Personality Development: Michelle Obama

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The term “personality” refers to a sum of character traits in a person. Therefore, personality development implies that the personality traits evolve from the childhood basis to the full development of individual differences in a character of a grown-up. This case study investigates the personality development illustrated by an example of Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States of America. She was chosen due to her prominent personality features, outstanding life experience and the fact that she is a worthy role model for modern society; consequently, such development can be an interesting example to consider.

Michelle LaVaughn Obama, née Robinson, was born on January 17, 1964, in Calumet Park Illinois, to a family of a water plant worker and a housewife. She is now able to trace the history of her family back to a Friendfield Plantation in Georgetown, S.C. where her great-great-grandfather worked as a slave, while later his descendants moved North and settled in Illinois. However Mrs. Obama has learned of her ancestry only during a presidential campaign of her husband, and this knowledge has had a great impact on her (Murray, 2008, p. 1).

She graduated from school in1981 as a salutatory student and later studied sociology at Princeton University, from which she graduated BoA cum laude. In 1988, she also graduated from Harvard University as Juris Doctor and began her law practice in Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. Later she also worked in various non-profit organizations but reduced her job responsibilities to help her husband, Barak Obama, whom she married in 1992, with his presidential campaign. The couple raises two daughters, and Michelle considers her family the main life priority. Mrs. Obama is regarded as a fashion icon and a trend-setter (Michelle Obama Biography, n.d., par. 1-21).

For further exploration of Michelle Obama’s personality development, it is important to mention the models, according to which an individual’s personality development can be explained. These models include psychoanalytic and neo-analytic theories, psychosocial theories, trait, evolutionary, genetic/biological approaches, cognitive, behavioral, and social learning theories, and humanistic theories. For the beginning of the analysis, it would be appropriate to use the psychoanalytic / neo-analytic model, as it is one of the most basic and rather comprehensive theories, which can be considered as both advantage and disadvantage because it does not leave much possibility for other explanations.

According to those theories, based on teachings of Sigmund Freud, the parts of psyche, called “id”, “ego” and “superego” are balanced within each individual, but while Freud himself thought ego to be a weak structure, his successors, the neo-analytics, claimed that ego, containing the functions of learning, memory, and cognitive skills is a part that is the strongest from birth. A development, in this case, takes place in solving the so-called “basic conflicts”, which may serve to temper the character, or result in personality problems if such conflicts were not solved.

For Michelle Obama, an example of such conflict would have been an illness that her father suffered, the multiple sclerosis, which, however, did not stop him from pursuing his goals in life and teaching his daughter the same values (Fraser Robinson III ~ Michelle Obama’s Father, par. 1-16). This probably was also the reason Michelle is often a participant of charity and non-profit organizations – because of her need to help people and treat them with kindness.

The psychosocial theory was first introduced by psychologist Erik Erikson; it suggests that eight stages of development during one’s life, at which the person learns to accept different virtues, such as hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care and wisdom. If one of the stages is missing, the value of its virtue may be lost. This theory encompasses the whole life’s development, but the order of the stages is often argued, and it is not always possible to trace the trajectory of a person’s life. According to this theory, Michelle Obama has successfully passed the stages of life involving purpose, competence (her studies), love and fidelity (her family) and at her adulthood she may be learning again how to care and make her life count, in which she definitely succeeds, both in terms of social and family life.

The trait theory, together with evolutionary and biological theories, presumes that a few fundamental units define the individual’s behavior and that these traits are defined by genetics (McLeod, 2014, par. 22-30). Therefore, further development is defined by these innate factors. These theories place emphasis on conducting psychometric tests (McLeod, par. 24), which can give a high level of precision in defining a character, some critics mention, that “traits are often poor predictors of behavior. While an individual may score high on assessments of a specific trait, he or she may not always behave that way in every situation … trait theories do not address how or why individual differences in personality develop or emerge” (Cherry, 2015, par. 16).

For using this theory, it may be important to investigate the family of Michelle Obama, to understand better, what kind of person she is, and how her legacy could influence her personality development. As it may be seen from her family tree, her ancestors were mostly hard-working people, who were proud of what they did and upheld traditional values; they believed that it was important to educate their children and give them a better life, which was one of the reasons the family moved to the north (Murray, 2008, p.2-4). It is clear that Michelle Obama inherited their dutifulness, perfectionism, independence, but also warmth and liveliness. This is how she became who she is now – a First Lady, a renowned philanthropist, and a trend-setter.

The humanistic or existential approach claims another important focus for a psychologist:

Factors that are specifically human, such as choice, responsibility, freedom, and how humans create meaning in their lives. Human behavior is not seen as determined in some mechanistic way, either by inner psychological forces, schedules of external reinforcement, or genetic endowments, but rather as a result of what we choose and how we create meaning from among those choices. (Beneckson, n.d., par. 42)

It means that understanding oneself and thriving to improve one’s personality may lead to healthy development or the so-called “self-actualization.” Existentialists may also add:

It requires active intention to create authenticity … Man is thrown into the world against his will, and must learn how to coexist with nature, and the awareness of his own death … To be healthy, humans must choose a course of action that leads to … the productive orientation. This is defined as working, loving, and reasoning so that work is a creative self-expression and not merely an end in itself. (Beneckson, n.d., par. 47)

This approach allows to take a different look at human’s psyche, disregarding the doctrines of Freudian, biological and behaviorist theories, however, it is often criticized for being too anthropocentric and idealistic.

For Mrs. Obama, the personal development in terms of humanistic theory may be illustrated with her life experiences, such as life within her family and a brother, which taught her how to listen to other people and get along with them. Later she also developed her working skills after she graduated, and her self-actualization lied in the field of law practice until she made a decision to help her husband. Michelle claimed that her family was her highest priority, and her choice was to work along with her husband and give her love to him and their children, all the while being able to satisfy her own need in self-actualization. The balance between these factors allows a person to find a psychological calm and harmony.

To conclude this research, it would be fair to assume, that although various approaches can be used to better understand an individual’s personality development, all of them can be useful for different scenarios. For example, it may be difficult to use the genetic method, when little or nothing is known about a person’s origins and his or her family. An existential approach should also be used with caution, as this is the least conservative and the newest method in psychology, which means some of its ideas may not have enough proof.

Nevertheless, every method has the right of existence however for a comprehensive and thorough understanding a deep and complex structure, that is the human personality, it may be advisable to unite some of the approaches. It would allow to gather more information, and the cross comparison of the results may highlight the features that previously were not noticed. It is highly important for a psychologist to follow the good practice but also to be versatile and flexible with the use of various tools to achieve better results in assessment and research.

Reference List

Beneckson, R. E. (n.d.) Personality Theory. A Brief Survey of the Field Today and Some Possible Future Directions. Web.

Cherry, K. (2015), Trait Theory of Personality. The Trait Approach to Personality. Web.

Fraser Robinson III ~ Michelle Obama’s Father. (n.d.). Web.

McLeod, S. (2014). Theories of personality. Web.

Michelle Obama Biography. (n.d.). Web.

Murray, S. (2008). A Family Tree Rooted In American Soil. The Washington Post. Web.

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Personality Development: Michelle Obama

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