Week 2 - Psychoanalytic and Humanistic Approaches to Personality Flashcards
Name the four psychoanalysts
- Sigmund Freud
- Alfred Adler
- Carl Jung
- Karen Horney
What are the three dimensions of personality?
- Conscious (Ego)
- Preconscious (Superego)
- Unconscious (Id)
Explain Conscious and Ego
- Conscious: information in your immediate awareness
- Ego is the rational, planful, mediating dimension of personality (It balances Id’s urges with Superego’s constraints)
- Ego operates via reality principle (long-term gratification)
- the “Ego” = You
Explain Preconscious and Superego
- Preconscious: information that can easily be made conscious
- Superego is the moralistic, judgmental, perfectionist dimension of personality
- Superego controls moral/rule-bound behaviour (ideals, ethics)
Explain Unconscious and Id
- Unconscious: thoughts, feelings, urges and wishes that are difficult to bring to conscious awareness
- Id is the irrational, illogical, impulsive dimension of personality (not concerned with morals or social rules)
- Id works according to the pleasure principle (immediate gratification)
What did Freud say on how Ego, Id and Superego interact with one another?
Ego has to compromise between the external world (given circumstances), the superego (morals and ideals) and the id (unconscious needs/desires)
Name the 5 stages of psychosexual development, according to Freud
- Oral Stage
- Anal Stage
- Phallic Stage
- Latency Stage
- Genital Stage
Describe the Oral Stage in Freud’s Psychosexual Development
- Up to 2 years old
- Focus on oral pleasure (e.g., feeding, thumb-sucking)
Describe the Anal Stage in Freud’s Psychosexual Development
- 2 to 3 years old
- The primary focus is on controlling bladder and bowel movements (ex. toilet train)
Describe the Phallic Stage in Freud’s Psychosexual Development
- 4 to 5 years old
- Focus on genitals; realisation of physical male/female differences
- Lead to psychological gender differences
- Ex. Oedipus/Electra complexes
Describe the Latency Stage in Freud’s Psychosexual Development
- 6 years until puberty
- With key conflicts resolved, child represses sexuality and channels energy into social and intellectual pursuits
Describe the Genital Stage in Freud’s Psychosexual Development
- Onwards from puberty
- Sexual and aggressive drive returns
- Seeks pleasure through sexual contact with others
- Ego and superego has now fully developed
Describe the Freud’s Oedipus Complex
- Occurs during the Phallic stage of psychosexual development
- Involves a boy (3-6yo) becoming subconsciously sexually attached to his mother
Describe Freud’s Electra Complex
- Occurs during the Phallic stage of psychosexual development
- Involves a girl (3-6yo) becoming subconsciously sexually attached to her father
- Proposed by Freud but the term was coined by Carl Jung
What did Carl Jung say about Freud?
Believed that Freud over-emphasized sexuality
What did Carl Jung say about personality?
- Proposed a ‘collective unconscious’
- Focused on dual aspects of the personality (Private self vs. Persona presented to others)
- Therapy should help the expression of the unconscious; an ally, not an enemy
side note: He rejected scientific methods, instead embraced a ‘mythological approach’
Explain the Collective Unconscious (Carl Jung)
- A form of the unconscious (that part of the mind containing memories and impulses of which the individual is not aware) common to mankind as a whole and originating in the inherited structure of the brain.
- We forget everything at birth due to trauma
What did Alfred Adler say about Freud?
Believed Fred over-emphasized sexuality
What are the three things proposed by Alfred Adler?
- People consciously strive to improve their lives (towards superiority)
- Relationships shape individuals; so does desire to contribute to society
- Individuals focus on compensating for painful inferiorities (inferiority complex; e.g., child who felt inferior emphasising toughness as an adult)
What did Karen Horney say about personality?
- Culture is a primary influence on an individual’s personality
- Women are ‘socialised’ into gender roles, and not that they are ‘destined’ to fulfill them by biology or psychology
Explain Humanistic Psychology
- It states that people have an innate tendency towards self-actualization; Personality formed by the motivation to reach full potential
- Emphasis on the present, rather than the past or future
- Self-reflection and choice are key to development
- Came from Abraham Maslow and Carl R. Rogers
What did Abraham Maslow say about personality?
- Focused on a person-centred approach to personality
- Criticised psychology’s focus on psychopathology to understand personality
- Thought that focus on health & thriving was more informative (positive psychology movement)
What is self-actualization?
The realisation or fulfilment of one’s talents and potential
When is it believed for peak experiences to occur?
Peak experiences occur when people are engaged in self-actualising activities -> “Flow”
Explain the Hierarchy of Needs
- Development begins with basic needs (motives) similar to animals
- Once lower needs are satisfied, behaviour is then driven by more uniquely human motives
- Humans don’t necessarily follow the sequence of hierarchy (e.g., refuse to eat something even if they are starving
What are the components of being in the “Flow”? (name atl. 5)
- Activity is challenging and skillful
- One’s attention is completely absorbed by the activity
- Activity has clear goals
- Presence of clear feedback
- Concentration can only be on the current task
- Achievement of personal control
- Loss of self-consciousness
- Loss of sense of time
Explain Person-Centred Therapy
- Application of Rogerian therapy makes clients more fully functioning and happier
- Involves creating a proper relationship with clients (Open, genuine and reflection)
What is the humanistic approach to personality?
- States that personality is defined by growth-promoting experiences (actualising tendency)
Based on the humanistic approach, what influences personality with age?
- When we are young, internal experiences influence personality and this occurs naturally in infants (ex. food and security)
- With age, external rules replace inner experiences & desires and change personality
- Environment may interact with our motivations which produce fear and defensiveness (e.g., parents, schools, peers, etc.)
Explain consistency in the self
- We (i) organise our values to maintain self-concept and (ii) behave in ways consistent with ‘self’
- No consistency between self and behaviour creates conflict, doubt and distress
Explain self image, ideal self, congruence and incongruence
- Self image: Current perception of self
- Ideal self: Self we aspire to be in the future
- Larger overlap between our self image and our ideal self = congruence = healthy
- When behaviour is not consistent with sense of self, individual is distressed at ‘not being themselves’
Psychodynamic vs. Humanistic (Name atl. 3 differences)
Psychodynamic:
1. Control by unconscious forces
2. Personality fixed based on early life experiences
3. Adult psychological experiences = Repeating conflicts of the past
4. Impulses denied = Health personality functioning
5. Anxiety caused by unacceptable biological impulses of Id
Humanistic:
1. Control by own actions/choices
2. Personality is not fixed; Development is lifelong
3. Adult psychological experiences = Achieving self-actualising
4. Congruence = Healthy personality functioning
5. Anxiety caused by incongruence between self and one’s experience
General Critiques on the Humanistic Theory
- Theory may be too optimistic on human behaviour
- Majority of theories are not supported by evidence, more based on assumptions
- Certain constructs hard to define, even by humanists (ex. self-actualisation)
General Critiques on the Psychodynamic Theory
- Too focused on psychiatric patients
- No clear way of refutingaspects of psychodynamic theory; often not testable or falsifiable
- Theories often not based in scientific, empirical research
What did Freud get wrong?
- Psychosexual Stages of Development
- Penis envy/castration anxiety
- Oedipus/Electra complexes
What did Freud get right?
- Unconscious cognitive processes
- Talking therapies
- Repressed memories
- Defense mechanisms
- Profound cultural legacy
What are defense mechanisms?
Techniques of eqo to deal with unwanted thoughts & desires, and to reduce/avoid anxiety
Defense Mechanism: Explain repression
- Forceful forgetting; Pushing threatening material out of consciousness
- Requires constant expense of energy
Defense Mechanism: Explain sublimation
- Channeling impulses into socially acceptable actions to distract ourselves from the actual problem
- Usually rewarding
Defense Mechanism: Explain displacement
- Channeling impulses to non-threatening objects
- Displaced impulses do not lead to rewards
Defense Mechanism: Explain denial
- Refusal to accept that certain facts exits
Defense Mechanism: Explain reaction formation
- Acting in a manner that is opposite to your “threatening” unconscious desires
Defense Mechanism: Explain projection
- Attributing the negative thoughts/emotions you have to someone else
What are the evidence for defense mechanisms?
- Baumeister, Dale & Sommer found support for many (but not all) defense mechanisms
- Sublimation: no evidence
- Denial: some evidence
*People make more external attributions for failure than success - Reaction formation: good evidence
*Adams, Wright & Lohr’s experiment on homophobic individuals
