Personality hypotheses

There are numerous hypotheses that describe individual personality. The purpose of this essay is to discuss Nina Simone's personality case study. Personality case analysis is closely related to the necessity of understanding human character. Understanding other people better also leads to success when coping with various scenarios. Unlike psychology, which is an academic science, understanding human personality is more practical. An adequate understanding of personality use psychology to gain an advantage in specific situations.
Understanding human nature allows us to influence, assist, and support individuals in the most appropriate way for each individual. Personality uses psychology to differentiate subjects and can thus be used in character analysis. Character analysis helps in breaking down the elements into observable situations.

At the moment, personality development is considered a fully fledged course for persons who consider it a true sense. Considering a few years back, parents gave personality studies a little time and was of no importance to their children. Much emphasis was laid on physical appearances and knowledge of work. However, the world is taking a different turn where personality is gaining much importance.

Understanding of personality helps an individual to differentiate on a person from the other by identifying unique traits of that person. Teachers of personality subject help an individual to get a thought pattern and confidence to improve behavior and gain better skills of communication. A deeper understanding of personality reveals that it is not about physical appearance, but rather inner characteristic of an individual. People with physical appearance only will always fail to create a lasting impression in their career. Therefore it needs strengthening of the inner and outer personality of an individual.

Case background

General Childhood experience

Nina Simone was born on Feb 21, 1933, in Troyon, North Carolina. She started practicing music at an early age by learning how to play the piano when she was just three years old. She was the sixth born of seven children. Her father was John Divine Waymon, who worked as a barber and a dry cleaner. She was born to Mary Kate Waymon, played the role of Methodist minister. Her parents were not of high socioeconomic status. She had a great gift that was uncomparable to her musically talented family. Her family was poor and could never afford the cost the piano lessons, and therefore her mother arranged to clean the home of her teacher in exchange for the lessons (Lynn, 2015).

Education. Nina Simone started her career at a younger age. When she was three, she started learning how to play the piano. Her training over the period emphasized classical repertory. Her piano teacher mobilized for funds to enable her to pay school fees, and after clearing high school, the same fund sent her to New York City to attend Juilliard School of Music for training purposes.

While at Juilliard School, she worked as an accompanist and taught piano to other musicians and later stopped attending the school due to lack of funds. After quitting school due to financial constraints, she left to Philadelphia where she lived with the family as she saved to for affordable musical program. She faced rejection while seeking admission at Curtis Institute of Music. After the incident, she claimed of being denied admission opportunity because of her race.

Meaningful childhood events. Nina Simone started playing music at a tender age of 3. When she was three years, she had already started singing for the church choir without attending formal training. She quotes that everybody played music, and so they learned the same way an individual learns to walk. While attending to the musical training, she ever wanted to be recognized as the first African American pianist. Mobilisation for the special fund by her piano teacher signified that she had an outstanding achievement. Moreover, her family was considered musically talented.

While attending college to her musical career, she had the great understanding of piano and assisted other performers. She was having a powerful voice that commanded and influenced other musicians. In her autobiography, she indicated that everything that happened to her as a child involved music. At the age of 6 years, she was already the church pianist and showed greater gift compared to her family members who had musical talents.

Features of childhood behavior important for later personality. Since childhood, Nina Simone was ambitious and hoped to be the first African-American concert pianist. She did well in her piano studies but later ran out of money and dropped her musical training. She was such ambitious that during her first hiring at the club, she assumed being hired to play piano only the manager to explain that there was the need to sing as well. She has known for the mixture of her musical styles learned as a child.

After being rejected at Curtis Institute of Music, she remained to understand that she was rejected due to her race. The rejection by her dream school and the unfolding of civil rights movement made her become politically active. She, therefore, ventured into singing social issues. She always made songs in response to ongoing racism in America.

Due to inactivity and death that faced members of the civil rights movement, she seemed discouraged and therefore acted as an expatriate in various countries. Her childhood ambitions made her sign contracts with different recording houses and so she began to have a thriving concert career.

General adulthood experience

Nina Simone had several outcomes making her famous and well known across the continent. Her musical dream started right when she was a child through participation in church choirs. At the age of four to six, she was already famous within her church for playing the piano during choir sessions. Playing the piano at the age of six was therefore considered a gift of its own among other musically talented members.

As a child, she also taught piano and being the accompanist for other performers while attending her training at Juilliard. While teaching piano, she interacted with several performers and so became well known for her understanding of the subject. She is also famous because she was able to play classical music after being turned t down on piano training. She ventured in classical music including jazz and blues and therefore cutting across all the genres. Upon recording her first music, she displayed innovative fusion styles despite the genre. She focused on playing gospel, pop and folk music.

Through the 1960s, she also became a voice of the Civil Rights Movement. She had several hits acting as the voice of the movement. As a civil rights singer, she penned down songs brought to light the challenges faced by the African-Americans since during the ongoing racism in America. She also toured various regions periodically thus maintaining her fan base at the concerts where she performed. Upon review of her concerts, she exhibited power in her voice; she had beloved sound and personality that was highly celebrated.

General lifestyle. At childhood stage, her family was not wealthy enough to afford her training funds. However, she was of a middle socioeconomic status. In struggling with her career, she came close to American music scene when the country was experiencing racial division in politics. Her life was full of adventure and so live in different countries in pursuance of her career dreams. Her autobiography indicated that she suffered from breast cancer.

While doing her music recordings, she became married for the second time to her manager Andy Stroud, which only lasted for a decade and in 1970, they divorced. The marriage was ended due to the singing career, and so she had no time for her daughter’s childhood experiences. She later reunited with her daughter, Lisa at Wiltern Theatre. She maintained closeness with her daughter after divorcing her husband (Lynn, 2015).

Besides her musical career for entertainment, she was a civil right singer. Most of the songs she worked on focused on social issues implying she was against racism. She wrote many songs after realizing that Civil Rights Movement was going dormant due to death and silence of the members. After her death, she left her lasting impression of activism and music through singing the truth.

Case self-descriptions

Nina Simone’s Legacy

According to Nina Simone's family, she had an outstanding achievement, and during the later stages of her performances, she was joined by her daughter Lisa Simone Kelly, and they performed a few songs. Lisa was Nina Simone's daughter from her second marriage to her manager Andrew. While in her final years, reports indicate that she battled breast cancer before she succumbed to death in 2003.

Even after she is gone, she has left a lasting impression on music and civil rights activism. According to her fans, she barely sang the truth and nothing else. She has also inspired many performers through her work. She did her work with great power and emotion, and up to now, her voice acts as a choice for film and show soundtracks.

Theoretical case analysis

Major personality traits

Nina Simone has a great talent for self-expression and creativity. She has been typical to many accomplished musicians. During her career, she looks optimistic and understands the requirements of overcoming the setbacks related to her career. Her self-expression is a great inspiration to the world. She has expressive art that is abundantly manifested in her classical music. The arts were achieved through commitment and development that positively contributed to her talent.

At a very tender age, Nina Simone was very ambitious towards her musical career and fighting racism. While she was turned down by Curtis Institute of Music, she came to believe for the rest of her life that it was based on racial discrimination (Mike, 2015). Before then, she had experienced racism for the first time when her mother’s employer paid for her first piano lessons and gave her first recital spring. Her parents who secured a seat in the first recital were moved so that the whites can sit comfortably. The events marked her first steps and deeper commitment towards fighting terrorism.

Moreover, despite being denied admission in her dream college, she never gave up. She even became successful just through performing in clubs and eventually secured a recording contract with Bethlehem records; this step marked the beginning of her nationwide success. Her success even continued five years after her first record, and by 1960, she had ten albums recorded. Hand in hand with her music career; she was able to fight for the rights of other African Americans since they were subject to racism and other challenges.

Approaches to understanding personality

The section will discuss two approaches to understanding individual personality. The additional approaches to personality include Freud’s theory and trait approach to personality. According to Freud, individual personality involves several factors such as instincts, unconsciousness and childhood experiences. This theory states that the personality of the person is developed while depending on the interplay of instincts the childhood environment where the individual is raised. Mental health and personality problems can be traced to the theory since personality is influenced by the first five years of childhood (Saul, 2014).

Trait approach to personality assumes the individual’s behavior is determined by the traits and act as the fundamental unit of personality. The traits make the individual behave in a certain manner in different situations. The theory means that the individual traits need to remain consistent across varying situations. The theory measures individual personality using psychometric test (Saul, 2014).

Applying the personality approaches

Freud’s theory applies to Nina Simone's case since her personality came to be developed by whom she was in childhood stage. When she was three years, its mentioned that she was learning piano. Upon growing up, she had much passion for piano and got to various colleges purposely to learn about the art. The second approach of the trait to personality is equally utilized in the case of Nina Simone. At her younger age, she experienced racial discrimination and decided to be a civil right activist.

Other personality characteristics

The other personality characteristics such as being hardworking and ambition are not explained by the above approaches. Some personality characteristics lack approaches due to unclear motivating factors. It is not clear why Nina Simone was hardworking thus cannot be explained by the above approaches.

Theoretical Shortcomings

According to Freud’s theory of personality, there is a failure in understanding how an interplay between environment and instinct during childhood influences individual's personality in the later years of life. The theory also fails to account how mental and personality problems result from childhood experiences.

Conclusion

According to the personality analysis above, Nina Simone exhibits thinking and planning. Since she has a business mindset, she has good planning methods through setting appropriate goals and working on them in the best way possible. She may also be having the best administrative skills. She also had good organizational skills since she keeps elaborate notes and notes of her plans. Her interaction with many businesses portrays her as able to work with others i effective and efficient manner; this is shown by her ability to teach others by making them appreciate knowledge gained as an ingredient to success.

Nina also shows excellent skills of thinking before implementing her actions and is over organized. She has great planning skills that can make her ignore big things in favour of other.









References

Biography.com Editors. (2016). Nina Simone. Retrieved on 9 Oct, 2017

from https://www.biography.com/people/nina-simone-9484532

Lynn Cinnamon. (2015). Nina Simone and the Lonely Search for Freedom. Retrieved

on 9 Oct 2017 from http://lynncinnamon.com/2015/07/nina-simone-and-the-meaning-of-freedom/

Mike Hogan. (2015). Prepare to be Amazed All Over by the Gloriously Singular

Nina Simone. Retrieved on 10 Oct 2017 from https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/01/what-happened-miss-simone-sundance

Saul McLeod. (2014). Theories of Personality. Retrieved on 10 Oct 2017

from https://www.simplypsychology.org/personality-theories.html

World Biography. (2004). Nina Simone Biography. Retrieved on 10 Oct 2017

from http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2004-Q-Z/Simone-Nina.html