determines how he can maximize the development of his personality
through the opportunities available to him in 1) self-awareness; 2) assessment of his personal assets
and liabilities: 3) personal growth; 4) personal effectiveness.

Self-awareness indicates what kind ot person you are. Are you active, fast moving or slow? Are you
dynamic and full of optimism, stereotyped, conservative, or pessimistic? Our nature should be openly
accepted by us so that our baseline data is actual and realistic.

Assessment of personal assets and liabilities is based on factors such as intelligence, talents,
industriousness, resourcefulness, flexibilities, and physical attractiveness. Just as in a business
enterprise, the more enterprise, the more assets and the more profit, all things being equal.

From self-awareness and personal assets and liabilities, personal growth can take off. Growing and
learning continuously and consistently means total development. Opportunities to learn and to grow are
available to each one as he gets in touch with environmental stimulations that we meet in the home,
school, church, and community.

Personal effectiveness means how useful you are, not only to yourself but also to other people. No one
is an island, as a saying goes. One cannot live alone in a room and exempt himself from problems and
challenges in society. This is a life ot struggle where only the, fittest can survive.

SOME REASONS FOR DEVELOPING ONES PERSONALITY ARE

1. Social Acceptance

2. Self-satisfaction

3. Self confidence

4. To keep ourselves on the job

II.FOUNDATIONS OF PERSONALITY

Aspects of an Individuals Personality

All aspects of an individual's personality such as mental, emotional, social, physical, moral, and
spiritual will be discussed to determine how their interplay is projected into a total Personality.

The Mental Aspect. The mental aspect of an individual refers to his intellectual capacity. How a Person
talks, the rAnge of ideas he expresses, and the things he talks about, as well as his values and mental
alertness give evidence of his mental capacity. The mental aspects depend upon the intelligence. Also
the better the education, the better the personality.

The Emotional Aspect. A persons emotional makeup is shown in his likes and dislikes, whether he is
aggressive or docile, hoe he responds when things become difficult, how quickly he is given to anger, or
whether he can take a job or not.

The Social Aspect. This is seen in how well a person conducts himself with other people and how well he
observes the rules of etiquette that govern society. The child's degree of mental acuity either helps or
hinders him in his recognition or other People's attitude towards himself.
Social attitudes and behavior are affected by physiological conditions and changes, mental alertness,
and the extent of emotional maturity.

Factors Affecting Social Development.

The social development of an individual is affected by several factors such as: 1) Socio-economic
status (Children of lower socio-economic status are more authoritative.): 2) Level of maturity: 3) and
Family cultural background.

The higher the socio-economic status, the higher is the cultural background of family members.
Adults with average or above average socio-economic status have gone to higher education: thus they
have the capability to understand the psychological and physiological needs of a child. They know the
importance of toys, learning devices, the correct stimulations and motivations for the maximum learning
of the child. They can socialize with confidence and can become models for the young members of the
family.

The level of maturity of the child will determine the extent of assimilation he can do, given a
social situation. As psychologists state, the higher the intelligence, the higher is the level of maturity of
the individual. Therefore, all things being equal, intelligent children are socially developed earlier than
less intelligent children.

The family as the basic unit of society provides the laboratory for the socialization of the child.
The style of life in areas of socialization is a strong determinant for a child's foundation as far as social
development is concerned.

The Physical Aspect. Heredity and environment determine the entire physiological system of an
individual. Posture, body build and size, complexion and facial expressions, as well as the
appropriateness and condition of clothes, comprise the physical appearance of a person. The physical
aspect has a lot to do with personality.

Physical and Sexual Development. For girls, growth spurts between 8-11 years, reaches its peak at 12
1)2 years, and is completed at 15-18 years. For boys, growth spurts between the ages of 11-14 years,
reaches its peak rates at 15 years, and is completed at 21 years.

Hereditary and environment influence the maturity of the individual. Children today become
interested in the opposite sex earlier than their parents did. The reasons are new inventions, better
means of communication, improved diet, latest discoveries of medicines, and immunizations.

The adolescent also develops a more mature notion of time. He has the ability to conceive the
distant future concretely and to set realistic long-term goals for himself.

During late adolescence and early adulthood, the ability to acquire and utilize knowledge
reaches its peak efficiency. At 15 years old an adolescent can operate with abstract concepts. According
to Piaget, (1978) Adolescents have the ability to conceive of terms outside the realm of their own
experience and the information given.

An adolescent challenges adult decisions. He sees that there are alternatives to the ways things
are presently done and wants to find ways, for instance, to end human sufferings and Poverty, social
inequity, and false beliefs. Adolescents caught up in idealism often place their ideals before family
belief.

Sorensen (1973) believes that a particularly difficult problem for young people is that adults
seem determined to view and define them in terms of what they do their educational success, their
job plans, their participation in organized activities. On the other hand, adolescents are struggling to
view and define themselves in terms of what they are or at least in terms of the persons they want to
be. He also says substantial dissonance exists in the mind of many adolescents as they drift without
decision about what they want to do in order to be sure of being what they want to be.

The adolescent becomes actively involved in political movements. Self-concept, (who am I?)
looms large before the adolescent.

The adolescent has tendencies to evaluate his or her personality and appearance from the
vantage point of others. Very self-conscious, he thinks he is the focus of attention by others. He feels
that his thoughts and feelings are original: sometimes he fabricates ideas to hide his thoughts: he has a
sense of humor to hide his shyness. The development of a sense of humor is one of the more obvious
accomplishments of adolescence.

Allport (1961) has called the development of humor the core of the mature Personality and the
most striking correlate or insight. when an individual is certain of his self-concept, he can perceive the
inconsistencies of life and laugh at bmse1f without feeling threatened.
 Each adolescent seeks his own identity as a human being rather than as a member of a group
whose image and lifestyle he often feels is arbitrarily defined by society (Sorensen 1973).

The Moral Aspect of Personality. This aspect of personality has to do wit a persons awareness of the
difference between what is wrong and right.

The Spiritual Aspect of Personality. People are generally religious but the differ in what they worship
and how they worship. From the moral lectures they hear from their respective leaders, priests, or
pastors, they acquire knowledge of the teachings of their creator that guide the lives of men, The
spiritual aspect is consciousness of the higher values in life. Religion expresses spiritual values.