Personality Pt 1: Freudian Theory And Neo-Freudians (Psychodynamic) Flashcards
Personality
Your characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
Theories of personality
Psychoanalytic
Trait
Humanistic
Social cognitive
Out of the theories of personalities, what theory only describes?
Trait
Idiographic methods
Personality techniques that look at the individual
Idiographic methods example
Case studies, interviews, etc
Main tool for Freud
Idiographic methods
Nomothetic methods
Personality techniques such as tests, surveys, and observations that focus on variables at the group level, identifying universal trait dimensions or relationships between different aspects of personality
Nomothetic methods are what perspectives?
Trait perspectives
Psychoanalytic perspective mostly based on
Sigmund Freud
Freud argued that Personality was mostly influenced by
Unconscious conflicts/motivations and early childhood sexuality/experiences
Most basic motives of Freud
Sex and aggression
Sex and aggression
Sex: life instinct
Aggression: death instinct
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory on unconscious motivations influence on our personality and to the techniques used to uncover and interpret unconscious conflicts and tensions which may be causing a psychological disorder
For psychoanalysis, only through understanding conflicts can you overcome
Psychological problems like depression, anxiety, etc.
Psychoanalysis of the perspective
Technique of the perspective
Unconscious
According to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unaccepted thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories we are unaware of
Preconscious
Information that is not conscious, but is retrievable into conscious awareness
Preconscious example
Phone number, bestfriend’s last name
Structure of our personality according to Freud
To him, personality is like an iceberg. Only can see very small part of it (conscious) while most of it is unseen (unconscious)
Id
Largest part of your personality that is unconscious, largely instinctual, and purely operates to satisfy biological, sexual, and aggressive drives
The devil of your personality
ID
Id seeks immediate gratification and operates according to the
Pleasure principle
Id people are
Self centered, impulsive, impatient, rude
Superego develops
Around age of 4-5
Superego
Your voice of conscience and focuses on the MORALITY PRINCIPLE how you should act according to ideals.
Superego provides standards for
Judgement and future aspirations; pushes you towards perfection
The angel on your shoulder
Superego
Side effects of superego
May lead to anxiety and guilt
Who influence superego?
Parents, religion, teachers, friends (maybe)
Superego is learned from
Society
Ego is
YOU
Ego
Largely conscious part of your personality that mediates conflict between your id and superego
Ego operates according to the
Reality principle satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain
Most fragile personality
Ego
Ego example
Self esteem
“Maybe I can find a compromise”
According to Freud, when did personality develop?
First few years of life
Freud believed that adult’s conflicts are rooted in unresolved conflicts from
Early childhood which we often related to conflicts in psychosexual development
Psychosexual stage
Childhood stages of development during which according to Freud, the id’s pleasure seeking energies are focused on distinct erogenous zones
Erogenous zones
Part of the body that brings you pleasure
Fixation
A lingering focus of pleasure seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage
Fixation occurs when
Those “sexual needs: are over indulged or deprived
Fixation example
Anal retentive, etc
Fixation simple words
Getting stuck in a certain psychosexual stage
Conflict/fixation in the oral stage focuses on
“Sexual pleasure” infant gets from sucking, biting, chewing
Conflict in oral stage arises when
Child is weaned off of breast or bottle which in some cases causes traumatic separation anxiety
Fixation in oral stage leads to
Oral dependent personality or
Oral aggressive personality
Oral dependent personality
Gullible, passive, dependent personality
Oral aggressive personality
Sarcastic, argumentative personality
Oral stage for adults
Adults fixated may smoke, drink, chew pens, or have other oral habits when they get anxious
Conflict/fixation in the anal stage focus on
“Sexual pleasure” child receives form defecation (pooping) at the anus
Conflict in anal stage arises during
Toilet training
Child may become fixated if training is too strict and inflexible
Anal retentive personality
Compulsive, cleanliness, orderliness, etc
Anal retentive personality is close to
OCD
Anal expulsive personality
Disorganized, messy, hot tempered
Conflict/fixation during the phallic stage (focuses on genitals): the Oedipus complex
Boys develop sexual desires towards their mothers and feelings of jealously and hatred towards their father.. Little Hans case study
Conflict/fixation during the phallic stage (focuses on genitals): fear of punishment from their father leads to
Castration anxiety and eventually repression of feelings towards mother and identification which rival parent (father)
Phallic Stage: castration anxiety
Fear that Your father is going to cut off your penis
Conflict/fixation during the phallic stage (focuses on genitals): identification
Children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos
Where do gender norms come from?
Identification (phallic stage)
Electra complex
Females’ sexual feelings with their father
Latency stage age
6-12
Latency stage
Sexual feelings are repressed
Freud argued that Latency stage was the stage in which Children put energy into
forming social relationships and learning new tasks
Latency stage: if child doesn’t fulfill their own expectations,
They may feel inferior
Oral stage age
0-18 months
Anal stage age
18-36 months
Phallic stage age
3-6 years
Latency stage age
6-puberty
Genital stage and phallic stage
Same thing
Children enter genital stage during
Adolescence
Genital stage: when one develops
Warm feelings toward others and sexual attraction and intimate relationships with others
Freud viewed genital stage as
Smooth period for those with little energy fixated in previous stage
Personality and dealing w/ anxiety
The ego has to deal with a variety of forms of anxiety based on unconscious conflicts and the conflicting desires of Id and superego.
At times to avoid anxiety it looks to protect itself by
Defense mechanisms
Defense mechanisms
Methods that the ego uses to reduce anxiety. Involved unconsciously reality to make itself feel better
Ego needs
Defense
Repression
Banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness
Repression example
Child sexual abuse is “forgotten”
Repression is basically
Accidental forgetting
Regression goes
Backwards
Regression
When an individual retreats to an earlier move infantile psychosexual stage, where some psychic energy remains fixated
Acting more childlike than you are
Regression
Crying like a baby when stressed
Regression
Regression example
When stressed, someone may smoke more (oral fixation)
Reaction formation
When the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites
Reaction formation: people will expressing
Opposites of their anxiety arousing feelings
Reaction formation example
Heartbroken boyfriend states that he “hates” his ex
A man says that he’s against LGBT but in reality he is bisexual
Reaction formation
Projection
When people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Projection example
Husband who is cheating may constantly accuse wife of the behavior
“I’m not dumb, the test is dumb”
Projection
Rationalization
Offering SELF JUSTIFYING EXPLANATIONS in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions
Fake reasons, reasons for illegal song downloads
Rationalization
Rationalization example
Justifying cheating on taxes by saying the government would use $ to create nuclear weapons
Displacement
Shifting one’s sexual or aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening object or person.. REDIRECT anger at “safer outlet”
Displacement example
Angry at boss or supervisor and you take it out by yelling at your friend
Show anger on someone else because they are “easier”
Displacement
Sublimation
When people rechannel their unaccepted impulses into SOCIALLY APPROVED activities
Sublimation example
Playing football to rechannel aggressive impulses
Little Willy cut dead animals to see their organs, when he grew up, he became a surgeon
Sublimation
Denial
When person denies threatening behavior or events are taking place
Denial example
Person who is in a horrible accident states emphatically “I will walk again!!!!!”
8 defense mechanisms
Repression, regression, reaction formation, projection, rationalization, displacement, sublimation, denial
Hypnosis
Freud “discovered” the unconscious when hypnotizing his patients. Under hypnosis patients would talk freely about the onset of their symptoms and their lives which allowed Freud access to “unconscious conflicts”
Why did Freud eventually turn away from hypnosis?
Not all patients reacted to it
Freud on dreams
Considered the “royal rode to the unconscious”
Manifest content (dream sequence)
A censored expression of the dreamer’s unconscious wishes called LATENT CONTENT which can be analyzed by psychoanalysts
Latent content can be analyzed by
Psychoanalysts
Free association
Technique in which patients relax and say WHATEVER COMES TO THEIR MIND without censoring themselves no matter how trivial or embarrassing the flow of thoughts is
You say whatever that comes to mind
Free association
To Freud, nothing you did or said was
Ever accidental; everything offered insights into the unconscious
Freudian slips
Slips of the tongue or actions which may illustrate unconscious motives/feelings
Freudian slips example
Accidentally calling your wife “mom”
Man sending a post card to his wife while on vacation which reads: “Wish you were her.”
Freudian slips
Projective tests
Test which presents ambiguous (unclear) stimuli which is designed to get at one’s inner/unconscious dynamics when you interpret it
Types of projective tests
TAT, Finish the sentence, ink blot, draw a picture
Thematic apperception test (TAT)
Test where people express their inner feelings and interests through the stories they make up about ambiguous scenes
Rorschach Ink Blot test
Most widely used projective test, looks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of blots
Alfred Adler
Emphasized the importance of SOCIAL tensions in childhood rather than sexual tensions to explain personality development
Alfred Adler proposed the idea of
Inferiority complex
Inferiority complex
Feeling of inferiority during childhood which causes individuals to overcompensate and either have significant achievements or develop antisocial tendencies
Inferiority complex is combined with
Competence vs inferiority by Erikson
Neo- Freudians:
New Freudians, aka Psychodynamic
Dynamic: change
Neo-Freudians focus on
Social conflicts instead of sexual
Carl Jung came up with psychoanalytic ideas which are
Collective unconscious and archetypes
Collective unconscious
Idea that humans have a shared reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history
Archetypes
Inherited memories were known as archetypes and can be seen in the common themes in religions, cultures, literature, etc.
Archetypes are basically
Common symbols
Symbol of “the hero”
An Asian old man is wise
Archetypes
Karen Horney
Brought a feminist perspective to psychoanalytic theory and sharply attacked the male bias when she saw in Freud’s work
Who argued against Freud’s concept of “penis envy”
Karen Horney
