Having studied the field of personality study, the field of psychology, for over 50 years, I was quite excited to discover Dr. C. George Boeree. He is a professor in the psychology department at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. He has taken all his learning and life experiences and written his ultimate theory of personality.

For this page, I am going to summarize his main categories for an easy reference about each. Be sure to check his website for a more total explanation of each.

Conscious and the Unconscious: Sigmund Freud

(1) Biological: mating, assertive, social, and nurturing complexes.

(2) Social unconscious: our language, social taboos, cultural habits, etc.

(3) Personal unconscious: defense mechanisms, personal habits, etc.

(4) Most important to remember about consciousness is that is personal for each of us and therefore unique.

Stages: Three transitional stages: infancy, adolescence and senescence.

(1) Fetal and infancy stages—develop our temperaments

(found in hormones and neurotransmitters)

(2) Child stage—develop our personality (founded in habits)

(3) Adolescence—develop character (based on conscious

Decision-making)

Temperament: Jung—Eysenck—Big Five

(1) Established genetically: emotional stability and extraversion/introversion

(2) Conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness

(3) Psychoticism (Eysenck), activity (Buss and Plomin),

impulsivity (Buss and Plomin).

Learning:

(1) Environmental—many theorists

(2) Social—vicarious learning and imitation (probably the most significant for personality development

(3) Verbal—from words

Emotions:

(1) Pain and pleasure—distress and delight

(2) Anxiety—anticipation of fear

(3) Fear—imminent harm

(4) Guilt—related to shame. Guilt may be when we contravene our own self-definition which may also be regret.

(5) Sadness—world isn’t as it should be. Grief is the extreme sadness and depression is the unrealistic sadness that lingers

(6) Anger—same situation but we have energized ourselves to change the situation. Aggression is when we use our anger and hostility is unrealistic anger.

Motivation:

(1) Biological motivations—mostly instinctual and instinct

(2) Social motivations—needs for acceptance, approval,

and attention

(3) Personal motivation--habits, defense mechanisms,

and our styles

(4) Higher motivations competence and altruistic

(5) All motivations can be summed by as actualization

As defined by Rogers, Jung, and Horney

Neurosis: If we experience childhood traumas without necessary parental buffers of positive regard, we have an on-going apprehension about life and no longer trust life. So we develop defense mechanisms. We defend our sensitive egos by denial, repression, distortion, and rationalization.

These defense mechanisms help us when we are young, but if maintained during adulthood, they cause us to avoid becoming who we really are.

Coping strategies:

(1) Dependent style—inferiority and weakness in the inferiority complex

(2) Aggressive style—the superiority complex

(3) Perfectionist style—anal retentive or hoarding

(4) Schizoid style—avoiding or withdrawing

(5) Infantile style—avoid responsibility

Therapy:

(1) Emphasis on sell-awareness

(2) Encourage conscious, higher motivations

(3) Use caring dialog and provide support with the

goal of eventual autonomy

(4) Use of drugs that help

Because Dr. Boeree is visual (NLP), he has designed a graph of all this ultimate theory that I won’t attempt to repeat or explain. You can see it at his website here.