ipl-logo

Melvin Udall's Theories Of Personality

1479 Words6 Pages

Personality makes us who we are and it plays a significant role in influencing most of our daily decisions such as what we choose to do for a living, who we choose to be our friends, our romantic partners and how we interact with our family (About.com). However, the question still remains about what personality is? According to Wade and Tavris, Personality refers to the distinctive pattern of behaviour, mannerism, thoughts and emotions that characterizes an individual over time (2008). Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, along with others who came after him studied Personality and developed theories of personality that are still referenced today. For instance, the movie “As Good as It Gets” comprises of several characters with different personalities, offering an ideal arena to analyse each character by the different theories of personality. Given these points, this analysis focuses on the main …show more content…

OCD is a common, chronic and long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring thoughts (obsessions) and behaviours (compulsions) that he or she feels the urge to repeat over and over (National Institute of Mental Health, 2016). Therefore, Melvin is obsessed with the fear of contamination, organization, control and doubt. Based on Sigmund Freud theory of Psychodynamic, adult personality is formed through primarily by experiences in early childhood. Throughout the movie, Melvin only speaks one time about his childhood experience and based on this, there is the impression that his father wanted him to play the piano perfect. As a result, he now has that obsession of organization and control. In addition, he is afraid of walking on the cracks, suggesting that something bad happened to him when he was a kid and now he is obsessed with fear that something is going to happen if he does walk on

Show More
Related
1070 Words | 5 Pages

He grew up hating his parents and showed no sympathy when they died. He didn’t attend either of their funerals and thought that his dad deserved to die. He did think however, that his mom was trapped and upset with herself that the dad was so abusive. He stated that his dad would come home from work and just beat him up for no reason. This led him to feel nothing for anyone and started killing and torturing pets just to past time.

Read More
930 Words | 4 Pages

Every individual goes through different experiences that mold them into who they are. The combination of their genetic makeup, the environment in which an individual is exposed to, peers, culture, and many other factors determine who they are as an individual (Twenge & Campbell, 2016). This is also what is considered to be an individual’s personality. It is the greatest influence on how an individual will react in any given situation; not everyone will react the same in any situation. Personality is the recurring patterns of thoughts, behaviors, and feelings that can be seen across all situations and time (Twenge & Campbell, 2016, p. 6).

Read More
1576 Words | 7 Pages

Within the past few decades there has been a large amount of research focused directly on the understanding of personality. Over the years personality psychologists have been searching for ways of mapping out personality as a whole, providing methods of measurement and a deeper insight into human behavior. The theories that have been developed help us understand and predict human behavior, whether that be within a group, society or as an individual. Trait theorist's work on the belief that a person's personality is defined by what kind of traits they possess. A personality trait can be defined as "… relatively stable cognitive, emotional and behavioral characteristics of people that help establish their individual identities and distinguish

Read More
415 Words | 2 Pages

In the film, obsessive-compulsive disorders is portrayed negatively at the onset of the film. The way Melvin behaved, the way that he would treat people would show the audience that having a mental disorder such as OCD is a bad thing. Towards the middle of the film and to the end of the film, Melvin has to take care of his neighbor’s dog, Verdell, this is when Melvin tries stop his repetitive locking of the door. He still got really anxious and continued to lock the door five times but he gave it a try, which was the first time in the entire film that Melvin was willing to help himself. When Melvin was out with the dog, the dog began to act like Melvin by jumping over cracks on the ground.

Read More
790 Words | 4 Pages

Internal feelings that lead Melvin to participating in these behaviors is persistent fear and anxiety for not following through as his mind is invaded with pessimistic thoughts. Resisting the intrusive thoughts gives arousal to more anxiety and in future incidents will subject itself with more intensity.(American Psychiatric Association, 2023). Furthermore, this disorder impacts Melvin’s relationships with others because it puts his needs before others and denies him the access to establishing a good connection. Noting that a relationship needs input from both sides and not only

Read More
1231 Words | 5 Pages

The Various Perspectives of Personality There have been numerous studies of the factors that can affect a person’s personality. Typically, these studies always reflected on what role a child’s early life played in their adult personalities. The character of Howard Hughes from the movie The Aviator was a fitting example of the many effective factors (Scorsese, 2004). This paper’s purpose is to examine and describe theories such as the psychoanalysis perspective, physiological perspective, and biological perspective of personality traits. Psychoanalysis Perspective Erik Erikson was a student of Freud whose approach to psychoanalysis was called ego psychology (Larsen & Buss, 2008).

Read More
702 Words | 3 Pages

With more 360 stores in multiple geographical locations and approximately $12 billion in annual sales, Whole Foods has proven that they know what it takes to be successful. Due to the business that Whole Foods are in, specializing in natural and organic food products among other products, it is crucial that their associates possess significant knowledge about the products within their area of responsibility. As a result, training and associate learning is more important for Whole Foods in comparison to other grocery stores. In other grocery stores clerks are required to be friendly and courteous and basically know where specific products are located within the store.

Read More
1458 Words | 6 Pages

This research essay would focus in the different causes of individual differences in personality. According to Hans Eysenck, a psychologist, he believed that personality develops from the inherited genes that are from our parents. He developed Big 5 theory which consisted of 5 basis traits that he believed to make up personality.

Read More
2149 Words | 9 Pages

Over the years, many theories have been developed to study the human personality. Some of the notable theories are psychoanalytic theory, trait theory, humanistic theory and behavioural theory. In this assignment, we have chosen to compare and contrast the psychoanalytic and humanistic theories. Psychoanalytic Theory

Read More
2258 Words | 10 Pages

In this essay Carl Roger’s person-centered, humanistic theory will be discussed in relation to the movie ‘The black swan’. Nina’ s personality will be outlined by looking at Rogers key concepts in his theory, namely: the actualizing tendency, the self concept, the organismic valuing process, conditions of worth, conditional and unconditional positive regard, congruence and incongruence. Nina’s relationship with her Mom, Lilly and Thomas will be looked at in relation to how it has shaped her personality and if Nina moves towards any actualization. Roger defines self-concept by putting it into 4 categories namely self worth, self-image and ideal self (Roger, 1902). Self worth is our confidence in our own abilities (Roger, 1902).

Read More
1573 Words | 7 Pages

In 1923, Sigmund Freud proposed his theory that the make-up of an individual’s personality is largely governed by three fundamental components: the id, the ego, and the superego. Working through the unconscious and shaping behavior according to psychological fixations and conflicts or lack thereof, these elements evolve through five levels of psychosexual development (Freud, 1962). However, in spite of its compelling approach to the phenomenon, Freud’s structural theory of personality is riddled with limitations and as such, is subject to much criticism. The mind is layered into three states: the conscious, referring to the thoughts currently in our forefront; the preconscious, idle thoughts that can be easily accessed and brought to the conscious; and the unconscious, which houses the more instinctual drives that are repressed because it threatens the conscious’ equilibrium (Cloninger, 1996).

Read More
897 Words | 4 Pages

Alfred Adler was born in Vienna on February 7, 1870. He studied Medicine at the University of Vienna and he graduated in 1895. In 1898, he began to practice as an ophthalmologist, although he soon replaced this specialty with general medicine, then with neurology, and finally, he opted for psychiatry (in fact, he is considered the first child psychiatrist). At first, he was attending the Psychological Society on Wednesday at Sigmund Froid 's house, but soon he turned away from the ideas of the famous psychologist (Adler didn 't think that mental problems always had their origin in sexual trauma, as Freud did). He founded Individual psychology and wrote books about it and about his theory of personality (topics that I am going to talk about

Read More
1773 Words | 8 Pages

The Carl Rogers theory of the self-concept will explain the development and structure of personality, whereas Victor Frankl’s theory will explain the meaning of life as a dynamic of personality. Carl Rogers’s personality

Read More
1338 Words | 6 Pages

Personality is one of the main areas of psychology research. Over the years, researchers developed theories trying to explain how people are different and similar. Personality traits were grouped together to be determinants of more general traits such as Extraversion, Agreeableness or Neuroticism. The traits were tested for various correlations. All this to better understand why people behave the way they do and how big impact does the personality have on behaviour.

Read More
1647 Words | 7 Pages

Personality is defined as the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual 's unique character. Personality theory is the approaches to understanding the “What”, “How” and “When” of characteristics and features that make up an individual 's personality. An insight into personality is important to understand the function of a person’s mind. By doing this you would be able to understand and observe your own psyche from an outside perspective, interact with others better and understand why they do what they do or predict how someone may react to something. My personality can be describe as Introverted since I am reserved, practical and quiet.

Read More

More about Melvin Udall's Theories Of Personality

Related Topics

Open Document