Intro to personality and Freud 4.4 - 4.5a Flashcards
Psychoanalytic
Unconciouss mind and childhood (sexuality)
Humanistic
Growth and self fufillment
Social cognitive
Traits/thinking and social settings/context
Trait
Patterns of behavior
Psychoanalytic theory
A person’s thoughts and behaviors emerge from tension generated by unconscious motives and unresolved childhood conflicts
Psychoanalysis as a therapy
A therapeutic technique that attempts to provide insight into one’s thoughts and actions; exposing and interpreting the underlying unconscious motives and conflicts; unresolved conflicts
Free association
Exploring the unconscious mind by having the person relax and say whatever comes to mind no matter how trivial or embarassing
Hypnosis
Relaxing a person into a highly suggestive state to uncover unconscious memories or conflicts
Dreams
Behind the surface image (manifest content) lies the true hidden meaning (latent content)
Freudian slip
“Slips of the tongue” where unconscious desires sneak out in our speaking
Freud’s concept of the mind
Most of the mind is hidden; personality comes from the conflict that arises between our biological impulses and society’s should and should not; 3 parts to the mind and personality
Unconscious mind - 3 part mind
A region of the mind that includes unacceptable anxiety causing thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories
Preconscious mind - 3 part mind
The region of the mind holding information that is not conscious but is easily retrievable into conscious awareness
Conscious mind - 3 part mind
All the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that you are aware of at this particular moment represent the conscious level
Id - 3 part personality
The part of the personality that consists of unconscious energy from basic aggressive and sexual drives (Immediate gratification, pleasure principle, present at birth)
Pleasure principle/eros
Drive toward immediate gratification, most fundamentla human motive
Libido
Sexual energy or motivation
Thanatos
Death instinct, aggression, self-destructive actions
Superego - 3 part personality
The shoulds and should nots of society (Your conscious, moralistic, judgemental, perfectionist, sense of pride or guilt)
Ego - 3 part personality
Meditates the demands of the id without going against the restraints of the superego
Reality principle
Ability to postpone gratification in accordance with demands of reality/society
Oral stage
(0-18 months) Mouth is associated with sexual pleasure; chewing, biting, sucking
Fixation: smoking, chewing on nails
Anal stage
(1-3) Gratification comes from bowel and bladder function
Fixation: Anal retentive or expulsive behaviors in adulthood
Phallic stage
(3-6) Pleasure shifts to the genitals; Sexual attraction for opposite sex parent; child tries to learn gender identity
Oedipus complex
Boys cope with incestuous feelings toward their mother and rival feelings toward their dad - act more like dad to get mom’s attention
Fixation: Overruling
Electra complex
Incestuous feelings for their dad and compete with their mother - do things that mom does to get dad’s attention
Fixation: Becoming overly needy
Castration anxiety
Results in boys who feel their father will punish them by castrating them
Penis envy
The little girl suffers from deprivation and loss and blames her mother for “sending her into the world insufficiently equipped” causing her to resent her mother
Latency stage
(5-puberty) Sexuality is repressed due to intense anxiety caused by Oedipus complex
Children participate in hobbies, school, and same-sex friendships that strengthen their sexual identity
Genital stage
(Puberty on) Incestuous sexual feelings re-emerge but being prohibited by the superego are redirected toward others who resemble the person’s opposite sex parent
Defense mechanisms
Unconscious, used by the ego to diffuse tension from the conflict between your id and superego; reduce anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
Repression
Pushes anxiety-producing thoughts, feelings, and memories into the unconscious mind
Regression
Going back to a safer, simpler way of being
Reaction formation
Replacing an unacceptable wish with its opposite; behaving in ways that are exactly opposite of how we truly feel
Projection
Attributing something that we don’t like about ourselves to someone else; blaming other people or things for our own failure
Rationalization
Displaces real, anxiety-provoking explanations with more comforting justifications for one’s actions; “I failed because my teacher hates me”
Displacement
Shifts an unacceptable impulse toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person; yelled at by parents, let out anger by slamming door
Sublimation
Substitute an undesirable emotion or drive with a socially acceptable one; socially acceptable outlet for your id’s impulses; football instead or fighting
Denial
Rejecting the truth of a painful reality
Undoing
Unconsciously neutralizing an anxiety-causing action by doing a second action that undoes the first
Psychodynamic perspective
A more modern view of personality that retains some aspects of Freudian theory but rejects other aspects
Inferiority complex - Adler
A condition that comes from being unable to compensate for normal inferiority feelings
Superiority complex - Adler
Overcompensating for feelings of inferiority where one exaggerates achievements and importance to cover up their own limitations
Basic anxiety - Horney
The feeling of being isolated and helpless in a hostile world - insecurely attached causes anxiety
Collective unconscious
Set of common themes, or archetypes inherited from the wealth of human experience and shared by all people
