Personality Theories
11/7/2015
BEH/225
Janis White
University of Phoenix
The reason behind each person’s behavior is through their qualities and characteristics
that make them who they are. This combination of qualities and characteristics is called
personality. Personality forms each person’s notable disposition or character. The science of
psychology has different theories on how personality is measured in each person. The
measurement of personality can be explained through multiple theories from different
psychologists named Freud, Jung, Rodgers, and Maslow. These four psychologists each have
their own ideas to figure out where personality comes from. Comparing these four psychologists
point of view will help in the further understanding of personality. Humanistic psychology was
founded by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rodgers in the 1900’s. Humanistic psychology focuses
on positive mental health, and the know how that each person has to grow from within
themselves through their qualities and strength. Maslow and Rodgers created a theory called self-
actualization. Self-actualization is defined as, “the process of establishing oneself as a whole
person, able to develop one’s abilities and to understand oneself” (www.dictionary.reference.com).
Both Maslow and Rodgers used self-actualization but, each of them took a different
approach. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was an American psychologist who performed a lot of
research on the workings of the mind. Using the humanistic approach of psychology, Maslow
created the Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid which was a way to measure needs of a person through
a pyramid scale. A person would start from the bottom need which was called the psychological
needs. The second level was called the safety needs. The third level was called the love and
belonging needs. The fourth level was called the esteem needs....