Sadie Hobbs

PSY 100-030

Project #5 Personality Profile

While I was the student to win the superlative of best personality, Ive never
really thought about my personality or what traits it consists of. Now that I have started to
think about my personality I realize how it is influenced by the people and environment I
am surrounded by. Although I havent really ever thought about what my personality
consists of, I wouldnt say Im a person that lacks personality. I believe its one of those
things Im jus not comfortable examining because I feel conceited when it comes to
positively describing myself. This being said, one trait to my personality would be my
humbleness. While I do believe Im humble, I still praise myself when I have obviously
done something worth rewarding. I love the feeling of achieving goals or doing well, so
two traits that that also contribute to my personality would be hard working and selfcritical. My dad has really influenced me to be self-critical for as long as I can remember.
This has certainly impacted me positively because I can say that another trait I possess is
intelligence. Im no genius but I do take pride in my work. Since I was just a child I have
been surrounded by intelligent people, which motivated me to work my hardest and
succeed like them. One of the most intelligent people I know is my sister Sydney who I
have found that I share personality traits with. My other sister Erica seems to have
slightly more in common with me from a personality stand point. I would say that both
Erica and I are well-rounded people. We are both able to talk to anyone and very open-

minded. While I have portrayed myself as an introvert I definitely have some extravert
traits. I am very friendly and fun loving therefor I like to have a lot of friends and be
very open and close with them. Ive always enjoyed having close friends that I can share
important things with, which leads me to my last trait that I could use to describe my
personality. I believe a have a compassionate personality. While I like for people to listen
to my problems or just like in general, I love to help and care for people and animals. My
friends know Im always there to listen.
As previously stated, most of my personality have been a part of me for as long as
I can remember. With that being said, the trait approach theory supports the idea that my
personality has been nearly the same since birth. In addition, I mentioned my sister and I
having similar personalities however it is obvious that no to people can have identical
personalities. My sister and I dont have identical personalities but I can confidently say
that we both share the well-rounded trait. Could this be biological? We are not twins but
it seems that since I can remember I would get told that Im my sister made over. What I
didnt include is that my sister Erica is 36 and lives 3,000 miles away from me. Only
being around her at a very young age didnt allow me to pick up on a lot of her
personality, so with that being said it seems that there could be a possibility that
personality is somewhat genetic. From a psychodynamic standpoint theres definitely
evidence that my personality structure is similar to Freuds theory of Id, ego and super
ego. If something is going to be beneficial I do believe I have an instinctual urge to do
whatever it takes to achieve that certain thing. This reflects the Id portion of the
personality structure. I think majority of the time I seem to be using the other two
structures. I try my hardest t make the most moral decisions. So that while I am trying to

achieve something I still would like for every aspect to be positive. Thats essentially how
Ive incorporated the psychodynamic perspective. Ive found it difficult to find
connections with Freuds stages of psychosexual development, but they may occur with
other people. I do believe Ive unconsciously used one of the defense mechanisms,
repression. Fourth through sixth grade I had severe separation anxiety. While I know it
was a huge part of my life I can hardly remember anything from those years. I do believe
I have repressed due to the traumatic times, to where I cant recall anything during that
time. Looking at the humanistic perspective I can see that I follow Carl Rogers theory
about being person centered. Im certainly always searching for love and acceptance from
people, which I believe also leads into the next perspective. The learning approach
definitely was prevalent for me as a child and still exists now. I often do things for reward
or do not do things in fear of punishment. I believe that this is the perspective that my
personality is majority based on.
Through this analysis it seems clear that my personality is best represented by the
operant learning theory branching from the learning perspective. My personality is and
has been shaped by the consequences following my behavior. In the article, Operant
Conditioning of Factor Analytic Personality Traits, I found that my observation is
somewhat supported. Staats stated that personality may develop according to the
principles of operant conditioning (1962). In the experiment performed by Staats,
subjects received the word good as reinforcement and then no response for the control
variable. Though this study only lasted a matter of minutes, reinforcement was able to
change how a person behaves. Life long reinforcement can have an even greater effect on

personality development. In my situation I believe my father was my distributer of

reinforcement and will continue to be for myself and even my children.
A characteristic that I possibly would like to change would be being so selfcritical. I would like to change this because sometimes I find myself obsessing over my
actions. A lot of time I obsess over my actions in fear of consequences, which
accommodates my entire personality theory of operant conditioning very well. Therefore,
with the absence of or lessening of my self-critical trait, my best suited personality
perspective would change. By becoming less self-critical I may be less affected but the
reinforcement around me. In order to decrease the level of my self-critical behavior, I
would have to be conditioned to associate that trait with unfavorable things. Because I
believe the learning perspective has been most influential on my personality, being
conditioned to take part in or avoid a behavior is the best way for me to change.

References
Staats, A., Staats, C., Heard, W., & Finley, J. (1962). Operant conditioning of factor
analytic personality traits. The Journal of General Psychology, 66, 101-114.