The Usefulness Of Seminal And Contemporary Individual Difference Theories In Mental Health Is Essay-worthy.

The personality of an individual can be subjected to the categorization of all the measures related to the mental well-being of a person. The mental health of a person is defined by the state of the emotional, physical, psychological as well as social well-being. The mental well-being of an individual is hugely influenced by the external as well as internal factors. The external factors are determined by the surrounding where the personal lives in, his works, the treatment the person receives from others, and also the state of his personal and professional lives as per Galvin et al. (2018). The internal factors which determine the mental state of the person is how the person thinks inside of him or her, the process how he or she handles the stress and tension in life, and how the person is able to make the choices and decisions in life.

Mental health is significantly important at every stage in the life as it determines the well-being of a person. It has a direct affect in the aspect of how an individual thinks, reacts, creates opinions, takes important decisions, sets the point of view, and acts to the things that they face in life as per Crawford et al. (2022).The paper is going to discuss and critically evaluate the usefulness of the seminal and the contemporary individual difference theories in the mental health of a person by citing real life examples.

Seminal and contemporary individual difference theory

The utility of the theories of the seminal as well as the contemporary individual differences are significantly useful in the understanding of the various life events. These theories are helpful in explaining the various cognitive abilities, the effects of the behavioural patterns and establish the relations of how the abilities are handled as well as tackled in the social perspectives. The theories are also helpful in order to determine the differences in the personality, preferences and the predisposition of the life and its unfolding patterns in order to respond the events occurring in life of an individual. The theories of the seminal as well as the contemporary individual differences have the effects of theoretical as well as pragmatic values in order to interpreting the personal and professional experiences useful for determining the ability in terms of the intellectual, social and effective behaviour of an individual.

 

Fig- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

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The theory of Hierarchy of needs is considered one of the significant as well as important theories of motivation. The theory of Maslow claims that all of our actions get motivated by several needs of psychology as per Hale et al. (2019). This is often presented with a pyramid of needs. In this pyramid, the substantially most basic needs and requirements are placed at the bottom, on the other hand, the more complex needs and requirements are placed at the top of the pyramid as per Fallatah and Syed (2018). The concept of this hierarchical system is aided by the opinion that human beings get motivated in order to get their basic needs and requirements fulfilled before they move to the other, more complex as well as advanced forms of needs.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The main intention of Abraham Maslow of was to analyse regarding the learning of what makes the human beings happy as well as content and focused on what they do in order to achieve those aims as per Cui et al. (2021). He believed that human beings are contained with an inborn desire to be posed as self-actualized as well as be prepared to become everything that they can. The basic needs as well as requirements of human beings are referred to the need for food, safety, love and the self-esteem, as claimed by Abraham Maslow as per Hopper (2022). Thus, in this seminal theory of psychology, in the theory of Hierarchy of needs, Abraham Maslow the needs as well as the requirements are considered as the instinct which plays a huge role in order to motivate the behavioural patterns in human beings.

The lowest level in the pyramid of needs in the theory of Hierarchy of needs is known as the psychological needs of human beings, which is consisted of the food, water, air for breathing, and homeostasis as per Stewart, Nodoushani and Stumpf (2018). The physiological needs of human beings include the shelter, and clothing, sexual reproduction because it is essential as well as important for the survival and significant for the propagation of all the species.

The security and the safety needs of the pyramid are placed at the second level of the theory of Hierarchy of needs of Abraham Maslow. For this level of the needs as well as requirements, it starts to get a bit more complicated and complex. At this level of needs, the security and the safety for the survival of human beings is considered to be of primary requirements. According to Abraham Maslow, human beings want to have a control as well as place their lives in order. Therefore, the needs and requirements for safety, and security become the large contributors to the behaviours at this particular level. The basic needs for the purpose of safety and security of life for the human beings include- the financial security, health and wellness and the safety against the accidents and injury as per ?tefan, Popa and Albu (2020). These needs require a human being to find a job, obtain for a health insurance, and secure a health care facility; contribute to the money into a savings account, as well as residing in a safe neighbourhood which will be helpful in the development as well as growth in the human being.

The Psychological Needs

The social needs of the theory of Hierarchy of needs are considered to be love, sense of belongings, and acceptance. The need and requirement of the emotional relationship is helpful in driving the behaviour of the human beings (Crandall et al. 2020).

The esteem needs of the theory of Hierarchy of needs are placed at the fourth level which is considered to be the needs and requirements for the purpose of appreciation as well as respect. At this particular level, it is extremely important for a person to receive respect and appreciation form others in order to get recognised which is helpful in the growth and development for self-esteem and growth of personality (Crandall et al. 2020).

The self-actualization needs are placed at the top of the hierarchy where the need and requirement to be self-aware and being concerned with the personal growth becomes important to a human being. As Maslow defined self-actualization “It may be loosely described as the full use and exploitation of talents, capabilities, potentialities, etc. Such people seem to be fulfilling themselves and to be doing the best that they are capable of doing. They are people who have developed or are developing to the full stature of which they capable” (Crandall et al. 2020).

 

Fig- Theory of Sigmund FreudSource- Google

Sigmund Freud is considered to be the father of psychoanalysis, which is referred to as the method for the treatment of illness as well as it is also regarded as the theory that explains the behavioural patterns of human beings. He believed that the events and the occurrences pose for the contribution of the huge influence on the adult lives of the human beings which is helpful in order to shape the personality as per Fitriani (2019). As for example, the anxiety and depression that originates from the traumatic and abusive experiences in the past of a human being causes huge problem in the life of adulthood. As per his opinion, human beings their behavioural patterns to themselves or to others, however, they rarely provide a genuine account of their motivation to others or to themselves. As he claimed, human beings are great in playing deceivers to the other people, while they are more adept to self-deception as per Starkstein (2018). He emphasized on the importance of what the unconscious mind of the people functions. The primary assumption of the theory claims that the mind of the human beings is responsible for governing the behavioural patterns of the human beings in a great degree as per Jevremovi? (2020). Therefore, the main goal of the psychoanalysis is for making the unconscious conscious. Sigmund Freud gave huge emphasize on the importance of the unconscious minds of the human beings (Fitriani 2019).

The Security and the Safety Needs

In addition to the above mentioned theory, there are three major components of the human minds as divided by Sigmund Freud. They are- the id, the ego, and the superego.

The id- It is the most significant and primitive part of the personality of the human beings which is the source of the most basic urges of the human beings. This part of the mind is completely unconscious as well as it is responsible in serving as the main source of the libidinal energy (Gultom and Astarini 2018).

The ego- It is the component of the personality which is charged with the dealing with the real world as well as helps to the assurance that the demands regarding the id gets satisfied in the process which are realistic, socially acceptable as well as safe in nature (Gultom and Astarini 2018).

The superego- It is the part of the personality which is responsible for holding all the internalized morals as well as the standards which the human beings require from the family and the society at large (Solms 2018).

Fig- The social learning theory of Albert Bandura

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The social learning theory of Albert Bandura emphasized on the importance of the observing, modelling as well as imitating the behavioural patterns, the attitude and the emotional reaction of the human beings as per Bandura and Hall (2018). It considers that the factors related to the environmental as well as cognitive aspects interact towards the influence on the human learning procedure as well as the behavioural patterns (Deming and Johnson 2021).

In this learning theory, Albert Bandura agreed to the fact that the behaviourist theories of learning possess for the classical conditioning as well as for the operant conditioning as per Ahn, Hu and Vega (2020). He added some of the important ideas to the learning theory-

1. The mediating process that occurs between the stimuli and the responses
2. Behavioural patterns can be learned from the surrounding environment through the observational learning (Fitriani 2019).

Albert Bandura proposed five steps which are essential for the learning in order to take place, such as observation, attention, retention, reproduction, and the motivation.

Observation- People observes what takes place around them who are responsible for providing them with the examples of behavioural patterns in order to observe as well as imitate (Chuang 2021).

Attention- There is individual needs and requirements to be paid attention to the behaviour as well as its consequences as well as defines a mental representation of the pattern of behaviour (Fitriani 2019).

Retention- The way of the behavioural patterns are noticed as well as the memory is formed out of the behavioural patterns by the observer (Chuang 2021).

The Social Needs

Reproduction- The ability in order to perform the behavioural patterns that human beings come across on a regular basis in the daily life. The behaviours they observe, they resort to demonstrate and imitate.

Motivation- The motivational factors allow the human beings to be able enough to perform the behaviour in their daily life. The observer of the behavioural patterns is followed by him or her in order to decide if the behaviour deserves an award or a punishment (Chuang 2021).

Relation of the Seminal and contemporary individual difference theory

The theory of Abraham Maslow on the hierarchy of needs claims that human beings get motivated by intrinsic needs of self-actualization. This theory can be significantly used to take care of the mental health of an individual. This is because when the basic needs and the complex needs are fulfilled, an individual can get satisfied and accomplished, thus achieve mental well-being (Stewart, Nodoushani and Stumpf 2018).

Sigmund Freud founded the method of treating the mental illness related to mental health through his theory. He believed that the experience people go through in the childhood can have direct influence in adulthood of the people. For example, if a person go through anxiety in childhood, the person is likely to have depression in adult (Solms 2018).

The social Learning theory of Albert Bandura

The theory of Albert Bandura of social learning theory is used to emphasize on the behavioural and emotional reaction to the others through experiences as well as verbal persuasion. People get affected by the behaviour they are imposed to from the people they come across (Fitriani 2019).

A study Adm Policy Ment Health investigated the experiences shared by 63 clients with serious mental illness influenced by homelessness based on the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. The homelessness of the people falls under the basic primary needs of the pyramid of needs proposed by Maslow. People who are homeless shows mental illness like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, insecured, and several traumatic experiences (Crandall et al. 2020).

An investigation stated by Medicinenet claimed that a 20 year old healthy man seemed to be irrationally scared of mice which make him feel trembled and horrible. As a result, he often feels embarrassed at situations. He finds that even if he touched it, it would make him puke. After the investigation, it was found out that as a kid, he got bitten by a rat Starkstein (2018).

An investigation claimed by Medicinenet stated that a child in a pre-school observed the parents to be lovable towards each other and help each other out at every task they perform in their daily life. The child showed behaviour in accordance with the experience he faced every day. He helped the other kids in their tasks and showed kind behaviour with the teachers as well Starkstein (2018).

The Esteem Needs

Conclusion

Mental health is significantly important at every stage in the life as it determines the well-being of a person. It has a direct affect in the aspect of how an individual thinks, reacts, creates opinions, takes important decisions, sets the point of view, and acts to the things that they face in life. To determine the behavioural patterns of a person and the discipline with which a person deals with the fact of how to react as well as respond to the mass media as per their need of the psychological phenomenon is defined by the seminal and contemporary individual difference theory. The paper discussed and critically evaluated the usefulness of the seminal and the contemporary individual difference theories, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Theory of Sigmund Freud, and The social learning theory of Albert Banduraand related with the mental health of by citing real life examples.

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