Personality Theories, Free Essay with a Case Study

In this essay, the two selected personality theories are Freud's psychoanalytic theory of personality and Bandura's social learning theory. The two theories will be used to review the behavior of a 50-year-old man who is single, isolated and addicted to his mother. The theories will assist in understanding what factors in the mans childhood led to his personality.

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Freuds psychoanalytic theory of personality

According to the Freuds psychoanalytic theory of personality, there are three components that interact to determine the behavior of humans; these three components are the i.d, ego and superego (Cervone & Pervin, 2010). Human behavior is as a result of a conflict in their mind which is usually unconscious. According to this theory, the human behavior and personality are developed from childhood in a five psychosexual stages. In every stage, a child has to deal with conflicts between their biological drives and what the society expects. Once a child can successful go past the conflicts, then they master each stage and are considered to be fully matured.

The 50-year-old man is single, isolated and addicted to his mother and is under her control. This personality trait can be explained by understanding that the man is still fixated in his childhood stage. It can be argued that the man experienced conflict but did not successfully navigate around the conflict that denied him the opportunity to develop to a mature adult. The unhealthy personality traits he posses could be a result of repression of the fact that he has to leave his mother and get married and have a healthy and normal life. He does not want to face his fear of leaving his mother, so his mind unconsciously makes him not see or value any other relationship than with his mother.

Bandura social learning theory

The second theory is the Bandura social learning theory; this theory argues that people can learn how to behave from others. People can observe, imitate and model how they see other people behave. The behavior of humans can be influenced by other people observing the outcome of behaviors that they have witnessed before. This theory clarifies the human behavior to be as a result of a nonstop reciprocal interaction that involves cognitive, environmental and behavioral manipulation. Attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation make up the ingredients for successful modeling.

Through this theory, it can be argued that the 50-year-old man could have been attracted to a similar behavior that got his attention. It could be another old man who is single. The man could have then gone through the retention stage where he coded what he remembered that caught his attention it could be mental images or symbolic coding. The man then reproduced the images he saw through physical capabilities, for example, choosing to live with his mother because he saw another man live with the mother. The man would need the motivation to be single and be living with under the control of the mother. It could be that the 50-year-old man another 50-year-old man being taken care of, given full attention and living a happy life. This could have motivated him also to live with his mother and not have a wife because in his mind he will also get the full attention and be treated well in a happy life.

Reference

Cervone, D., & Pervin, L. A. (2010). Personality: Theory and research. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley