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Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include:
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is an idea in psychology proposed by American psychologist Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in the journal Psychological Review. Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. The theory is a classification system intended to reflect the universal needs of society as its base, then proceeding to more acquired emotions. The hierarchy of needs is split between deficiency needs and growth needs, with two key themes involved within the theory being individualism and the prioritization of needs. While the theory is usually shown as a pyramid in illustrations, Maslow himself never created a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of needs. The hierarchy of needs is a psychological idea and also an assessment tool, particularly in education, healthcare and social work. The hierarchy remains a popular framework, for example in sociology research, management training, and higher education.
Need for achievement (N-Ach) is an individual's desire for significant accomplishment, mastering of skills, control, or high standards. The term was first used by Henry Murray and associated with a range of actions. These include: "intense, prolonged and repeated efforts to accomplish something difficult. To work with singleness of purpose towards a high and distant goal. To have the determination to win". The concept of N-Ach was subsequently popularized by the psychologist David McClelland.
Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally, in addition or opposition to employing the scientific method, it also relies on symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, although these traditions have tended to be less pronounced than in other social sciences, such as sociology. Psychologists study phenomena such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also study the unconscious mind.
Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-directed behavior. It is often held that different mental states compete with each other and that only the strongest state determines behavior. This means that we can be motivated to do something without actually doing it. The paradigmatic mental state providing motivation is desire. But various other states, such as beliefs about what one ought to do or intentions, may also provide motivation. Motivation is derived from the word 'motive', which denotes a person's needs, desires, wants, or urges. It is the process of motivating individuals to take action in order to achieve a goal. The psychological elements fueling people's behavior in the context of job goals might include a desire for money.
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. Maslow was a psychology professor at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research, and Columbia University. He stressed the importance of focusing on the positive qualities in people, as opposed to treating them as a "bag of symptoms". A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Maslow as the tenth most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Need for power (nPow) is a term that was popularized by renowned psychologist David McClelland in 1961. McClelland's thinking was influenced by the pioneering work of Henry Murray, who first identified underlying psychological human needs and motivational processes (1938). It was Murray who set out a taxonomy of needs, including needs for achievement, power, and affiliation—and placed these in the context of an integrated motivational model. McClelland was inspired by Murray's research, and he continued to further develop Murray's theory by focusing on this theory in regard to the human population. In McClelland's book The Achieving Society, nPow helps explain an individual's imperative to be in charge. According to his work there are two kinds of power, social and personal.
Thematic apperception test (TAT) is a projective psychological test developed during the 1930s by Henry A. Murray and Christiana D. Morgan at Harvard University. Proponents of the technique assert that subjects' responses, in the narratives they make up about ambiguous pictures of people, reveal their underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world. Historically, the test has been among the most widely researched, taught, and used of such techniques.
A need is dissatisfaction at a point of time and in a given context. Needs are distinguished from wants. In the case of a need, a deficiency causes a clear adverse outcome: a dysfunction or death. In other words, a need is something required for a safe, stable and healthy life while a want is a desire, wish or aspiration. When needs or wants are backed by purchasing power, they have the potential to become economic demands.
In psychology, a projective test is a personality test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts projected by the person into the test. This is sometimes contrasted with a so-called "objective test" / "self-report test", which adopt a "structured" approach as responses are analyzed according to a presumed universal standard, and are limited to the content of the test. The responses to projective tests are content analyzed for meaning rather than being based on presuppositions about meaning, as is the case with objective tests. Projective tests have their origins in psychoanalysis, which argues that humans have conscious and unconscious attitudes and motivations that are beyond or hidden from conscious awareness.
Content theory is a subset of motivational theories that try to define what motivates people. Content theories of motivation often describe a system of needs that motivate peoples' actions. While process theories of motivation attempt to explain how and why our motivations affect our behaviors, content theories of motivation attempt to define what those motives or needs are. Content theory includes the work of David McClelland, Abraham Maslow and other psychologists.
ERG theory is a theory in psychology proposed by Clayton Alderfer.
Henry Alexander Murray was an American psychologist at Harvard University, where from 1959 to 1962 he conducted a series of psychologically damaging and purposefully abusive experiments on minors and undergraduate students—one of whom was Ted Kaczynski, later known as the Unabomber. It has been suggested that Murray's work with Kaczynski helped consolidate the personal beliefs and world views that culminated in Kaczynski's later actions as the Unabomber. He was Director of the Harvard Psychological Clinic in the School of Arts and Sciences after 1930. Murray developed a theory of personality called personology, based on "need" and "press". Murray was also a co-developer, with Christiana Morgan, of the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), which he referred to as "the second best-seller that Harvard ever published, second only to the Harvard Dictionary of Music."
Dependency need is "the vital, originally infantile needs for mothering, love, affection, shelter, protection, security, food, and warmth."
The theory of positive disintegration (TPD) is an idea of personality development developed by Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski. Unlike mainstream psychology, the idea views psychological tension and anxiety as necessary for personal growth. These "disintegrative" processes are "positive," whereas people who fail to go through positive disintegration may stop at "primary integration," possessing individuality but nevertheless lacking an autonomous personality and remaining impressionable. Entering into disintegration and subsequent higher processes of development continues through developmental potential, including over-excitability and hypersensitivity.
Developed by psychologist and University of Washington professor Allen L. Edwards, the Edwards Personal Preference Schedule (EPPS) is a forced choice, objective, non-projective personality inventory. The target audience in between the ages of 16-85 and takes about 45 minutes to complete. Edwards derived the test content from the human needs system theory proposed by Henry Alexander Murray, which measures the rating of individuals in fifteen normal needs or motives. The EPPS was designed to illustrate relative importance to the individual of several significant needs and motives. It is useful in counseling situations when responses are reviewed with the examinee.
Self-actualization, in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, is the highest level of psychological development, where personal potential is fully realized after basic bodily and ego needs have been fulfilled.
David Clarence McClelland was an American psychologist, noted for his work on motivation Need Theory. He published a number of works between the 1950s and the 1990s and developed new scoring systems for the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) and its descendants. McClelland is credited with developing Achievement Motivation Theory, commonly referred to as "need for achievement" or n-achievement theory. A Review of General Psychology survey published in 2002, ranked McClelland as the 15th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Work motivation is a person's internal disposition toward work. To further this, an incentive is the anticipated reward or aversive event available in the environment. While motivation can often be used as a tool to help predict behavior, it varies greatly among individuals and must often be combined with ability and environmental factors to actually influence behavior and performance. Results from a 2012 study, which examined age-related differences in work motivation, suggest a "shift in people's motives" rather than a general decline in motivation with age. That is, it seemed that older employees were less motivated by extrinsically related features of a job, but more by intrinsically rewarding job features. Work motivation is strongly influenced by certain cultural characteristics. Between countries with comparable levels of economic development, collectivist countries tend to have higher levels of work motivation than do countries that tend toward individualism. Similarly measured, higher levels of work motivation can be found in countries that exhibit a long versus a short-term orientation. Also, while national income is not itself a strong predictor of work motivation, indicators that describe a nation's economic strength and stability, such as life expectancy, are. Work motivation decreases as a nation's long-term economic strength increases. Currently work motivation research has explored motivation that may not be consciously driven. This method goal setting is referred to as goal priming. Effects of primed subconscious goals in addition to goals that are consciously set related to job performance have been studied by Stajkovic, Latham, Sergent, and Peterson, who conducted research on a CEO of a for-profit business organization using goal priming to motivate job performance. Goal priming refers to the achievement of a goal by external cues given. These cues can affect information processing and behaviour the pursuit of this goal. In this study, the goal was primed by the CEO using achievement related words strategy placed in emails to employees. This seemingly small gesture alone not only cost the CEO very little money, but it increased objectively measured performance efficiency by 35% and effectiveness by 15% over the course of a 5-day work week. There has been controversy about the true efficacy of this work as to date, only four goal priming experiments have been conducted. However, the results of these studies found support for the hypothesis that primed goals do enhance performance in a for-profit business organization setting.
Employee recognition is the timely, informal or formal acknowledgement of a person's behavior, effort, or business result that supports the organization's goals and values, and exceeds their superior's normal expectations. Recognition has been held to be a constructive response and a judgment made about a person's contribution, reflecting not just work performance but also personal dedication and engagement on a regular or ad hoc basis, and expressed formally or informally, individually or collectively, privately or publicly, and monetarily or non-monetarily.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Murray, Henry A (1938). Explorations in Personality. Oxford University Press.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Flett, Gordon L (2014). Personality theory and research: an international perspective. Wiley Global Education.
- ↑ Shneidman ES (1996). The Suicidal Mind. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195118018.
- ↑ Rosenfeld, Paul; Culbertson, Amy L.; Magnusson, Paul (April 1992). "Human Needs: A Literature Review and Cognitive Life Span Model". Navy Personnel Research and Development Center.
- 1 2 Murray, Henry A (1943). Thematic apperception test. Harvard University Press.
- ↑ Cramer, P (2004). Storytelling, narrative, and the Thematic Apperception Test. New York: Guilford Press.
- ↑ Piotrowski, Nancy A (2010). Salem health: psychology & mental health. Salem Press.
- ↑ Cervone, Daniel; Vittorio Caprara, Gian (2000). Personality: Determinants, Dynamics, and Potentials. Cambridge University Press. p. 348. ISBN 0521587484.