Psychological views of the Conscience Flashcards
Three parts of the human mind
the id (our instinctual primal desires) entirely driven without reason. it works on the ‘pleasure principle’ that every wishful impulse should be satisfied instantly
the ego (the mediator between desire and reason) it balances out pleasure and reality
the super ego (rational thought) the suppression of our desires, fear of authority and constantly warns us of punishment
how does the ego work? REALITY PRINCIPLE
it develops and harnesses the power of the fantasy oriented id to foster more realistic modes of satisfaction- KNOWN AS THE REALITY PRINCIPLE
Works our realistic ways of satisfying the demands of the id, whilst also carrying out elements of the super ego. it carries out desires in a way that adheres to morality, social norms and custom.
how does the super ego work? ACTS AS A RELENTLESS JUDGE
incorporated values and morals of society which are learned from society.
‘stores’ values introjected from authority figures during childhood. it is the source of our moral feelings and our conscience.
two systems of the super ego
the conscience- punishes the ego through feelings of guilt
the ideal self- an imaginary picture of how you ought to be. failure to live up to this concept of perfection will be punished though guilt. emulating your ideal self is rewarded through feeling proud
Guilt
is imposed on us externally. we form an ideal self, created from the values and morals of society. when we fail to live up to this, we are punished by guilt. this all happens in the super ego
weakness- it is not empirical enough
karl popper- Freuds theory is ‘unfalsifiable’ as it could not say what would prove it wrong. He studied a small sample size of patients and did not do proper experiments. This isn’t an attack on the ideas, but rather claiming it needs to be subjected to proper scientific experiment and testing.
he described certain facts of the human behaviour but in a ‘manner of myths’. it is not in a testable form so holds no explanatory power.
Piagets defence of freud
piaget developed better empirical methods of testing the conscience, and came to the same conclusion, thus freud theory does have a scientific basis to it.
piaget satisfies the development of children and there occurs a fundamental shift in the nature of ‘conscience’. before 11, children have HETERONOMOUS MORALITY, meaning they associate actions as bad because of what their parents say (similar to us internalising disapproval of others in the super ego)
after 11, children have AUTONOMOUS MORALITY, where they can begin to have abstract cognitive moral beliefs about how one ought to act and why.
freuds theory of psychosexual development
Freud thought that the process of being socialised – being inducted into society – required children to learn to control their Id. This process of learning was developmental in that it comes in stages. If self-control is not learned at a particular stage, it can lead to issues later in life.
stages if psychosexual development
Oral stage: Between birth and 1.5 years old. Babies breastfeed, and explore the world by putting things in their mouth. Failure to develop properly during this stage can lead to smoking or overeating.
Anal stage: 1.5 – 3 years old. The ego develops at this time and pleasure is gained through exercising self-control over going to the toilet. Those who overly-control become a control freak, those who do not learn to control enough become messy.
Phallic stage: 3-6 years old. Children become aware of their genitals and their gender. Oedipus and Electra complex develops – jealousy of the parent of the same sex for the time and attention they take from the parent of opposite same sex. Problems moving through this stage cause intimacy issues later in life.
Latency stage: 6-puberty. Sexual desire develops and is repressed. Gender roles are learned.
Mature genital stage: lasts until death. Controlled sexual desires result in a desire for love and marriage. A person now has a fully developed conscience where the ego controls the Id with reference to the superego.
