Chapter 3- Adler

Question 1

What is the Individual Psychology Theory?

Answer 1

an optimistic view of people that rests heavily on the notion of social interest

Question 2

How do people attempt to compensate and overcome the feelings of inferiority?

Answer 2

By striving for either success or superiority

Question 3

What do psychologically unhealthy people strive for? What are their strivings motivated by?

Answer 3

personal superiority; an inferiority complex

Question 4

What do psychologically healthy people strive for?

Answer 4

success (for all humanity)

Question 5

What are fictions?

Answer 5

people’s expectations for the future; ideas that have no real existence yet they still influence behavior

Question 6

How might physical inferiorities shape behavior?

Answer 6

they push people toward perfection/completion

Question 7

T/F according to Adler, human behaviors are toward multiple purposes

Answer 7

false, he believed that all behaviors are directed toward a single purpose

Question 8

What are 2 ways in which a person operates with self-consistency?

Answer 8

1. organ dialect

2. conscious and unconscious

Question 9

What is organ dialect? Give an example

Answer 9

when a deficient organ or body part expresses the direction of an individual’s specific goal

ex. a man whose goal is sympathy; he may use his arthritis to gain sympathy from others by saying stuff like “you can’t expect me to do manual work”

Question 10

How did Adler differ from Freud in his view of the conscious and unconscious?

Answer 10

Adler saw them as 2 cooperating parts of the same system, rather than antagonists

Question 11

What is social interest?

Answer 11

a feeling of oneness with all humanity

Question 12

How is social interest formed?

Answer 12

through a social environment/parent-child relationships

Question 13

What is one’s style of life?

Answer 13

the flavor of a person’s life, including a person’s goal, self-concept, feelings for others, and attitude toward the world

Question 14

A psychologically healthy person’s style of life is____?

Answer 14

flexible, meaning they continually seek to create new options for themselves

Question 15

What is creative power?

Answer 15

a person’s ability to freely choose a course of action

Question 16

What is the one factor underlying all types of maladjustments?

Answer 16

underdeveloped social interest

Question 17

What are some external factors in maladjustment?

Answer 17

1. exaggerated physical deficiencies
2. a pampered style of life
3. a neglected style of life

Question 18

What are the 3 safeguarding tendencies?

Answer 18

1. excuses
2. aggression
3. withdrawal

Question 19

What are the 3 forms of aggression (safeguarding tendency)?

Answer 19

1. deprecation- undervaluing other’s achievements and overvaluing your own
2. accusation- blame others for your failures
3. self-accusation- self torture and guilt

Question 20

What are the 4 forms of withdrawal (safeguarding tendency)?

Answer 20

1. moving backwards
2. standing still
3. hesitating
4. constructing obstacles

Question 21

Give an example of “standing still”

Answer 21

If you don’t apply to college, you can’t be rejected

Question 22

What is masculine protest?

Answer 22

overemphasizing the desirability of being manly

Question 23

What is “moving backwards”?

Answer 23

psychologically reverting to a more secure period of life

Question 24

what is “hesitating”?

Answer 24

procrastinating until you can give the excuse of “oh noooo it’s too late now :/ “

Question 25

describe “constructing obstacles”

Answer 25

building your own obstacles so you can overcome them and seem really cool for doing so B)

Question 26

describe Adler’s relation to Freud

Answer 26

they were besties for a bit but then Freud (being the narcissist he is) was like ew I don’t like your theory, so Adler was like bye bitch, they didn’t like each other much after the breakup

Question 27

describe Adler’s childhood and how it may have influenced his theories

Answer 27

so Adler was pretty weak growing up while his brother wasn’t, which gave him an inferiority complex which he theorized about later in life

Question 28

what was Adler’s core idea?

Answer 28

children are small, weak, and dependent, which leads to feelings of inferiority, which leads to social interest

Question 29

According to Adler, what are the 3 major problems in life that can only be solved through social interest?

Answer 29

neighborly love, work, and sexual love