Psychoanalysis Flashcards
What does Sigmund Freud says determines our personality and future behaviour?
Our early childhood experiences (‘the child is father to the man’)
According to Freud what are the three elements that makes up the human personality?
The id, the superego, the ego
Where is the id located?
In the unconscious, instinctive, ‘animal’ part of the mind
What does the id contain?
Powerful, selfish, pleasure-seeking needs and drives
What is the id governed by?
The pleasure principle
What does the superego contain?
Our conscience or moral rules
How does the superego develop?
Through interactions with our parents during early socialisation in the family, the individual will internalise the parents values of right and wrong and the superego develops into a sort of internal nagging parent
What is the ego’s role?
To strike a balance between the conflicting demands from the id and superego
What is the ego governed by?
The Reality Principle
What are the three forms of a superego that can cause crime?
A weakly developed superego, an overly harsh and unforgiving superego and a deviant superego
Why would a weakly developed superego cause crime?
The individual will feel less guilt about anti-social actions and less inhibition about acting on the id’s selfish or aggressive urges
Why would an overly harsh and unforgiving superego cause crime?
It’ll create deep-seated feelings of guilt in the individual who’ll then crave punishment as a release from those feelings
Why would a deviant superego cause crime?
When a child is successfully socialised but into a deviant moral code, usually due to a good relationship with a criminal father
