Man is the most complex, multidimensional, incomprehensible phenomenon on earth. In psychological science, people are traditionally considered to be in three main categories: individual, personality and individuality. What is their difference? An individual is a category that considers a person as a natural, physical being, as a highly developed animal with its organic needs, however, fundamentally different from other animals. Personality is a social category. These are the characteristics of a person that are acquired by him in society, connect him with his environment and make him a representative of a social group, community of people. Finally, individuality is a characteristic of a person as a natural phenomenon and as a member of society in the totality and relationship. Individuality is formed throughout life.
Personality is the basic concept of psychology. However, in modern science there is still no universally accepted definition of it, because the phenomenon is very complex and multifaceted. In foreign and domestic psychology, several fundamental theories of personality have developed, each of which gives its own interpretation of its structure and development.
Psychodynamic theory of personality
The founder of the theory of psychoanalysis, Z. Freud, at the beginning of the 20th century formulated his personality model. According to Freud, the instincts of life and death underlie personal development and existence. The most important of which he considered sexual, which throughout life at the very early stages of development and to a very old age, control human behavior. In the structure of personality, the psychoanalyst identified three main components that are in constant conflict and thereby provide incentives for development: Id, Ego and Super-Ego. The eid in the personality constantly strives to satisfy desires and drives, to a constant every minute discharge, the Ego - before satisfying, correlates these desires with the ideas about the norms of social morality that are presented by the Super Ego. Intrapersonal conflict caused by the struggle of these three structures can lead to mental disorders, neurosis and somatic diseases.
The psychodynamic theory of personality was later revised by the student and follower of Freud K.G. Jung. He created his own analytical theory, which was based on other ideas about the structure of personality. The analytical scientist believed that the development of personality is facilitated not by sexual instinct, but by creative life energy. Jung’s personality theory identifies three components of this energy: the ego - the conscious part of the subjective world, the personal unconscious - experiences and complexes formed, squeezed out of consciousness, the collective unconscious - the deepest layer of the subjective, which is woven from archetypes - vague images, patterns of behavior, collected from the experience of everything of humanity.
Behavioral Theory of Personality
The basis of this theory is the idea of behavioral psychologists that a person consists of experience acquired by a person during his life, under the influence of his environment. The main structural elements of the personality are reflexes and skills obtained as a result of social learning. Moreover, some psychologists believed that the personality develops due to external environmental circumstances, while others considered the life goals and expectations that a person seeks to realize from their realization as incentives for its development.
Cognitive personality theory
This theory was justified by the American psychologist J. Kelly, who believed that the development of personality is based on the processes of a person’s understanding of his life in the totality of the past, present and future with the help of the world models constructed by him, peculiar constructs. Thus, a person consists of a system of such constructs, views and interpretations by a person of the world around him. People with similar constructs are attracted to each other. This is how love, friendship, group interaction and mutual understanding arise.
Any theory of personality that exists in psychology tries to present its vision of the complex and multifaceted concept of "personality."