Theory Summaries Flashcards
Summarize Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud relied mostly on deductive reasoning and identified:
- Cornerstones of his psychoanalysis: sex and aggression
- 3 levels of mental life: unconscious, pre-conscious, and conscious.
- Three provinces of the mind: id (pleasure principle), ego (reality) and superego (moralistic).
- Four stages of development: infantile (oral, anal, phallic), latency, genital, maturity.
Dreams and Freudian slips reveal unconscious intentions, so Freud used dream analysis and free association to help strengthen the ego.
Summarize Adler’s Individual Psychology
- People begin life with a striving force and deficiencies – leading to feelings of inferiority.
- Ppl compensate for this by developing social interest and success.
- Neighborly love, work, & sexual love can only be solved by social interest.
- Ppl who feel they have more than normal deficiencies overcompensate and strive for personal gain and superiority.
- Everyone uses safeguarding tendencies like excuses or aggression – to protect inflated feelings of superiority
- Therapy uses birth order, early recollections and dreams to foster social interest.
Summarize Jung’s Analytical Psychology
Ppl are motivated by experiences – both repressed and inherited from ancestors (collective unconscious)
• Archetypes are among the collective unconscious.
• Most inclusive archetype is self – which unites all archetypes in the process of self-realization.
• This is achieved by balancing opposing forces of personality – introv./extrav., rational/irrational, male/female, etc.
Perhaps Slow Animals Act Heroically, Sam
Summarize Klein’s Object Relations Theory
- Mother-child relationship in first 4-6 mos. critical to personality development
- Infant’s drives (hunger, etc.) are directed to an object (breast, penis, etc.)
- Infants introject internal psychic representations of early objects and project on another person.
- To deal with the nurturing and frustrating breast, they split both it and their own ego into good/bad
- During OC, both genders develop feminine position
- Female OC resolved without any jealousy toward mom.
- Male OC is completed when he feels positive feelings to both parents and is ok with them having sex.
Summarize Horney’s psychoanalytic social theory
- It’s a competitive world.
- Without love and affection, kids lack safety & satisfaction, causing basic hostility toward parents.
- Repressing hostility leads to basic anxiety.
- They combat basic anxiety with neurotic trends: moving a) toward, b) against or c) away from ppl.
- Incompatibility of the three causes basic conflict.
- Normal ppl resolve by using all three. Neurotics use only one.
- Neurotic’s compulsive behavior generates intrapsychic conflict – idealized self-image or self-hatred.
- Idealized self = neurotic search for glory, neurotic claims, neurotic pride.
- Self-hatred expresses as self-contempt or alienation from self.
Summarize Erikson’s Post-Freudian Theory
- Erikson extended Freud’s infant stages into eight stages of psychosocial development – infancy to old age.
- Each of eight stages include a psychosocial struggle focused on opposing syntonic (harmonious) and dystonic (distruptive) attitudes.
- From adolescence on, struggle becomes an identity crisis.
- Resolving this struggle/crisis creates a basic strength.
- Too little basic strength leads to a core pathology.
Summarize Fromm’s Humanistic Psychoanalysis
- Separation from the natural world produces feelings of isolation.
- To escape these feelings, unite with others and nature.
- Only the human needs of relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, sense of identity, and frame of orientation help reunite with natural world.
- Anxiety is being alone in the world.
- To relieve anxiety: mech. of escape: authoritarianism, destructiveness, conformity.
- Psych. healthy ppl acquire syndrome of growth: positive freedom (spontaneity), biophilia, and love for fellow humans.
- Non-productive ppl acquire passively – receiving, exploiting, hoarding, marketing.
- Sick ppl have syndrome of decay - necrophilia, malignant narcissism, incestuous symbiosis.
Summarize Maslow’s Holistic-Dynamic Theory
- Ppl are motivated by four dimensions of need: conative (striving), aesthetic (order, beauty), cognitive (knowledge), neurotic (unproductive relating to ppl).
- Conative needs on a hierarchy – physio, safety, love & belongingness, esteem, self-actual.
- The conative needs are Instinctoid – deprivation leads to pathology.
- Acceptance of B-values (truth, beauty, humor, etc.) separates self-act. ppl from others.
Summarize Rogers’ Person-Centered Theory
- Formative tendency (all matter evolves to more complex forms) and actuating tendency (move toward completion or fulfillment.
- There are three selves – organismic, self-concept, ideal self.
- Incongruence occurs when organismic and self-concept don’t match.
- When incongruent, ppl get defensive – using distortion & denial to reduce incongruence.
- If defense doesn’t work, ppl become disorganized.
- Ppl can change w/ therapist who is congruent and has unconditional pos. regard & empathy.
- Self-actualization develops when ppl evolve a self-system, moving to fully functional person/person of tomorrow.
Summarize McCrae and Costa’s Five-Factor Trait Theory
• Five-Factor theory (Big Five) assumes human traits can be measured by correlational studies.
• Big Five includes:
- Extraverts (social, impulsive) vs. introverts (passive, thoughtful)
- Neuroticism – high score: anxiety, hysteria, OCD, criminality vs. low score: emotional stability.
- Openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness.
• Equal weight placed on biological & environmental influences on personality.
• Five-Factor Theory been used to assess personality traits in cultures across the world.
• NEO-PI-R shows high level of stability in personality factors as ppl advance from 30 yo.
Summarize Eyesenck’s Biologically Based Factor Theory
Unlike McCrae & Costa, he based his taxonomy on factor analysis & biology.
• Used hypothetico-deductive approach (falsify a hypothesis) to ID 3 bipolar factors: extraversion/introversion, neuroticism/stability, psychoticism/superego.
• High on neuroticism indicates anxiety, hysteria, OCD. Low = emotional stability
• High on psychoticism - hostility, self-centeredness, suspicion. Low – strong superego, empathy, cooperation.
Summarize Buss’ Evolutionary Theory of Personality
- Scientific study of human thought and behavior from evolutionary perspective, focused on four Qs. (Why is the human mind designed as it is? How is it designed – parts and structure? What functions do the parts have? How do the evolved mind & environment interact to shape behavior?)
- Evolution poses two basic problems: survival and reproduction. Solutions are called mechanisms.
- Physical mechanisms include organs/systems.
- Psychological mechanisms related to personality: goals/drives/motivations, emotions, personality traits
- Buss’ model (similar to McCrae & Costa Big 5): surgency/extraversion/dominance, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness/intellect.
Summarize Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory.
• Observational learning (learn w/o performing) requires
a) attention to a model
b) organization & retention of observations
c) behavioral production
d) motivation to perform.
• Enactive learning takes place when ppl evaluate consequences of their behavior.
• Functioning is a product of triadic reciprocal causation: the interaction reaction of environmental events, behavior & personal factors
• Chance encounters & fortuitous events are important enviro. factors.
• Self/collective efficacy
• Ppl self-regulate w/ external & internal factors. Ext: standards, reinforcement. Int: self-observation, judgment, self-reaction.
• Selective activation & disengagement of internal control lets ppl separate themselves from consequences.
• To do so, can redefine behavior, displace responsibility, distort consequences, blame the victims.
Summarize Rotter and Mischel’s Cognitive Social Learning Theory
Generally Rotten
• Cognitive factors, more than reinforcements, determine how ppl will react to environment.
• Potential of behavior = person’s expectancy & value of reinforcement (basic formula) or = freedom of movement & need value (general formula).
• Per Mischel’s cognitive-active personality system (CAPS), behavior shaped by interaction of stable personality traits and the situation.
• Locus of control – ppl’s believe that they can or cannot control their lives.
• Maladaptive behavior: actions that fail to move a person closer to their goal.
• Personal dispositions have some consistency over time, but vary across situations.
• Stable personality dispositions combine with cognitive-affective units to produce behavior.
Summarize Kelly’s Psychology of Personal Constructs
- All people anticipate events by the meanings or constructs, they place on the events.
- Behavior is shaped by their construction of that world, and alternate constructs are always available (constructive alternativism).
- Basic postulate – that people are constantly active, and activity is guided by the way they anticipate events. 11 corollaries support this.
