The Different Perspectives on Personality (session 1)

I think that the social-cognitive approach and the trait approach, what most people call the nature and the nurturing which makes the most sense in today's society and from my own experience. In today's society where we have to compete with everyone else for everything, the social conditions imposed on us are so constricting that eventually, they start to shape out personality. In other words, the social conditions of today's society are such that we are forced to conform to them. In another time, say in the past when people are just starting to form communities, the social conditions were not set and people were freer to do whatever they like, so the social-cognitive approach may not apply then.

As for the trait approach, I feel that if they were both combined and used together to explain someone's personality and be used to predict what actions they would take in certain situations, it would be quite accurate as the trait approach covers the weaknesses of the social-cognitive approach.