I have chosen to perform a personality assessment on Sarah, my older sister. The aspect of Sarah’s personality that I am interested in is her extroversion. Sarah is one of the most talkative and friendly people I know; she possesses a sincere interest in people and easily expresses her views and opinions. I will assess Sarah’s extroversion using the humanistic and trait approaches to psychology.
Trait Approach
The premise behind the trait approach is that individuals have innate characteristics that influence their conduct. It concentrates on finding and quantifying characteristics generally constant and steady over time and context. The Big Five model is one of several trait theory models. The model identifies five psychological traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism where; People are rated on a scale for each area, with high and low scores for each trait.
The trait approach claims that a key aspect of Sarah’s personality is her high extroversion. Extraverted people are frequently gregarious, chatty, and friendly; they enjoy social interactions, being the focus of notice and making new friends. Sarah is always eager to make new acquaintances and participate in social activities, which is undoubtedly true of her. Sarah also enjoys talking and expressing her ideas, a common trait of those with high extraversion levels.
The trait approach acknowledges that psychological characteristics can change depending on the circumstance. Although Sarah is outgoing and open, she may occasionally feel anxious. In crowds or unfamiliar social situations, she may feel anxious. Those with high extraversion levels share this characteristic, which occasionally becomes overloaded in environments with excessive stimulus.
Humanistic Approach
The humanistic approach assumes people have unique experiences, aims, and reasons and can make decisions. This method stresses self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-actualization for personal growth. According to the humanistic approach, Sarah’s extroversion results from her humane need for social contact. Humans have this need, and satisfying it increases pleasure and contentment. Sarah’s need for social contact drives her open and friendly nature.
However, the humanistic approach acknowledges that cultural, social, and contextual factors affect personality development. Sarah’s childhood may have shaped her gregarious demeanour. Her social and cultural situations, where she valued social contact and interest, may have moulded her demeanour.
Connections between the Approaches
The trait and humanistic approaches have many similarities despite their different beliefs. Both methods acknowledge that personality traits are steady over time and conditions. The trait approach identifies and measures these traits, while the humanistic approach stresses self-awareness and self-acceptance in personality development. Despite these similarities and differences, both methods shed light on Sarah’s extrovert.
Humanistic personality theory stresses the whole person and their identity. This method assesses a person’s behaviour by considering their wants and emotions. Humanistic psychologists think that people’s self-perception and events’ meanings affect them. (Hudson et al., 2021). Sarah is beautiful and thinks she can affect people, which may have contributed to her extroversion. She is friendly and has held many school leadership roles. This may have shaped Sarah’s self-image, making her open and social.
Humanistic personality theory emphasizes emotional feelings, awareness, and individuality. It stresses comprehending the individual’s interior feelings rather than relying merely on outward, visible behaviour or empirical data. Her self-perception may have shaped Sarah’s open demeanour as beautiful and powerful. Her self-perception and past successes in making friends and leading likely bolstered her confidence and moulded her behaviour. Moreover, Humanistic psychiatrists stress self-actualization and personal growth. Sarah’s open demeanour may indicate her wish to bond with others and reach her full potential in human interactions. In general, Humanistic personality theory helps us comprehend people as unique, complex beings with emotional feelings and views.
Carl Rogers, in humanistic theory, states the importance of situations, behaviours, and characteristics as they all enable the occurrence of a person’s valuing process. This process aids in an individual’s development on the journey to self-actualization. According to Carl Rogers, unconditional acceptance and understanding of children help in their learning and lead to a positive self-concept oneself (Joseph, 2021). Sarah always felt loved and understood by our parents, and our parents’ absolute acceptance and understanding of Sarah could have led to or played a role in developing a high extroversion trait. Sarah’s idea of a positive self-concept is evident; she is always happy, positive, and easy to socialize with. In addition, A positive self-concept is an individual’s view of themselves, which can be affected by their emotional events and others’ input. Self-worth, self-esteem, and self-confidence are just a few on the list of examples. A person with a positive self-concept has a healthy self-image and a positive outlook on life. They are confident, positive, and have a good self-image, which helps them face obstacles with energy and fortitude.
Sarah’s social skills and extroversion demonstrate her upbeat self-concept. She seems to naturally engage with people and form important bonds. Due to good input from her parents and peers, she may have developed a strong sense of self-worth and confidence. Her leadership skills and good self-image may have helped her succeed. In General, the humanistic method stresses the value of knowing an individual’s emotional feelings and the role of positive input and approval in their growth. Sarah’s case shows how a good self-concept can foster extroversion and social skills.
According to humanistic psychologists, individuals are not exclusively the product of their setting. I am quite, if not completely, different from my sister Sarah, even though we are products of the same environment. Sarah’s personality trait of extroversion differs from mine and that of our other siblings, as she is more friendly and social than anyone else in the family. Sarah also perceives herself as a good leader; even at home, she tends to make the decisions normally a parent would make. This can be attributed to the fact that our parents have always trusted Sarah and have supported her decisions, leading her to perceive herself as a good decision-maker. Thus, she can easily make suggestions in different situations. In the humanistic approach, an individual’s behaviour is mainly determined by their view of the world around them. This is evident in Sarah because she believes that the world is fun and does not dwell on people’s problems. This has given her a lot of social confidence and high self-esteem.
Sarah’s self-esteem has contributed to her extroversion. Carl Rogers, a famous humanistic psychologist, thought that good self-concepts lead to self-worth, confidence, pleasure, and life fulfilment. Sarah’s open demeanour, decision-making, and leadership show her good self-image. Her self-esteem comes from her parents’ unwavering love and approval.
In addition, Sarah’s extroversion comes from her upbeat self-image and view that the world is fun and exciting. According to humanistic psychologists, Sarah’s view that the world is fun and exciting may have driven her to seek out social encounters and new experiences. Her trust in human kindness and ability to affect others favourably may contribute to her social confidence and self-esteem. However, It is important to note that Sarah’s extroversion is not purely based on her views, beliefs, and ideals. Her childhood and social encounters also shaped her demeanour as the humanistic approach stresses that people’s unique views and ideas shape their behaviour.
Abraham Maslow, in his humanistic approach theory, states that the main motivation for the behaviour of individuals is the hierarchy of needs. Basic needs such as safety, water, and food are necessary for life. However, as a person grows up, they pursue other needs, such as self-esteem and self-actualization, after fulfilling basic needs (Piechurska-Kuciel & Piechurska-Kuciel, 2020). Therefore, individuals who have fulfilled all these basic needs will likely strive for self-actualization. For example, Sarah has a good job and can fulfil all of the needs in the hierarchy of needs. This has led to her being social with people to fulfil self-actualization needs, for which she is motivated by her ability to fulfil all the basic needs. Thus, individuals are internally motivated to fulfil their human potential. For example, Sarah feels satisfied once she is friendly and can make another person cheerful. This shows that Sarah is motivated by her satisfaction and enjoyment to fulfil her human potential, which is being able to cheer up another person.
Another approach to assessing extroversion in Sarah’s personality is the trait approach. The trait approach to personality suggests that people have specific basic traits, and the strength and intensity of those traits account for the personal differences between people. Traits vary from one person to another, which is why Sarah is talkative and outgoing, a personality trait that makes her different from me despite us being sisters. According to the trait approach, Sarah could be described as having an optimistic character trait because she is always happy and smiling while looking forward to new adventures in life. Sarah does not care to worry about problems and difficulties in life and tends to always have a positive outlook on things without examining them deeply. This could be because of the strong extroversion in her personality that outweighs other traits.
The trait approach to personality stresses comprehending and defining individual variations. This method states that people have a set of traits that decide their behaviour, ideas, and emotions, which are generally steady over time and across scenarios. Sarah’s extroversion seems to dominate her demeanour and affect her social conduct. According to the trait approach, people vary in their trait levels. Some people are more reserved than others. Sarah’s open, chatty, and social nature show her high extroversion. Her social assurance and leadership ability may also be affected by this trait.
The trait approach also realizes that traits can combine to create more complex behaviours and patterns. For instance, Sarah’s high extroversion may combine with other traits like optimism and self-confidence to create a personality type with good affectivity, energy, and social drive. Sarah’s buoyancy, self-confidence, and open personality could help her handle social settings.
Finally, the trait approach to personality is useful for comprehending and defining personality variations. In Sarah’s case, her high extroversion is a visible and prevalent trait that likely combines with other traits to create her unique personality profile. By studying their behavioural traits, psychologists can learn a lot about how people think, feel, and act.
Researcher Gordon Allport first developed trait theory with the idea that personality was like a series of construction blocks grouped into cardinal, central, and secondary trait categories. Allport believed that personalities were determined biologically and could be shaped by the individual’s environment (Spielman et al., 2021). Allport described cardinal traits as being rare and dominant in a person, where the dominance of a cardinal trait can shape a person’s behaviour entirely. Central traits comprise the core of one’s personality, such as honesty or anxiety. Lastly, secondary traits only appear in certain situations and relate to attitudes and preferences. Sarah could be described using the central traits of being outgoing and talkative and the second trait of being empathetic.
Sarah’s willingness to help at a domestic violence refuge is an excellent illustration of her compassionate nature. Sarah devoted much of her time to comforting and listening to the survivors. The ladies appreciated her kindness and empathy, which made them feel like they weren’t alone. This empathic quality, which is tertiary and manifests itself in certain contexts, like when she volunteers at the refuge, is not always visible in her behaviour. Still, it’s a significant part of who she is and makes her better rounded.
One of the trait approach theorists is Hans Eysenck; in his theory of personality, he focused on temperaments that were highly controlled by influences in genetics. According to Hans Eysenck, personality has three dimensions: extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Hans Eysenck discusses that the traits a person presents help describe their personality (Jayawickreme et al., 2019). Hans described an extrovert as having high self-esteem, being outgoing, confident in social groups, and energized around people. This personality trait of the extroversion dimension in the trait approach of Hans Eysenck’s theory of personality best describes personality of Sarah.
To elaborate on his theory of extroversion, Eysenck proposed that outgoing people seek out exterior stimuli to increase their alertness level because they have lower levels of cerebral arousal than introverted people. This extrinsic stimulus could come from engaging conversation, and novel encounters to intoxicating narcotics and liquor. Sarah’s gregarious personality could be interpreted as a strategy for seeking out exterior stimuli to raise her excitation level and, in turn, boost her energy and happiness. Sarah’s enjoyment of, and possibly greater benefit from, social circumstances may be explained by the idea proposed by Eysenck that outgoing people have a lower barrier to the positive feedback of social contact.
The characteristic method has its detractors, and that needs to be addressed. Critics say it caricatures people and ignores external factors. Trait theories also ignore the many biological, psychological, and social factors that shape an individual’s personality.
However, the trait method has helped us better comprehend the interplay between character and action by shedding light on the observable habits and routines that people tend to follow.
Furthermore, in his contribution to trait theory, Raymond Cattell constructed a structure of the sixteen-factor model of personality in which he explains the differences between individuals in forming their personalities. Raymond Cattell further states that personality traits are divided into common and unique traits. Common traits are shared to varying extents by members, and few or no other people share unique traits. Sarah’s personality trait of being talkative, outgoing, and social is unique. In contrast, some other traits, like dependency and intelligence, are traits I can identify within myself and my brothers.
There is a continued influence of the humanistic approach, where psychologists apply this theory to help people live positively. This includes humanistic therapy for treating mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Through the humanistic approach, a person can be helped to attain self-actualization needs and feel motivated and optimistic in life, leading to human behaviours such as feeling happy and being friendly to others (Hudson et al., 2021). On the other hand, the trait approach has created a lot of debate on the number of basic traits leading to human personality. Traits could be poor predictors of a person’s behaviour because they might not always portray such traits in every situation. It is not in every situation that Sarah is social and talkative.
Conclusively, I have conducted a personality assessment on Sarah through behavioural observation. Having interacted with her almost all my life, I know the personality trait that stands out in her is being extroverted. Sarah’s personality can be described through her fulfilment of self-actualization needs and studying the traits she presents in her behaviour.
References
Hudson, N. W., Fraley, R. C., Briley, D. A., & Chopik, W. J. (2021). Your personality does not care whether you believe it can change: Beliefs about whether personality can change do not predict trait change among emerging adults. European Journal of Personality, 35(3), 340–357.
Jayawickreme, E., Zachry, C. E., & Fleeson, W. (2019). Whole trait theory: An integrative approach to examining personality structure and process. Personality and individual differences, pp. 136, 2–11.
Spielman, R. M., Dumper, K., Jenkins, W., Lacombe, A., Lovett, M., & Perlmutter, M. (2021). Trait Theorists. Psychology-H5P Edition.
Piechurska-Kuciel, E., & Piechurska-Kuciel, E. (2020). Personality: Definitions, approaches, and theories. The Big Five in SLA, 1-25.
Joseph, S. (2021). How Is Humanistic Positive Psychology? Lessons in Positive Psychology from Carl Rogers’ Person-Centered Approach—It’s the Social Environment That Must Change. Frontiers in Psychology, p. 12, 709789.
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