Personality theories and assessments Psychodynamic theories are based on the premise that human behavior and relationships are shaped by conscious and unconscious influences. Along with these theories are five propositions. People may behave in ways that they themselves do not understand. Mental processes such as emotions, motivations and thoughts operate in parallel, which may lead to conflicting feelings. Stable personality patterns start to form during childhood and early experiences strongly affect personality development. Mental representations of ourselves, others and of our relationships tend to guide our interactions with other people. Development of personality involves learning to regulate sexual and aggressive feelings as well as becoming socially interdependent rather than dependent. Humanistic theory assumes that we are positively motivated and progress toward higher levels of functioning. Carl Roger’s thoughts were that men and women develop their personalities in the service of positive goals. People differing according to the degree to which they possess certain personality traits such as dependency, anxiety, aggressiveness and sociability describe trait theory. Social learning theory claims that people internally organize their expectancies and values to guide their behavior. This is a unique set of standards created throughout our life experiences. Determining how to assess each theory and therefore personality varies but there are four common methods. They are personal interviews, direct observation, objective tests and projective tests. Personal interviews can be either unstructured or structured and are typically used with psychodynamic, humanistic and social learning theories. Direct observation is observing a person over a period of time to determine influence on their behavior and is used with social learning theories. Objective tests are scored using defined procedures but rely on a...