WEEK 2 INDIVIDUAL

Week 2 Individual

Week 2 Individual

1.

The psychoanalytic approach focuses on the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind would mean that one's behavior is determined by one's past experiences (Cattell, 1965). Take driving to work for instance. One may find that one remembers leaving for work, but does not remember the actual drive when one gets to work. What happens is the unconscious mind took over and remembered past experiences on how to get to work and that was how one arrived. Another example would be that one consciously remembered sitting at the red light waiting for it to change green. When the light finally turned green, one was in an unconscious state. The unconscious state from past experiences knows that when the light turns green one may proceed. When one regains a conscious state, one is in a different location not remembering consciously getting to that location. Just as the psychoanalytic approach focuses on the unconscious mind, the trait approach focuses on a person's identity of whom he or she is.

The trait theory believes that the trait is the innate characteristics that determine one's personality (Burger, 2009). The trait approach to personality is focus on the differences between individuals. People can be classified in groups according to their personality traits. Trait approach personality is built on the assumption that a person's personality characteristics are stable over time. Every time one sees a person at a social function and that person was the life of the party, one could conclude that the person is very sociable and enjoy being around people. On the other hand, if the person was withdrawn every time he or she showed up at a social function, one might conclude that the person is not sociable, but withdrawn and shy. The trait approach personality is also based on the assumption that personality characteristics are stable across situations. During peace time operations a soldier always displayed bravery as one of his personality characteristics. However, during combat time where the soldier's life may be in danger, the soldier is withdrawn and tense. The personality characteristic is not stable therefore, the soldier could not be classified as a brave soldier. Along with the trait theory are the oral and anal components of Freud's psychosexual oral and anal theory(Boeree, 2006).

B.

The oral stage is from birth to 18 months. The oral stage is considered to be the erogenous zone consisting of the mouth, lips and tongue (Burger, 2009). The oral stage can have a harrowing affect on the adult life is the infant experiences problems with weaning teething, and feeding. The potential positive outcome is that the infant may grow up with hope and drive. Hope and drive gives that person the will to succeed. The negative affect is the child can grown up with sensory distortion and be withdrawn. The anal stage is considered to be from 18 months to 3 years of age. Traumatic toilet training may result in an anal personality(Eysenck, ...