4: Psychodynamic Motives

Question 1

Define motivation.

Answer 1

Forces and factors, usually viewed as residing in the person, that energize and direct behaviour.

Question 2

There are three different psychological perspectives to motivation. What are they?

Answer 2

Psychodynamic: sexuality, aggression, pleasure-seeking motivate most human behaviour.

Humanistic: all people strive towards self-determination and self-actualization.

Diversity view: humans can be motivated by a wide variety of things.

Question 3

Consciousness is defined by the conscious, pre-conscious, and unconscious. Define each.

Answer 3

Conscious: within current awareness.

Pre-Conscious: not currently aware, but could readily enter awareness if you decided to retrieve this material (i.e., memory).

Unconscious: information within the mind that cannot be readily retrieved.

Question 4

The unconscious is considered a repository for what?

Answer 4

Urges and feelings associated with conflict, pain, fear, sex. Things we cannot admit about ourselves, sealed off from awareness as self-protective measure.

Question 5

What is repression? What is a caveat to it as a coping mechanism?

Answer 5

Certain feelings, desires, memories are sealed away in the unconscious because they threaten the person’s well-being.

They are still there, can bubble up in unexpected ways.

Question 6

Freud’s model of personality is derived from three components. Explain.

Answer 6

Superego: sense of morality. Internalized cultural values about “right” and “wrong.”

Ego: conscious aspect, tries to balance demands between superego and id.

Id: unconscious energy, instinctual sexual and aggressive urges.

Question 7

The id includes the concept of the pleasure principle. Define it.

Answer 7

Seeking immediate gratification without concern for possible consequences of inappropriate thoughts and actions.

Question 8

When the pleasure principle is not possible, what is used instead? Provide an example.

Answer 8

Primary process thinking (fantasizing about wishes).

Id forms mental image of a desired object to substitute for an urge to reduce tension and anxiety.

Question 9

The source of unconscious energy is the id’s _____, which constantly push people to meet them.

Answer 9

Desires.

Question 10

What is catharsis pertaining to the id?

Answer 10

Reduction of tension by engaging in processes that provide relief from relentless needs of the id.

Question 11

The superego operates under what principle?

Answer 11

Perfection principle: notion that we must act perfectly by meeting societal demands, often taking the form of internalized parental values.

Question 12

What is the reality principle?

Answer 12

Ego must balance unrealistic urges of the Id and Superego with the reality of the situation.

Question 13

The ego uses what type of thinking?

Answer 13

Secondary process thinking: involves planful thoughts and decisions that consider environmental contingencies/challenges.

Question 14

According to Freud, what are the three drives?

Answer 14

Libido: psychic and emotional energy associated with sexual urges.

Life Instincts: instincts surrounding sexuality and survival.

Death Instincts: instincts assumed to motivate one’s behaviour to promote own death or aggression towards others.

Question 15

Defense mechanisms are a maladaptive response that occur when? What is the practical reason for them?

Answer 15

No realistic way to satisfy both the Id and the Superego’s demands.

Distort reality, operate unconsciously to lessen anxiety.

Question 16

What are the three anxieties that defense mechanisms seek to reduce?

Answer 16

Realistic Anxiety: actual threats in outside world.

Neurotic Anxiety: fear of uncontrollable urges of the Id breaking free.

Moral Anxiety: guilt/shame over failing to live up to perfect ideal.

Question 17

Defense mechanisms can include motivated forgetting. What are the two mechanisms involved in this?

Answer 17

Repression: dangerous impulse actively and totally excluded from consciousness.

Denial: refusing to acknowledge anxiety-inducing aspects of environment or threatening feelings that are happening right now.

Question 18

What is considered the primary defense mechanism?

Answer 18

Repression.

Question 19

Defense mechanisms can include changing the target. What are the two mechanisms involved in this?

Answer 19

Projection: unacceptable impulse repressed, then attributed to other people.

Displacement: unacceptable or dangerous impulse repressed, then redirected at safer substitute target.

Question 20

Defense mechanisms can include thinking your way out of things. What are the two mechanisms involved in this?

Answer 20

Intellectualization: emotion connected with an upsetting event repressed, situation dealt with as intellectually interesting event.

Rationalization: person constructs false, but plausible explanation or excuse for an anxiety-arousing behavior or event that has occurred.

Question 21

Defense mechanisms can involve reverting to an earlier stage. What is the mechanism involved in this?

Answer 21

Regression: retreating to earlier. more primitive stage or mode of behavior in order to avoid pain, threat, anxiety.

Question 22

Defense mechanisms can involve doing something different to avoid anxiety-inducing behaviours and events. What are the two mechanisms involved in this?

Answer 22

Reaction Formation: anxiety-arousing impulse repressed, psychic energy finds release in an exaggerated expression of opposite behaviour.

Sublimation: repressed impulse released in the form of a socially acceptable or even admired behavior.

Question 23

What is considered to be the only “healthy” defense mechanism?

Answer 23

Sublimation.

Question 24

Karen Horney’s ideas that were feminist, her emphasis on the influence of culture, and her de-emphasis of infantile sexuality earned the ire of whom?

Answer 24

Orthodox Freudians.

Question 25

According to Horney, anxiety is the at the root of neurosis. What two elements both derive from parental behaviors?

Answer 25

Basic anxiety: fear of helplessness and worries about possible abandonment. Fear of being helpless in the face of a world that is abusive and dangerous.

Basic hostility: sense of anger and betrayal that child feels towards parents for their failure to provide a secure environment.

Question 26

List four ways to reduce basic anxiety.

Answer 26

Securing affection: “If you love me, you will not hurt me.”

Being submissive: “If I give in, I will not be hurt.”

Attaining power: “If I attain power, you cannot hurt me.”

Withdrawing: “If I emotionally withdraw from others, they cannot hurt me.”

Question 27

According to Horney, what are the ten neurotic needs?

Answer 27

For affection and approval.

For a partner.

For power.

To exploit others.

For social recognition.

For personal admiration.

For personal achievement.

For self-sufficiency and independence.

For perfection and unassailability.

Restricting one’s life to narrow borders.

Question 28

Horney proposed people have three basic tendencies. What are they?

Answer 28

Moving towards people: need for attention and approval, willingness to self-sacrifice in order to please others.

Moving against people: driven more by basic hostility, wherein people try to hurt others before they hurt them.

Moving away from people: reflects isolation inherent in basic anxiety, includes detachment and alienation from other people.

Question 29

Moving towards people is seen as helpful, since a person won’t be _____ if they constantly search out support from others.

Answer 29

Abandoned.

Question 30

Those who move against people usually try to achieve _____ to avoid anyone hurting them.

Answer 30

Power.

Question 31

What is the psychological basis for moving away from people, according to Horney?

Answer 31

Cannot be abandoned if withdraw entirely from close relationships or eliminate own wants and desires.

Question 32

The neurotic needs of affection and approval and for a powerful partner constitute what personality? The needs of this personality fall under what basic tendency?

Answer 32

Compliant personality: intense and continuous need for affection and approval, along with urge to be loved, wanted, protected.

Needs of people who move towards others.

Question 33

What is aggressive personality and what neurotic needs constitute it? The needs of this personality fall under what basic tendency?

Answer 33

Intense need to act tough and domineering, and to achieve control and superiority over others.

Power, exploiting others, social recognition, personal admiration, personal achievement.

Needs of people who move against others.

Question 34

What is detached personality and what neurotic needs constitute it? The needs of this personality fall under what basic tendency?

Answer 34

Intense need for privacy, independence, self-sufficiency. Highly sensitive to constraints placed on them by others, great emphasis on reason and logic.

Self-sufficiency and independence, perfection and unassailability (perceived as external demands), restricting life to narrow borders.

Needs of people who move away from others.

Question 35

What is the primary problem with psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories?

Answer 35

Many core tenets like repression hard to falsify and subjective, therefore hard to study scientifically.

Question 36

What did Karen Horney think was at the core of neurotic motivation?

Answer 36

Basic anxiety.