Unit 13- Personality theories Flashcards
Who is Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a stage theorist who developed psychosexual theory of development. His theory, which is over one hundred years old, laid the foundation for modern day psychology. He posits that personality is formed in the first few years of life as children deal with unconscious conflicts between their inborn biological urges and the requirements of society. Freud focused the impact of sexual and aggressive drives on the individual’s psychological functioning. He proposed that conflicts occur in unvarying sequence of maturational based stages of psychosexual development in which the pleasure shifts from one body zone to another.
His main theory
Freud stressed the importance of unconscious mental processes in determining people’s behavior. He employed a topographical model of personality development which states that psychic life can be represented by three levels of consciousness, the conscious, the pre-conscious and the unconscious. Freud used this mental ‘map’ of the mind to describe the degree to which mental events such as thoughts and fantasies vary in accessibility to awareness. The conscious consists of thoughts and feelings that a person is aware of at any given point in time. Only a small part of mental life (thoughts, feelings, perceptions and memories) is contained in the realm of consciousness. The conscious experience is a result of a selective screening process largely regulated by external cues. It is actually conscious for a brief time and can be quickly submerged into preconscious or unconscious levels as the person shifts onto different cues. It represents only a small percent of the information stored in the mind.
The id
The id is the personality component, which satisfies our basic urges, needs and desires, it operate on the pleasure principle, demanding instant gratification of needs. That is we are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain. The pleasure principle does not take into account the feelings of others, society norms or agreement between people. Its rule is to achieve the immediate discharge of impulses. The id is the source of instincts and impulses. It is the primary source of psychic energy and it exists from birth. The logic of the id is also the logic of dreams. This type of thinking is called primary process thought. It has a lack of concern for reality. In primary process thought there are no negatives, everything is yes. Nothing happens in the future or in the past, everything is now, a desire for instant gratification. It functions entirely on the unconscious.
The ego
The ego is the largely unconscious part of personality that mediates the demands of the id, the superego and reality. It is the term for all mental functions that have to do with a person’s relation to the environment. It represents a multitude of cognitive processes such as perception, learning, memory, judgement, self-awareness and language skills. The ego helps to ensure the safety and self-preservation of the individual. Freud thought the ego as beginning develop in the first six to eight months of life and is well established by the age of two or three years old. The ego obeys the reality principle and aims to preserve the organism’s integrity by suspending instinctual gratification until an appropriate outlet/environment is found. It helps a person to function effectively in the world. The ego also responds to the demands of the Id and the Superego and helps the person to satisfy needs, live up to ideals and standards and establish a healthy emotional balance. The ego control the gateway to action as it is the only action-taking part. It decides which desires will be satisfied, when and how. The ego distinguishes between reality and fantasy, tolerates moderate amounts of tension, changes as a function of new experience, and engages in rational cognitive reality. By depending on the power of rational thought, or what Freud termed ‘secondary process’ the ego is able to establish appropriate courses of action to satisfy instinctual needs without endangering the safety of the individual and others. Secondary process thought is logical sequential thinking used to plan and act in order to engage the world and achieve gratification in personally and socially acceptable ways.
The superego
The ego is the largely unconscious part of personality that mediates the demands of the id, the superego and reality. It is the term for all mental functions that have to do with a person’s relation to the environment. It represents a multitude of cognitive processes such as perception, learning, memory, judgement, self-awareness and language skills. The ego helps to ensure the safety and self-preservation of the individual. Freud thought the ego as beginning develop in the first six to eight months of life and is well established by the age of two or three years old. The ego obeys the reality principle and aims to preserve the organism’s integrity by suspending instinctual gratification until an appropriate outlet/environment is found. It helps a person to function effectively in the world. The ego also responds to the demands of the Id and the Superego and helps the person to satisfy needs, live up to ideals and standards and establish a healthy emotional balance. The ego control the gateway to action as it is the only action-taking part. It decides which desires will be satisfied, when and how. The ego distinguishes between reality and fantasy, tolerates moderate amounts of tension, changes as a function of new experience, and engages in rational cognitive reality. By depending on the power of rational thought, or what Freud termed ‘secondary process’ the ego is able to establish appropriate courses of action to satisfy instinctual needs without endangering the safety of the individual and others. Secondary process thought is logical sequential thinking used to plan and act in order to engage the world and achieve gratification in personally and socially acceptable ways.
Conscience and the ego- ideal
Freud divided the superego into two subsystems, the conscience and the ego-ideal. The conscience is acquired through the punishment by parents. It is concerned with the things that parents say are ‘naughty’ behavior and for which the child is reprimanded. It includes the capacity for punitive self-evaluation, moral prohibitions, and guilt feelings when a child fails to achieve what he or she should be doing. The rewarding aspect is the ego-ideal. It is derived from whatever the parents value or approve and leads the individual to pursue standards of excellence which, if achieved, will generate a sense of self-esteem and pride. For, example a child who is rewarded for scholarly efforts will feel proud whenever he or she shows academic achievement. The superego is said to be fully developed when self-control replaces parental control. The superego tries to persuade the ego that the pursuit of perfectionistic goals is better than the pursuit of realistic ones.
Instincts
are the basic elements of the personality, the motivating force that drives behaviour and determine its direction. Instincts are a form of energy that connects the body’s needs with the mind’s wishes.
Life instincts (Eros) -Freud’s idea that people are driven towards self-preservation
Death instinct (Thanatos)- Freud’s idea that people are driven towards self destruction and death (often turned outward as aggression
Stages of psychosexual development
Oral – 0 to 18 months
Anal -11/2 to 3 years
Phallic – 3 to 6 years
Latent – 6 to 12 years
Genital -12+
Oral
Infant totally reliant on caregivers for survival
Dependency is their only way of obtaining instinctual gratification
Individual derives pleasure from activities associated with the mouth
If the infant is given too much or too little stimulation, he is likely to become an oral passive personality type (gullible, passive, immature and excessively dependent
Anal
Young children derive great pleasure from both retention and expulsion of feces.
Child could develop an anal retentive personality( stubborn, stingy, orderly and punctual) or an anal expulsive personality (destructive, disorderly, impulsive, sadistic)
Phallic
The child’s libidinal interest is in the genitals
Children can be observed examining their sex organs, masturbating, etc.
The dominant conflicts in the phallic stage is the Oedipus and Electra complexes.
Oedipus complex is associated with the boy child, while Electra complex is associated with the girl child
Latency
In this stage the child is interested in non-sexual activities such as intellectual pursuits, athletics and peer relations.
This stage is not associated with any new erogenous zones and the sexual interest is presumed dormant
Genital
With the onset of puberty comes a resurgence of sexual and aggressive drives coupled with an increased awareness of an interest in the opposite sex.
Anxiety
Based on the sources of threat to the ego (the outside environment, the id and the superego), psychoanalytic theory identifies three types of anxiety
1.Realistic Anxiety-Anxiety-An emotional response triggered by threat or perception of real dangers in the external environment.
2.Neurotic Anxiety – An emotional response of fear experienced when the ego is threatened by uncontrollable instinctual desires.
3.Moral Anxiety- Feelings of shame and guilt experienced by the person when the ego is threatened by punishment from the superego.
Carl Jung
Jung believed that every individual has a conscious and unconscious mind. The conscious mind consists of thoughts and feelings that we are aware of, while the unconscious mind contains hidden thoughts, desires, and memories that influence our behavior.
According to Jung, the unconscious mind is divided into two main parts: the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The personal unconscious contains repressed memories and experiences unique to an individual, while the collective unconscious contains universal symbols and archetypes that are shared by all humans.
