The Terms of Attachment theory
The attachment model of psychology was established in 1930 by John Bowlby, who operated as a therapist in a Child Guidance Clinic in London where he treated numerous emotionally unstable young patients. Bowlby’s experience during his time as a medical officer enabled him establish the significance of a kid’s association with their maternal parent regarding their social, cognitive and emotional growth. Consequently, it designed his confidence concerning the connection early child separation from their mother and later instability. The infants’ attachments usually develop in various sequences. Special bond to a single person involves the baby looking at a particular individual for security, comfort, and protection. As represented in the movie “The Whole Wide World”, E. Howard felt secure and comfortable around his mother than he would feel with Novalyne. However, the latter felt unhappy when their relationship with Novalyne ended due to the unaccomplished goal on making her a good writer.
Additionally, according to the movie, Howard was experiencing inner emotional turmoil. Howard was truly close to his mother and even changed her linen, cooed her, and combed her hair whenever he took a break from his typewriter which he used to write his stories. The strong attachment to his mother significantly affected his relationship with Novalyne. Furthermore, the constant use of typewriter while writing stories made Howard to be more inclined to story conversations than engaging in sexual experiences with his girlfriend, Novalyne.
The Concept of Lifespan Trajectories
Trajectories include an extensive assessment of long-term arrangements of steadiness and change in a person’s life, comprising of numerous evolutions. For example, getting married is a change which results into a longer marital pathway that will achieve stability but also involve other transitions in the process (Geukes et al., 2017). However, persons and groups of individuals exist in various scopes which comprise of numerous interconnecting paths such as residence, family life, work, educational, and health trajectories.
First, family life trajectory refers to the overall arrangement of family happenings during the life path of grownups in influencing their health results. For example, partaking in a person’s own wedding is a shared life experience in all cultures. Although wedding is a life path, it leads to an evolution which includes the shift in responsibilities and statuses within the family of origin and the marriage family (Geukes et al., 2017). Second, work trajectories refer to the careers which links a person’s participation in organizations, labor markets, and occupations as they move frontward, behind or remain on a uniform keel during their employment period (Geukes et al., 2017). An individual’s occupational way can look like an inverted “V” or a staircase relying on his or her preparation and determination to achieve the established vision (Geukes et al., 2017). Therefore, a work trajectory influences individuals’ stability and development since their effort in their career paths will determine financial capability and social class.
Third, education trajectory refers to the path of an individual learner through one or more programs of study. It involves a structure of formal circular activities and occasions, informal professional development events and accomplishments, and finally breaks into enrollment. The various activities and events in education trajectories are influenced by the structures of social inequality, individual decisions, and institutional arrangements. Consequently, the education paths can result to social mobility hence affecting an individual’s choices and capabilities while preserving status quo (Geukes et al., 2017). Additionally, health trajectories are descriptions in the form of lines or curves which show how a person’s health changes as he or she grows older. They are estimated from growth curve simulations which analyze the outcomes that have been repeatedly measured over a period of time. The health trajectories can influence an individuals’ development since any changes in their health paths will influence their general health.
Finally, the residence trajectory is a representation of entities within a continuous and indivisible path over a specific period of time. Therefore, residential mobility is not considered a discrete transition from one community to another, but a long-term process across time and space (Geukes et al., 2017). It influences people’s stability and development since relocation from one region to another impacts their social life and personal development as they are forced to rebuild their lives.
Factors that Produce Stability and Change in Personality after Childhood
Extraversion, which is occasionally referred to as surgency, is characterized by gregarious, assertive, and energetic behaviors. It is the state of primarily obtaining gratification from outside a person. Extraverts usually enjoy human interactions, are energize and thrive off being around other people. For example, such people are mostly excited, passionate and goal-oriented individuals who like to be the epicenter of interests in groups (Geukes et al., 2017). High level of extraversion is also useful for such occupations as teaching, sales, and public relations, which require a significant interaction with people. Conversely, neuroticism is equivalent to emotional instability and can be experienced in moody and irritable behaviors. For example, an individual who tend to easily encounter harmful reactions and have emotive reaction to actions that would not disturb most folks (Geukes et al., 2017). A person who has low emotive steadiness may be more preoccupied from their tasks, by deadline, pressure and subjective traits.
Additionally, agreeableness trait is indicated in kind, empathetic, and sympathetic behaviors. Average individuals usually have a positive opinion on human character and socialize well with others. Persons with such traits are highly recommended for tasks that require difficult and objective decisions. Conscientiousness is a trait used to refer to persons who choose to pursue a strategy rather than react impulsively (Geukes et al., 2017). Such people are usually focused on achieving their goals despite the short-term challenges they may face. Finally, openness is a trait that is used to descript personalities who are generally creative rather than feasible. Being creative and exposed to innovative and diverse opinions make these people high performers and competent in such professions as research, marketing, and other inventive careers (Geukes et al., 2017). Conversely, a party who achieves low rating in openness on job test may excel in tasks that include monotonous labor rather than creativity.
Importance of Negatives and Extreme Scores
Psychological research suggests that the negatives across a lifespan effects incentive to finish a task. Individuals are usually less encouraged when motivation is outlined as a means to achieve an objective than in cases when similar inspiration enables them evade the deficiency. Second, negatives play a significant role in the decision-making process. For example, when faced with situations concerning either attainment or losing a definite sum of cash, the risks of loss tends to loom in an individual’s mind (Geukes et al., 2017). Consequently, the negatives help investors and entrepreneurs in making safe decisions that will enable make safe investments.
Despite having significant importance in a person’s life, negatives tend to be more stable across the lifespan due to various factors. The brain response plays a significant role in the stability of negatives. Neuroscientific data concludes that there is a superior neural function in the brain in reaction to undesirable incentives. For example, negative biasness begins to appear in early stages as young kids are inclined to pay significant consideration to optimistic facial appearance and nature of voice. However, this starts to change as they close one year since at around this time their brain begins to experience responses to negative stimuli.
The extreme scores are the lowest and highest possible tallies for persons on items and vice versa. The psychological results from measures of variations, such as variance and standard deviation, which are used in determining the significance of various psychological behaviors of human beings (Geukes et al., 2017). Therefore, the extreme scores are important since they are significantly involved in determining inferential statistics which projects the conclusive data on human behavior and how those traits influence their lifespan.
Narratives Function in the Formation of Maintenance of Personality
The narratives are used to elaborate a developing tale of the people’s identity that make sense and significance throughout their life. Persons start to consolidate their lives into historic characteristics in their late-teenage years and youth. However, the procedure of tale identity improvement lasts through their life path. The creation of self-central accounts enables individuals to significantly borrow from the metaphors and cultural norms that run over numerous stories they experience in their communal life.
Advantages of Studying Narratives
Narratives allow the examiner to assess how various components of a person’s beliefs, morals, and values interact with another to develop a general idea of an individual’s life. Second, they enable the researcher to discover the social and personal aspects of learning which entails the individual learning to cope with the shared environment in which the study is practiced (Geukes et al., 2017). Furthermore, they present participants in Cooperative Extension programs the platform to elaborate their encounters in their own words and expand their knowledge. Understanding the narratives increases through telling stories since narratives explain and motivate our actions.
Disadvantages of Studying Narratives
The concern on voice, ownership and authorship of both the contributor and the researcher has posed a significant challenge in studying narratives. Therefore, the notions of privacy, control, and power therefore need to be kept in the forefront so that the participants are not belittled as a means to an end of the narratives. Moreover, the relationship between the investigator and the partakers since a correlation that fosters connection and mutual respect is essential in discovering narrative life stories (Geukes et al., 2017). The development of a good relationship between the two parties will enable them to connect closely at a personal level and within the research environment.
Intelligence as a Personality Trait
In my scholarly opinion, personality and intelligence are linked, despite personality traits inclining to specific cognitive behavior. For example, neuroticism is a personality trait that is connected to meditation and habitual thinking of probable dangers. Likewise, agreeableness is a personality element associated with individuals’ mental state. The discovery that Intelligence Quotient (IQ) predicts academic achievement, health, and task productivity also identifies the relationship between personality and intelligence. However, examining the link between the two aspects, it is essential to understand that they are not tested in the same way. Personality is assessed using questionnaires while intelligence is evaluated using ability tests. Therefore, the two factors are linked as intelligence reflects a person’s best performance while character imitates on their typical behavior.
The Concepts of General Intellectual Ability and its Measurements
Initially, the intelligence community had adopted the practice-based approach to analysis which was inclined to train analysts to learn from experience. However, in my opinion, a complimentary commitment to evidence-based analysis used to assess current communities and develop new approaches should involve communication, collaboration, and trust. General intelligence should be measured by observing individuals’ response to motivation, training, and tasks.
I further believe that there is generalized intelligence factor, which is linked to the abstract thinking and involves the ability to acquire knowledge, adapt to new circumstances, benefit from instruction and events, and reason abstractly. Finally, I can also conclude that there is specific intelligence which is measured through skills in adverse environments. Individuals inhibit the capacity to adopt new ways of solving the threats they face and performing tasks.
My Model of Personality
The concept of personality is based on the basis of both observable and roles of expectations in a person’s life. Therefore, if I was to design a personality model, I would choose the cognitive personality theory, which focuses on the process of information conversion and recovery, function of prospects, beliefs, goals, and reasons in the establishment of stable behavioral trait. The model is distinct from personality approaches such as behavioral, evolutionary, and trait theories that emphasize on the conditions which character develops and structures that are revealed in such occasions. Therefore, the approach to personality is specific for counselling due to their principal hypothesis that permanent personality change can occur as a result of rational insight and study.
The personality theory is categorized as either nomothetic and idiographic depending on the conclusion on a participant’s behavior. Nomothetic refers to a situation when personality is understood by an individual having greater or lesser scores of traits which are common to every person. Conversely, idiographic refers to reasoning that every person has unique behavioral structure and may inhibit traits that others do not have. The cognitive model is, however, both idiographic and nomothetic thus is the most appropriate model for studying human personality.
Cognitive personality model is therefore important as it can be applied in counselling in two ways. First, psychologist will execute cognitively centered personality evaluation to choose the suitable treatment procedures for a patient. Assessments will allow counsellors to gain access to a significant number of estimation instruments that measure cognitive style. The procedure is useful since counselling experience is deemed as an educational principle which requires the need to assess the learning style of consumers.
The dysfunctional beliefs which have received significant attention include those associated to feelings of hopelessness, attitude towards treatment, and ability improvement. Effective cognitive treatment interventions have been established to solve each of the issues and address generalized belief systems such as self-efficacy which have been successfully adopted n therapy. Therefore, the successful linking of cognitive fundamentals of behavior can be achieved in vibrant interaction of social, behavioral, and biological associations.
Reference
Geukes, K., van Zalk, M. H., & Back, M. D. (2017). Analyzing processes in personality development. In Personality development across the lifespan (pp. 455–472). Elsevier.