Caitlin Juliano-(History & Systems) Second Online Journal Post

   

     While reading through Hunt's chapters and our online course lecture slides, I decided to focus this second journal entry all on lecture #9. The ninth course lecture discusses all about Hunt's eleventh chapters in words, pictures, and videos. Personally, I too found this chapter and overall lecture to be clear, concise, and just simply full of both so much depth and clarity. Hunt's ability, as an educated and scholarly author, to voice so much written data, facts, and opinions of this subject (in addition to psychology's extremely vast history, present, and optimistic future) is truly both interesting and inspiring. This chapter was extremely relevant and unique as whole, especially since it discussed the crucial and essential subject matter of personality.

        This eleventh chapter by Morton Hunt talks all about personality. The topic of personality is a deep-rooted and diverse one. Personality depends specifically on the individual. Correspondingly, personality also depends on various traits- such as: how you were raised (childhood), how you handled various situations growing up, or how you overcame certain obstacles in life. Personally, for me when I was growing up I was extremely shy. I was always known, especially by close family friends, as "the cute little girl that was obsessed with Disney princesses, but never said a word". I always found that to be so funny. After some time, I was in the fourth grade and I was becoming a big sister for the first time. Hence, at just nine years young, this was such an exciting and monumental time for me- especially as I have always wanted to become a big sister. I finally began to "come out of my shell". I found myself feeling more talkative and just overall really social- whether I was close with that person or not. When I was little I would only talk more if I knew the person well (i.e. a close family friend and my childhood friends) or was related to them (i.e. my family members), so now it's amazing (and quite funny, to be honest) to see how much I have evolved. Today, I am very social and just very talkative (in a good and non-annoying way, of course). Now I am even confident and fairly comfortable at public speaking, but if you asked to do something like that when I was a little girl...I would have shook my head and said, "Heck no!" (Lol)

        Anyways, Hunt's chapter really focuses on how to measure personality. The tests that were used were things like, the structured and projective testing. While all of the testing methods had their similarities and differences, the main viewpoint of this chapter's details are, "Why do we act like this? How did we get this way" Again, this is such a vast, expansive, and thought-provoking topic. Personally, as psychology major, I for sure think that personality is one of the most interesting matters to learn, discuss, and observe in psychology. I have always loved how it has such a detailed past and a varying present and future. It is a constantly changing topic, which is why it's so fascinating because there is ALWAYS something new and intriguing to learn!  While the key concepts of this chapter were being exposed, Hunt's detailed chapter showcases the people that were involved in these specific and special studies- such as: Christina Morgan [1935], Herman Rorschach (He's most well-known for his popular and useful inkblot example.), and Henry Murray [1935] too. In conclusion of this well-written and organized chapter, it is understood and concluded that personality traits are solely internally based and originated. We are all so unique and special in our own ways- that's what makes us all so interesting!