Oprah Winfrey’s Short Bio
Oprah Gail Winfrey was born January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi. When she was young her mother, Vernita, left her in Mississippi while she moved to the north hoping to find better opportunities for herself. Meanwhile, Oprah’s father, Vernon, was in the army. When Vernita left she asked Oprah’s grandmother, Hattie Mae, to take care of the young child while she was she was away. While living with Hattie Mae Oprah developed her passions for reading and speaking, which she did at a young age. Oprah lived with Hattie Mae until Vernita returned, when Oprah was six years old. Oprah faced many difficulties when returning to living in the care of her mother. When Oprah was nine years old, she was raped by a cousin, uncle, and molested by one of Vernita’s friends. These events triggered PTSD and agonizing emotional and physical pain in Oprah’s life. Due to this, she began to rebel and often ran away from home in an effort to escape her pain. Vernita decided that she could not handle Oprah’s behavior and sent her to a detention home. When Oprah arrived, the facility said it was full and therefore, she was sent to live with her father in Nashville. At the age of fourteen, Oprah went through another devastating event. She was pregnant but, the child had died very soon after birth. This moment in her life became the catalyst that pushed Oprah to make major changes in her life. She began to take measures to move her life into a different direction where she was going to make more for herself.
Soon after, Oprah graduated East Nashville High School with honors and was granted a scholarship to Tennessee State University for her outstanding communications skills. At the university, she continued her passions of speaking and reading and landed a position at the local radio show. Oprah graduated from Tennessee State University with a degree in speech and performing arts. Due to her exceptional talents in reporting she got a job as an anchor for WTVF-TV and became the first black TV news anchor at that station. Oprah gained experiences and knowledge during this time and soon after began to realize that she could create her own lane in the industry. After working on multiple networks as an anchor she eventually created the Oprah Winfrey Show, started her charity foundations, created groundbreaking conversations, developed her own television network, and built the Oprah Winfrey empire that we know and love today.
Neo-Analytic Theory Applied to Her Personality
Taking a look at Oprah through the lens of the Neo-Analytical theorists gives a very insightful examination as to some aspects of her personality. Starting with Alfred Adler and his idea of Individual Psychology. Adler described this as the individual’s thoughts and behaviors that motive them to overcome their helplessness that they experienced in childhood. He continued by saying that individuals who go through this tend to focus on goals and social factors, they try to master superiority, and overcompensate (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah in her early childhood faced numerous struggles. She grew up without her mother for a period of time, she moved around a lot, and she faced abuse, rape, and the loss of her first child. These events caused her to act out because she felt helpless and unheard. But then as she begins to change the direction of her life, she becomes very goal oriented and focused on getting her education. She graduates high school with honors and wins a scholarship to college. In an effort to overcome many of her past demons and create a better life for herself, she worked extremely hard.
She also utilized her ability to connect with people and her experiences from working in television to create the Oprah Winfrey Show. Yet, what made it so famous was because of the way Oprah could get people to speak on some of the most horrific or intimate parts of their lives. The interviews she presented were raw and real. This allowed her to create a dialogue on many relevant issues going on in society to education and enlighten her viewers. Also, her dedicated work with charity plus, her ability to empower people demonstrated another aspect that Alder speaks on called Good Psychological Health.
Karen Horney and her contributions to the Neo-Analytical Theory also allowed for a better understanding of Oprah. Three of her concepts I found to be very interesting were, that experiences in childrearing create conflicts in the personality, the need for security is the absolute primary focus for an individual, and the idea that sociocultural factors matter as well (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). As I have mentioned, Oprah faced many hardships in her youth. She was raped, constanly moved, didn’t grow up with her mother, and fluctuated in economic status as she moved. These aspects of her young life became the source of her defiant behavior. She developed PTSD from her abuse and lacked stability as she moved a lot and never truly had a place to call home. But, through these trials and tribulations she gained motivation to change her life and have more than what she was given as a child.
Horney’s next ideal was called Aspect of Self. She stated that there three parts of one’s self. Oprah’s real self has been described as true, honest, and genuine. She takes on the idea that her true self, while struggles with her inner demons, is much like what people see her as on television. Horney’s next aspect of self is called the despised self. The despised self is the individuals feeling about experiences that they have gone through, that have made them feel inferior (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah does still battle with the feelings of doubt and being unwanted that she had experienced as a child. She has also faced doubt from people as she was working her way up in being a news anchor. But while these thoughts may be part of her despised self, she chooses to recognize them and work through it because she knows her worth. Lastly, we look at the ideal self. This is the individual’s idea of complete perfection or, where they are striving to be. While Oprah has been a phenomenal success, her ideal self is someone who continues to strive toward inner peace as well as making peace with others. She also strives to do more for the world and impoverished communities. Her idea of the ideal self is focused on self-reflection and lifetime goals.
Carl Jung’s perspective adds to our examination of Oprah as well. He explains the concepts of Persona and Shadow in a personality. The persona is the outward version of the personality, what the individuals decides to show the world. It takes social factors into consideration when deciding what part of the personality to show. The Shadow are the aspects of the personality the that individual decides to hide from both themselves and others. Oprah’s persona is that of a humble, hardworking, well put together business woman. Although she has spoke about her struggles on her show and in her book, she does not make them a large part of her persona. Her shadow contains her past, her insecurities, and her flaws. This more vulnerable side to her is what Oprah chooses to leave in the past and while there are instances when she addresses it, she still does not diverge all of her thoughts.
Jung also discusses his idea of the Major Attitudes of the Mind. Here, I wanted to specifically focus on his perspective of extraversion. Extraversion describes an individual who gains their psychic energy from the external world (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah can really be defined as an extrovert in that she has such a passion for interacting with others and the world around her that she made it her career. She believes speaking with people allows her to gain knowledge and it also gives her joy to hear others stories and personal journeys.
Cognitive Aspects of Personality Analysis
Taking on examining Oprah’s personality from the cognitive lens, we first look at Gestalt Psychology and field dependence. Oprah can be considered field dependent and we will explore why. Socialization for field dependent people is conformity over autonomy (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah moved continuously as a child and did the best she could to fit in at each place. She got involved in the school communities that she was a part of which introduced her to many of the students, because of this she found school to be a very stimulating environment. Field dependent people tend to have professions that are based more on being in-touch with one’s environment and other people rather than academics (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah’s ability to connect with people and the fact that she finds those experiences so rewarding is why her career has been all about interacting with people. She is very aware of social cues and the best at getting people to open up which is why she has been so successful in her career. While she is very educated and smart academically, her overall ability to relate with others fuels her soul and means more than just a job. Interpersonal and eye contact are two aspects that field dependent people are great at. Field dependent people tend to sit closer to their conversational partner and make frequent eye which are social skills that allow them to create connections with others. These two aspects are true actions to Oprah and she has demonstrated them time and time again on television. This allows her to gain peoples trust and opens up the floor for a more vulnerable interview.
Another important examination idea is the Gestalt Schema Theory which is the cognitive structure that organizes knowledge and expectations and determines how we behave and think about situations (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah has been through a lot of experiences in her personal life as well as her career. She holds herself to high expectations and is able to maneuver in any situation. Her intelligence and her awareness of social situations has created schemas to match any situation that she is faced with. The schemas also get help from the Scripts which are basically schemas just for specific events. Oprah has organization in her schemas so her scripts follow suit and she conducts herself accordingly in any given situation. She gained experience over time that has helped her write scripts for the situations she is involved with.
Gestalt Categorization
Lastly, we look at Gestalt Categorization or, when an individual organizes aspects of their lives into categories to help with the development of Prototypes. Prototypes are described as the arrangement of information (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). This method of categorization is essential to understanding and putting together parts of one’s life and how information is learned. For Oprah, categorization is extremely important for as she is a business woman and needs to be able to keep her life organized. But it also helps when she is telling her story or speaking with others. She is able to have compartmentalize information and while continuing to learn more.
Next, George Kelly and his perspective on the cognitive aspects. Kelly talks about Personal Constructs. These are structures in cognition that people use to interpret and predict events. It’s important to note that people don’t use the same constructs, they do not organize constructs similarly either because everyone has a different way of interpreting the world (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah has seen many parts of life, from the highest highs to the lowest lows. She has experienced factors of rape, poverty, low income, while also seeing her life now as a billionaire. Her humbleness is shaped by her low points and struggles to make it. While her confidence is shaped by her uncanny ability to put her mind to something and accomplish it. Her personal constructs are very interesting to look at because she has been exposed to and learned a lot from both aspects of her life. This makes her someone who has a very unique view of life and has changed her personal constructs as she has gain experience and knowledge.
Julian Rotter’s ideas of Locus of Control and Explanatory Style shed light on the further look at personality. Locus of control is an individual’s ability to affect outcomes. There are types of the Locus of Control, internal and external. Internal is when the outcome is due to the individuals own actions. While the external says the outcomes are due to factors outside of that individual’s control (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah is balanced in both internal and external locus of control. She realizes how important it is to take your life into your own hands and make something of it. This is exactly what she did in her life from finishing school, to working numerous jobs as an anchor to, eventually creating her own show and network. She acknowledges that much of her success is due to her hard work and dedication. But, she also attributes some of the thanks to the external locus of control. Whether it be God, an opportunity that fell into her lap, or another person who helped her along the way. Oprah takes pride and responsibility in her own action but, there are certain aspects of her life that she believes happened outside of the realm of her own control.
Explanatory Style by Rotter is explained as the characteristics of how an individual interprets life events. He speaks on the idea of the Optimist which is someone who has a more positive look at the world. Oprah seems to be an optimist like when she speaks on her foundation for creating schools for young girls in South Africa and the brilliant impact, she plans to make on the generation. She has the best intention and while she understands the toughness of the world, she believes there is always a reason to be grateful and happy. She may have been an optimist as a child but, due to her circumstances it seems as though she developed it from learned optimism. Learned optimism a new way to think and view the world. After experiencing the worst of the world, not letting it dim her shine, and learning to be more resilient seemed to nurture her optimism.
Finally taking on Bandura and ideas of Self Efficacy and Self Regulation. Self Efficacy is described by Bandura as how confident an individual is to be able to perform a behavior in a given situation. Self Efficacy is based on other factors whether there has been failure or success in the past, seeing other people perform, verbal persuasions, and emotional reactions (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). Oprah had spent years learning about reporting, speaking with people and being on television prior to starting her own show. She was successful at being a news anchor and was offered many jobs at different stations so that gave her confidence. As she got more experience with the work, she was able to perfect her craft and the worries of her not being able to do a good job or, do the job at all, began to dissipate. She gave it her all and was praised by colleagues as both an anchor and a television host, which gave her the confidence to start something of her own.
Self Regulation is the idea that individuals have control over their own achievements (Friedman and Schustack, 2012). People will tend to set goals, assess their success, and reward themselves. Oprah has set and accomplished almost all of the goals she has created for herself. She was the first black woman to have her own talk show and become a billionaire. But she continues to try and better herself by setting more goals and creating new avenues to focus her energy. This is why her school in South Africa is so important because it is a cause that she can put her attention to and help so many girls achieve their dreams.
Examining Oprah’s personality from all of the perspectives gives better insight into how the world, people around us, and ourselves create our personality. Dissecting the many factors that create aspects of personality is so interesting because it gives you the story of that specific person. While not all parts of personality are easy to see, by peeling back the layers you get close to fully understanding someone. Oprah’s life and experiences have played a huge role in shaping her personality and it is evident throughout this project. Her personality is the driving force behind what makes her one of the most influential people in the world.
References
- Friedman, H. S., & Schustack, M. W. (2012). Biological Aspect of Personality. Personality: classic theories and modern research. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
