PSC162 Personality Theory
Self Analysis
There are five big personality traits categorized by psychologist which are openness to experience, agreeing, extroversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. I have all of five traits to some extent in my personality, but two of them are dominant: openness to experience and extroversion. For the openness to experience trait, I am a curious person having a lot of desire to learn new things and I often rely on the power of imagination to find the answers I want. For example, when I was 11 years old, I was deeply in love with scientific mystery. In many mystery books of science I read, many had argued that there was something special about Pyramid that could enhance human memory. So, I built a huge Pyramid structure with hangers made of steel, and literally lived inside it for few days at home to determine the validity of the claim. Although I was left with nothing but weird looks from my family in the end, it meant a lot to me in that I made such an effort in search of the truth with conviction, driven by curiosity and passion.
As for the other trait, extroversion, I was always afraid of being a loner or an outsider, and this does not mean that I was one in real. It always seemed right to do something with others interdependently, let alone that I always had to have someone else along with myself even in the trip to the bathroom. The cliché “The more the merrier” speaks for who I am, and I prefer to be dominant in the group by willingly taking initiatives in order to lead. During my school years, I ran as a student president for numerous times, and have been honored with province award for the exhibition of outstanding leadership. Speaking of leadership, I tend not to impose my own idea upon the group members with coercion, but rather I seek collaboration to implement the best solution for the group, not for myself.
There is a small Korean community in San Jose where I used to live. Within the community, gossip is a social taboo because Koreans love caring for others’ to the excessive degree. It always has come to my attention that some gossips could really hurt people because they carry such messages that are based on haste judgment. There were numerous incidents that really caught me off-guard, and every time I heard my rumors, I realized that I turned out defensive and bitter. As a result, I found myself hanging out with my friends less often, and neglecting the connections with others due to the fear of being judged. Eventually my confidence diminished over a period of time when it came to making new friends, and this has taken a huge toll of me because I became calculating and cold. It is ironic that I still consider extroversion to be my personality trait as mentioned earlier, yet it is also true because I no longer open up for random people in unconditional manner. There has to be certain standards and conditions under which I judge someone else to see if he or she is a safe person to get along with, otherwise I would not even talk to the person due to the fear of being gossiped.
As for the superstitions and fears, I have developed a unique habit of praying for any wish exactly when the time is 10:23 A.M or P.M. I was born in October 23rd 1985, and the number 1023 has always been my lucky number. Someone could question me why would I want to pray during that specific period of time, and I could tell the person that the entire 60 seconds from 10:23 to 10:24 appeals to me as a window of opportunity, or privilege that is effective for me only. Thus, I have the slot open twice everyday; morning and night. Whenever I realized it was 10:23 when I unconsciously looked up the clock, it gave me unknown power for the rest of the day. I knew it did not have any special power or something, but it made me to believe the miracle and to be optimistic even though I encountered problems.
Speaking of my fears, I have always felt guilty if I skipped church on Sunday. I have been a Christian ever since I was born, and I have been conditioned to go to Church on every Sunday. As Sunday was always associated with Church, I found myself feeling guilty of missing service. I was taught by the members and pastors that we, as Christians, should continuously pursue the life of Christ in daily basis regardless of circumstances while putting God’s will in the first priority. However, skipping church appeared to be negligence of the sacred connection with the Deity, and it played up as a fear that God might turn his back on me when I really needed Him. To certain degree, I could agree with the notion that the driving force of my faith is fear than the genuine desire to be closer to God. I am a feeble human being and I think insecurity is our innate trait that causes us to desire for protection and guidance. This might have come from my parents. My parents were born as Christian so was I. Since I was a little kid, my parents taught me that I had to believe in God because I could not do anything without God’s guidance. My parents also picked it from their parents. All my family believes in God and never skips the Sunday’s service at church. Due to the religious belief from generation to generation, whenever I met someone I was interested in, I asked their religion first as it is the most important to my family.
According to Bolwby’s attachment theory, there are three types of attachment styles; secure, anxious, and avoidant. In childhood, I was always anxious to be separated from my family. My father was a soldier, so he would frequently get deployed to other region of the country. I was raised by my grandmother from the time I was born to the childhood, and I believe this has contributed to my attachment type one – Anxious. I can still recall that whenever I went to the departmental store with my parents, they used to entrust me to the day care center with my favorite foods and toys. Once I finished my meal or was tired of playing, a surge of doubt and anxiety arose, and I used to wander around the entire mall from the first floor to the top just to find my parents. It was interesting that the fear of being abandoned did not stem from the worry that they might not come back. I knew that they would definitely come back for me, but somehow I really disliked being left alone. After my parents finally took me over from my grandmother, my anxiety diminished owing to the complete atmosphere of family, where I was raised by both of my parents with much love and care. However, I am still anxious about being left alone. Whenever I am alone at home, I call my parents and keep on nagging them to come back home soon.
All individuals have different degrees of self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. Self-confidence is the confidence that comes from the level of competence you have in a particular work. On a scale of 10, I give it a 10. I have been trying to build up myself to be as close as possible to my ideal person, so I am pretty confident about myself. I have also been approved by people around me that I was doing well in my work. There are two main things that contribute to self-confidence; self-esteem and self-efficacy. Self-esteem is unconditional valuing oneself as a human being. I consider myself to be very unique and special. On a scale of 10, 10 to be very positive and 1 to be very negative, I give it a 10. Not only because my parents have been telling me that I was special, but as a Christian, I knew that God was always right next me. I also have tried to treat myself well like leading a balanced life, taking care of my health, and loving and being loved. As I treat myself as a special person, so I expect it from others as well. Self-efficacy is the confidence in your learning powers that you have developed over a course of time. On a scale of 10, I give it an 8 because I believe that I can learn anything in the world as long as I try hard enough; however, I did not give it a 10 only because that there might be things that I might not be able to perform regardless of education due to physical or any other limits. For example, I learned archery when I was in junior high school, but I never did it well no matter how hard I tried. I had a weak grip compared to other girls, so it was really hard to handle archery.
As I wrote this essay, I came to think of myself. I looked back on my background and realized how my personality has been shaped by environment.
