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Please provide an aside or constructive feedback to the following two Topics

Sociology

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Please provide an aside or constructive feedback to the following two Topics. Do you agree with the analysis presented? Why? Do you have some additional thoughts on the topic? Share them. When providing your feedback present the logic behind it.

Topic 1

This week I learned that there are yet many differing opinions on the formation of the personality, but they are all beginning to merge. Kelly bases the personality on the individual and the constructs they form on the world around them. Mischel used the cognitive-affective model to explain that people react to situations based upon the situation itself and who the individual perceives it. Finally Bandura introduced his observational learning theory in which learn by observing other people's examples.

The main feature missing from Cattell's theory is Freud's psychosexual aspect of his theory, which is unnecessary. I feel like Cattell's 16 personality trait definition more accurately depicts the individuals motivations and reasons for acting. Cattell's empirical approach to identifying the personality provides scientific credibility to personality studies.

Topic 2

a. This week’s readings have been quite interesting and stirring as well. Kelly provided a fresh and different perspective on personality and how it is based on internal processes. Other theorists explained how personality is due to social environments, family history or psychosexual development theories. His thoughts on the constructs and how they pull people through life instead of being pushed by impulses or by the environment is fascinating (Allen, 2016). This is where I understood his meaning behind his idea that people had a free will. Instead of a person being told or influenced on what to do they making their own choice based on how they understand concepts and things around them. Another topic that stood out to me from this week’s reding is Mischel’s cognitive affective personality system theory (CAPS). This theory states that behavioral outcomes are based on behavioral units that are influenced by cognitive-affective processing units (Allen, 2016). This seems to be very similar to the fight-or-flight response in which one detects a threat, assess the situation and then elicit a behavioral response in response to the situation. However, it’s different because the CAPS tries to focus more on the consistency of the behaviors. Fight-or-flight responses are not part of one’s consistent behavior. This concept makes great sense to me and I actually apply it. For example, when I detect my chatty co-worker, I know she is going to want to talk for hours, which gives me a weary feeling and in this case, causes me to hide or pretend I’m on the phone so I can actually get some work done.

b. Cattell’s view of personality was more reasoned and practical. It was not an idea he got just because; it was based on observation and empirical research. Cattell viewed personality as the actions of the person based on their usual behaviors in that situation (Allen, 2016). He also believed that many characteristics are due to genes and not the environment the person is in even though he took the environment into account when studying psychology. Cattell also focused on traits in order to define a person’s personality (Allen, 2016). He used a sixteen factor trait measure in which participants would self-report their level of that trait. As mentioned in the reading, these traits would be general enough to apply to all participants. I think this is a great method of measuring personality since we are getting the information straight from the source. I think the main features of Freud’s theories that are missing in Cattell’s is the psychosexual ideologies and concepts that Freud had. As mentioned before, Cattell, based himself on practical reasoning and psychosexual topics were not of much interest to him since it did not offer a practical reason or explanation for one’s personality. Like other classmates, I also side with Cattell’s personality theories just because I find psychosexual theories unnecessarily complex and to not be the base for one’s personality. Even though sexuality is part of us, it is not what makes us.