PSY 130 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Psych
Document Summary
Six approaches to personality: what are the origins of stable patterns of behavior and processes within the person. This is the basic problem raised by theorists and researchers on personality. Another explanation for this book"s length is that in several different ways personality researchers have addressed this issue. To help make sense of the broad variety of personality theories suggested over the past century, we will look at six general approaches to personality explanations. Such are the psychoanalytic approach, the characteristic approach, the evolutionary approach, the humanistic approach, the approach to behavioral / social learning and the approach to cognition. Although the fit isn"t always flawless, each of the main personality theories can be put in one of these six general approaches: still, why so many personality theories. The tale about the five blind people who meet an elephant has almost been heard.
