Theories of Personality: Horney and Sullivan’s Approaches
Theories of personality are different in accentuating the biological nature of persons to influence their behaviors and in emphasizing the sociological factors important to form the persons’ visions and actions. While developing their theories of personality, Karen Horney and Harry Stack Sullivan choose to focus on the social and cultural factors as significant for the persons’ development. The purpose of this paper is to discuss similarities and differences in relation to the researchers’ theories and to analyze the theories’ strengths and limitations. Although Horney focuses on the role of culture and Sullivan concentrates on interpersonal relations to affect the persons’ development, both these researchers discuss social factors as most significant in forming the personality.
The Role of Personality in Affecting the Situational Behavior
Rejecting the idea that biological conditions and factors can affect the development of personality significantly, Horney and Sullivan focus on the role of social factors for influencing the persons’ behaviors and actions. According to Horney, personality can affect the situational behavior only with references to the ideas and visions acquired and developed during the childhood as the result of definite cultural and social factors’ impacts.
Thus, if a child experiences traumas caused by his relations with the other people, especially parents, these traumas can be reflected in the adulthood and lead to the person’s impossibility to analyze the situation adequately and to affect the situational behavior appropriately. Horney pays much attention to traumas associated with the lack of love and feelings of safety and security supported in children (Feist & Feist, 2008, p. 163). As a result, people develop anxiety as the reaction to the situations and to other people, and they seek for love during all their lives.
At this stage, Horney’s theory can be compared with Sullivan’s one because the researcher states that the quality of the people’s interpersonal relations is caused by children’s experiences and attempts to overcome the absence of love and tenderness. In this case, children grow and become focused on the interpersonal relations and intimacy. Moreover, people also feel anxiety in their relations with the other people, and this force is disruptive (Feist & Feist, 2008, p. 223). That is why, referring to Sullivan’s idea, it is possible to state that to affect the situational behavior or to choose between the behavioral patterns, the person should choose between anxiety and intimacy.
Thus, Horney and Sullivan’s approaches are similar in relation to discussing the important role of childhood experiences and anxiety for the further progress of personality. Personality can affect the situational behavior significantly because a person is inclined to choose between moving to people or acting against them while demonstrating anxiety or love, as it is according to Horney’s theory, or a person can deepen the tensions and anxiety or try building intimate and loving relations, as it is according to Sullivan’s theory. It is possible to conclude that the situational behavior is controlled by the personality only with references to two opposite attitudes and scenarios which depend on anxiety and love. Although Horney and Sullivan mention the possibility of developing the balanced personalities, their focus on extremes can be discussed as one of the theories’ limitations.
The Personality Characteristics Related to Horney and Sullivan’s Theories
According to Horney, the personality can be characterized with references to the idea of self-image and definite needs. Thus, those people who are inclined to idealize their self-images can focus on search for glory because they need admiration and social recognition. Furthermore, persons can focus on the idea that they should receive the special privileges because they need power. In addition, Horney determines the type of personality according to which people can be concentrated on the idea of pride because of their needs for personal achievement and self-sufficiency.
As a result, personality characteristics vary with references to the persons’ needs and feelings of anxiety developed in children under the impact of different social factors (Coolidge et al., 2004, p. 364; Feist & Feist, 2008, p. 164). Being focused on satisfying their needs and reducing anxiety, people’s personality types are different, but they can be formed round the exaggerated self-hatred or self-acceptance.
Sullivan’s approach to determine the personality characteristics is similar to Horney’s one because the researcher also concentrates on the concepts of needs and anxiety to distinguish persons’ behaviors. If the personality is the energy system, it works while finding the balance between the satisfied needs and anxiety (Conci, 2011, p. 2). However, Sullivan’s vision of the personality differs from Horney’s idea because the author develops the notion of the person’s complex self-system and personality types.
Thus, people develop their personalities in order to reduce anxiety and find the feeling of security with the help of definite security operations. Children begin to develop the security mechanisms during their childhood when they are inclined to discuss themselves as the bad-me, the good-me, and the not-me (Feist & Feist, 2008, p. 224). These approaches to viewing oneself can develop later, in the adulthood, causing problems in interpersonal relations.
From this perspective, both Horney and Sullivan focus on needs and anxiety as the factors to characterize personalities. However, Sullivan’s discussion of the self-system adds more to understanding the idea of personality as orienting to the protection of oneself from the negative external impacts. The development of security mechanisms depends on the persons’ visions of themselves as positive (the good-me), negative (the bad-me), and dissociated to reality (the not-me). In her turn, Horney attempts to reduce possible limitations of her approach discussing the personality types as typical more for neurotics who need assistance in order to overcome negative approaches to developing their personalities.
Interpersonal Relational Aspects
The strengths of Horney and Sullivan’s theories are in the focus on the interpersonal relational aspects necessary for the complex development of the personality. According to Horney, people’s interpersonal relations depend on their childhood experiences in relation to love and punishment. If children received much love and tenderness, they feel secure and can avoid the neurotic desire for affection or for isolation. Horney states that people’s interpersonal relations are based on their self-defeating behaviors associated with satisfying different needs (Feist & Feist, 2008, p. 165; Paul, 2010, p. 64).
As a result, while developing interpersonal relations, people can choose to act according to different scenarios in which affection, submissiveness, withdrawal, or the orientation to prestige can rule. Furthermore, these scenarios can develop in relation to moving to people, against them, or away from them. Horney’s theory is effective to explain the interpersonal relational aspects because the focus on different scenarios and different combinations of movements can determine the people’s different strategies while interacting with the other persons.
Sullivan’s theory can be compared with Horney’s approach in relation to some aspects such as the concentration on the idea of affection and movements in relation to the other people. According to Horney, people are inclined to seek for affection and love in relations. Sullivan describes similar ideas using the concept of intimacy because it is the necessary aspect of relations.
Furthermore, Horney states that moving against or away the people, a person becomes oriented to hatred and isolation. Such behavioral patterns related to interactions are discussed by Sullivan as the examples of malevolence when the world of the other people is perceived as the world of enemies. Nevertheless, Sullivan develops more details in relation to the interpersonal theory because he focuses on the interpersonal relations as the basic ones to form the personality.
Thus, Sullivan claims that while developing the first interpersonal relations with mothers, children are inclined to personify mothers as good-mother and bad-mother and these personifications can influence the further people’s life and their intimate relations with the other persons (Feist & Feist, 2008, p. 224). Moreover, children’s habits to imagine friends can also affect their further interpersonal relations because these imaginary relations become the behavioral patterns for persons. Horney and Sullivan’s theory are rather similar regarding the discussion of the interpersonal relational aspects, but Sullivan’s approach can be considered as more complex because of the author’s focus on this factor as most influential for developing the personality.
Conclusion
Horney and Sullivan’s theory are correlated in relation to many aspects because the authors discuss social factors as important to affect the development of the personality. Thus, the researchers pay much attention to the role of needs and anxiety in the people’s life and their visions of themselves. The differences of the theories are in the fact that Horney is more focused on the self-image of a person as influential for developing the interpersonal relations, and Sullivan is more focused on the factors of intimacy and malevolence to affect the person’s vision of the world and his or her interpersonal relations.
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