| Personality Theory | Key Proponents | Assumptions | View of Personality | Personality Assessment Methods |
| Psychoanalytic | Freud | Emotional disorders spring from unconscious dynamics, such as unresolved sexual and other childhood conflicts, and fixation at various developmental stages. Defense mechanisms fend off anxiety. | Personality consists of pleasure-seeking impulses (the id), a reality-oriented executive (the ego), and an internalized set of ideals (the superego). | Free association, projective tests, dream analysis |
| Psychodynamic | Adler, Horney, Jung | The unconscious and conscious minds interact. Childhood experiences and defense mechanisms are important. | The dynamic interplay of conscious and unconscious motives and conflicts shape our personality. | Projective tests, therapy sessions |
| Humanistic | Rogers, Maslow | Rather than examining the struggles of sick people, it’s better to focus on the ways healthy people strive for self-realization. | If our basic human needs are met, people will strive toward self-actualization. In a climate of unconditional positive regard, we can develop self-awareness and a more realistic and positive self-concept. | Questionnaires, therapy sessions |
| Trait | Allport, Eysenck, McCrae, Costa | We have certain stable and enduring characteristics, influenced by genetic predispositions. | Scientific study of traits has isolated important dimensions of personality, such as the Big Five traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion). | Personality inventories |
| Social-Cognitive | Bandura | Our traits and the social context interact to produce our behaviors. | Conditioning and observational learning interact with cognition to create behavior patterns. | Our behavior in one situation is best predicted by considering our past behavior in similar situations. |