Select the theory that you feel best explains personality development. Use examples to explain why this theory is the one you chose.

Give an example in your life of reciprocal determinism.

Answers with Explanations:

1. Select the theory that you feel best explains personality development. Use examples to explain why this theory is the one you chose.

I've chosen Erickson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. His theory focuses on the effect of a person's social relationship with his own personality development. This theory consists of 8 stages, starting from the person's infancy, childhood and going towards growing up (particularly, his entire lifespan).

The reason why I've chosen this theory among all the others is that, it specifies what happens to a person's personality when he can or cannot complete each stage. For example, in the first stage (Trust vs. Mistrust), the importance of quality in taking care of a kid matters. If a kid cries and the mother or guardian do not attend to his needs, then he'll start to develop mistrust against people around him.

This is carried until he grows up. I can say that it is somehow the reason why many people around the world do not value "trust," thus, ruining relationships. There is a probability that his needs were not met during the first stage.

2. Give an example in your life of reciprocal determinism.

"Reciprocal determinism" is a theory by Albert Bandura regarding the development of behavior in people. According to him, behavior is influenced by three factors and these are: the individual, the environment and the behavior itself.

For example, regarding the environment's effect on me. I experienced my teacher getting angry at me because of submitting a late project. According to reciprocal determinism, this doesn't only affect me, but also the classmates near me who were listening and also towards the teacher. Submitting the late project resulted to my teacher and classmates reacting negatively at me. So, this, in turn resulted to my dislike in going to school.

(Well, this is the case in my life long time ago.)