PERSONALITY; Is defined as the characteristics set of behavior, cognition and emotional patterns that evolve from the biological and environmental factors. while there is no generally upon definition of personality, most theories focus on motivation and psychological interaction with one environment. Trait based personality theories such as those defined by ‘RAYMOND CATTELL’ defines personality as the traits that predicts a person’s behavior. Most theories views personality as relatively stable.
Personality psychology is divided among the first theorist with a few influential theories being posited by ’Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Gordon All port, Hans Eysenck, Abraham and Carl Rogers. The basic psychological processes includes learning, perception, thinking and memory. Each of this basic processes have a function and they all work together to produce complex behavior.
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To begin with, Learning has been defined by many scholars. Example, Feldman in 1966 defined learning as a relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience. This is how we modify and acquire knowledge, abilities, skills, behaviors etc. It works through what happened in the past. Learning also helps us to relate our behaviors with their consequences. It is closely related to memory. The study of learning is given largely to the field of behaviorism. This gave us theories of classical and operant conditioning to explain how we learn. It allows us to vary our repertoire of behaviors according to what happened in the past. There are two typesoflearning namely, conditioning and cognitive learning.
ConditioningLearning is the most widely known form of learning. It is the process of learning associations between environmental stimuli and behavioral responses.
There are two kinds of conditioning learning which includes classical and operant conditioning learning. According to Ivan Pavlov, Classical Conditioning is the way in which reflex behavior may become associated with a new stimulus that does not naturally activate that behavior.
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Example, Ivan Pavlov conducted a famous study involving dogs in which he trained (or conditioned) the dogs to associate the sound of a bell with the presence of a piece of meat. The classical conditioning is achieved when the sound of the bell on its own makes the dog salivate in anticipation for the meat.
Operantconditioning is the learning process by which behaviors are reinforced or punished, thus strengthening or extinguishing a response. Example, B.F. Skinner in 1953 researched operant conditioning by conducting experiments with rats in what he called a “skinner box”. Over time, the rats learned that stepping on the lever directly caused the release of food, demonstrating that behavior can be influenced by rewards or punishment. He differentiated between positive and negative reinforcement, and also explored the concept of extinction.
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Cognitive Learning is the study of the information processing of the mind. All process of thought falls within the realm of cognition. These process operate by manipulating information that comes into the mind. When the mind receives new information, it does two things; codes it as ‘new’ information or retrieves it from memory as ‘not new’ information.
For this reason, cognition also means knowing. There are (3) basic steps to the cognition or thinking process: perception, selective attention, and memory.
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Another psychological processes is perception. Perception is the act of having an image of the reality that surrounds us. It processes the information we receive from the external stimuli of our sense.
Perception is responsible for organizing and giving meaning to all sensory stimuli which help us to know the environment around us and allows us to move and interact with it. These are the basic and necessary skills to achieve an adaptation.
For example, there is an eight ounce (unit of weight) glass filled with four ounce of water. One person will receive a glass half empty.
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Thinking and memory is another psychological process. Firstly, thought is the complex process in charge of transforming information to organize it and give it meaning.
The function of thought is a controversial issue. This is partly due to the existing terminological confusion around it. The most accepted idea is that it objective. This act as a control mechanism in the face of situation presented to us. Secondly, memory allow as to encode information for future storage and retrieval. Memory allow us to remember explicit information.
Memory exist because it is really useful to have information about our past experiences at our disposal. This allows us to make guesses about the future and act on them. Without this process the basic psychological process would not exist, since all are strongly supported by memory.
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FACTORS INFLUENCING THESE PROCESSES (PHYSICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL (NATURE NURTURE DEBATE)).
Nature or hereditary refers to the transmission of genes or traits of physical, mental and other characteristics from parent to the child at conception. The medium of this transmission is primary through sexual intercourse. Thus our genetics determine our behavior. Our personality traits and abilities are in our nature.
Example hair and eye color, potential for height and body dimension are examples of features carried from parent to children and from generation to another.
Nurture or the environment implies any and every influence which an individual comes into contact after he or she has received hereditary patterns through genes. This influence first start from the womb of the mother or what is called the pre—natal environment
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It also includes the effect of training ,trial and error, influence of home, school, neighborhood, hospital, church, playground, climate ,geographical location and anything that stimulate the sum of all eternal conditions and influences that affect the life and development of a person.
Nature Nurture Debate in psychology: It has long been known that certain physical characteristics are biologically determined by genetic inheritance ,other physical characteristics ,if not determined ,appear to be at least strongly influenced by the genetic make-up of our biological parents.