Understanding Personality: Traits, Structure, and Development
What is Personality?
The term personality refers to a set of features that are more or less stable, not fixed, but constantly evolving and unique, that identifies an individual. The features that form it are shaped by temperament, personal characteristics, and character.
Temperament, Emotions, and Feelings
Everyone is born with a temperament, which manifests in the form of emotions. It acts as an instinctive reaction of self-defense, and its expression is purely hormonal.
It is important to clarify that emotions are intense and violent hormonal responses, but they are temporary. We are born with them in the form of pleasure and displeasure. They originate feelings, which are reactions acquired in the living environment through social control over emotions.
Personal Characteristics
Personal characteristics are formed throughout life when emotions come into contact with the social environment and react to it. This is how feelings are formed. These, in turn, give rise to the personal characteristics of personality. For example, a reaction can become displeasure, hatred, and aggression. However, these emotional reactions are not allowed by the social world. Thus, the person will assimilate and transform these feelings into violent reactions. These, in turn, will give rise to the personal characteristics of personality, such as behaviors of passivity or timidity.
Character Traits
Character traits are learned in the environment with which we relate in a moral and ethical society.
The Structure of Personality According to Psychoanalytic Theory
According to psychoanalytic theory, personality is composed of three structures: id, ego, and superego.
The Id
The id, a term proposed by Freud, represents the world of unconscious desires. Individuals are born with this structure that, with the help of temperament, recognizes the body’s needs (such as hunger and affection) as a way to fuel it.
The Ego
The ego, also proposed by Freud, arises when the individual begins to perceive the outside world. Its action is to understand the needs of the body through the id and check their satiation in the environment where they live. The ego develops from around two years old.
The Superego
The superego, according to the same theory, represents the social content of our character. It begins to develop from the moment the ego starts its search in the external environment to satisfy the id. When the id manifests through some need, the ego tries to please it. The superego teaches the ego the socially acceptable way, through the concept of right and wrong, to seek the object of satisfaction for the id.
Id, Ego, and Superego: An Example
- The id represents the body’s desire.
- The ego recognizes the need in the environment.
- The superego shows the socially correct way to satisfy the need.
- The ego is responsible for the final action.