Self and Personality
This domain asks you to distinguish the self variables - self-concept, self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-regulation - then match personality approaches (type, trait, psychodynamic, humanistic, behavioural, cultural) to short descriptions of people, and know the main assessment tools.
The self
- Self-concept: the ideas you hold about yourself, split into personal identity and social identity.
- Self-esteem: your evaluation of yourself, high or low, measured by scales such as Rosenberg's.
- Self-efficacy: Bandura's term for the belief that you can execute the actions a task requires.
- Self-regulation: monitoring your own behaviour, judging it against a standard and reacting with self-reinforcement or self-punishment.
Approaches to personality
- Type: ancient humoural theory; Sheldon's somatotypes (endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph); Jung's introvert and extravert.
- Trait: Allport's cardinal, central and secondary dispositions; Cattell's surface versus source traits, leading to the 16PF; Eysenck's three dimensions; the Big Five (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism).
- Psychodynamic: Freud's id, ego and superego; psychosexual stages; defence mechanisms such as repression, projection and rationalisation.
- Humanistic: Rogers's actualising tendency and congruence between the real and ideal self; Maslow's need hierarchy.
- Behavioural: personality as learned behaviour; Bandura's observational learning; Rotter's locus of control.
- Cultural: personality is shaped by the demands a culture makes.
Assessment
Interviews, observation, rating scales, self-report inventories (MMPI, 16PF, EPQ) and projective techniques (TAT, Rorschach, sentence completion, draw-a-person).
Worked example
A student says, "I know I can master this chapter if I practise the numericals." Reasoning: this is a belief about capability for a specific task, so it is self-efficacy - not self-esteem, which is a global evaluation of personal worth.
Traps
Self-esteem and self-efficacy are not interchangeable. Projective tests are widely used but weak on reliability and validity. Heritability figures describe populations, never one individual's score. A cardinal trait is rare and dominates a life; central traits are the few that anchor a description.