Discuss the psychological determinants of personality.

 Several psychological factors tend to determine the development of personality. Among those factors the following can be specially discussed because of their importance. These include:

i) Intellectual determinants

ii) Emotional determinants

iii) Self disclosure

iv) Aspiration and achievements

Intellectual Determinants

These are one of the important factors which influence the development of personality. Researchers are of view that intellectual capacities influence personality through various kinds of adjustments in life and indirectly through the judgments other persons make of the individual on the basis of the person’s intellectual achievements.

This judgment in turn affects the evaluation and consequently the development of personality. Intellectually bright men and women make better personal and social adjustments than those of average or below average intelligence.

Several studies bear testimony to the fact that bright men and women are generally introspective, thoughtful, creative, adventuresome and have strong concern with problems, meanings and values. They are found to show a wider interest especially in the theoretical and aesthetic areas. Since they have greater and stronger mental ability, they have better control over themselves.

This judgment in turn affects the evaluation and consequently the development of personality. Intellectually bright men and women make better personal and social adjustments than those of average or below average intelligence. Several studies bear testimony to the fact that bright men and women are generally introspective, thoughtful, creative, adventuresome and have strong concern with problems, meanings and values. They are found to show a wider interest especially in the theoretical and aesthetic areas. Since they have greater and stronger mental ability, they have better control over themselves.

Emotional Determinants

These are other important factors that shape the development of personality. Emotions are considered important personality determinants because they affect personal and social adjustment. Research has shown that several aspects of emotions like dominant emotions, emotional balance, emotional deprivation, excessive love and affection, emotional expressions, emotional catharsis and emotional stress directly and indirectly affect the development of personality.

Some people experience a predominance of pleasant emotions while others experience a predominance of unpleasant emotions. This predominance affect the development of personality. The cheerful persons are usually happy and even when they are in a depressive mood they can see the brighter side of things. Likewise, since apprehensive persons are full of fear, they even when there is ja happy or enjoyable situation, feel depressed and remain afraid. Emotional balance which is a condition in which pleasant emotions outweigh the unpleasant emotion, is considered essential to good social and personal adjustment.

When the person encounters with obstacles and problems, unpleasant experiences like fear, anger, envy and other negative emotions are aroused. As a consequence, the person’s adjustments are adversely affected. Such conditions in the long run are responsible for development of many pathological traits in the person. Also emotional deprivation of pleasant emotions like love, happiness and curiosity also has an impact, which gradually leads to poor personal and social adjustment.

Research has revealed that impact of emotional deprivation depends upon the extent to which a person is wmotionally deprived in addition to the duration of emotional deprivation as well as upon the age at which it occurs. One of the common effects of deprivation of love and affection is the development of emotional insecurity. Much of adolescent and adult rebellion against authority stems from emotional insecurity which has its origin in unstable affectional relationship with parents and other members of family during early childhood years.

Self-disclosure

Self disclosure is considered basic to mental health and such disclosure helps to bring about a healthy personality pattern which is a guarantee for a socially desirable and favourable reactions from others. Emotional stress expressed in the form of anxiety, frustration, jealousy and envy also affect the development of personality. A person who suffers from emotional stress makes good personal and social adjustments. Intense emotional stress may motivate the person to go to excesses in hope of being relieved from it. For example, the person may resort to overeating and using drugs to dull the intense feeling of insecurity caused by emotional stress. It has been reported that women who experience greater degree of emotional stress during menstrual period, are found to develop depressive tendencies. Psychologists have shown that people with low self-esteem are more adversely affected by emotional stress than those with high self-esteem.

Aspiration and Achievements

These also have an effect on the development of personality. Aspiration means a longing for and striving for something higher than one’s present status. Thus aspirations are the ego-involved goals that persons set for themselves. The more ego-involved the aspirations are, the more will be the impact upon behaviour and therefore, greater will be the impact upon personality. There may be various forms of aspirations such as positive aspiration (to achieve success), negative aspiration (to avoid failure), realistic aspiration (within the range of the person’s capacity), unrealistic aspirations (beyond the capacity of the person), remote aspirations (to achieve a goal in the remote future) or immediate aspirations (to achieve a goal in the near future).

The motivating power of aspiration varies. In general, remote and realistic aspirations do provide stronger motivating forces than immediate and unrealistic aspirations. Negative aspirations are considered weaker in providing motivating strength than positive aspirations.

Level of aspiration, that is, the discrepancy between the goal an individual has achieved and the goal the person hopes to reach, affects the personality in terms of the size of the discrepancy. When the size of discrepancy is large, the person’s self-concept is severely damaged especially if the person fails to achieve the goal. Not only the individual will judge self as failure but others will also judge the person as a failure in particular if others know about the person’s goal and that goal had not been achieved.

Research studies have also shown that high aspirations are not necessarily a source of damage to the self-concept. They may be a source of motivation and pleasure. They may be a kind of wishful thinking that will not cause any damage to personality so long as it remains a form of fun and play.

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