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Personality Psychology > Week 6 - Psychodynamic Approach > Flashcards

Week 6 - Psychodynamic Approach Flashcards

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1
Q

What 3 reasons make Freud still relevant?

A
  1. Strong impact on the mind and psychotherapy, “talk therapy”
  2. Proposed idea of ‘transference’ = when the client displace the feelings/attitudes towards a significant person, ie. parents, onto the therapist
  3. Complex theory to explain all aspects of personality
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2
Q

What method did Freud use to study the unconscious?

A

by free association = paying attention to everything to everything that came to mind

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3
Q

What neuroses did Freud have?

A
  1. Travel phobia
  2. Tendency to faint in presence of talented men
  3. Cigar addiction = analysing shameful and anxious producing feelings
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4
Q

What are the so-called revolutions to destroy the cherished belief in human exceptionality?

A
  1. Copernicus = earth and people are not the centre of the universe
  2. Darwin = humans are an animal species
  3. Freud = humans are irritation and ruled by strong unconscious and irrational forces
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5
Q

What are 4 assumptions of Freudian human nature?

A
  1. Humans are first and foremost biological organisms
  2. Dominated by powerful biological instincts, the 2 primary instincts = sex and aggression
  3. Human nature is largely unknown = made up of unconscious and irrationality
  4. Every behaviour has an underlying cause, ie., we have psychic determinism: = everything is caused by something and for a particular reason = nothing is accidental
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6
Q

How is psychic determinism similar to behaviorism?

A

both assume that behaviour is controlled by the environment

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7
Q

What did Freud believe about conflict, neurosis and happiness in 5 steps?

A
  1. We are primarily shaped by our biological instincts and early childhood experiences with family
  2. The human mind is constantly in conflict with different psychic energies that want different things
  3. When conflicting unconscious are resolved, we become happier, and unresolved results in psychosis, neuroses and anxiety
  4. Based on thermodynamics = there is a fixed amount of psychic energy in everyone
  5. If conflicts are resolved, = good outcome, but psychic energy cannot dissipate, but unlikely to achieve full happiness
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8
Q

What did Freud’s opinions about human nature change over time? eg. onset of wars,

A
  1. Humans are instinctively aggressive, the neighbour is not longer a helper/sexual object but also someone to satisfy their aggressiveness
  2. Homo homini lupus = humans are wolves
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9
Q

What are Freud’s 5 biggest influences on personality psychology?

A
  1. The unconscious
  2. The structure of personality
  3. Defence mechanisms
  4. Early childhood shaping personality
  5. Popularising the idea of narcissism
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10
Q

What are the characteristics of the unconscious and preconscious in personality?

A
  1. Most of personality is unconscious - tiny part is preconscious and conscious (The preconscious = small and unaware of it)
  2. the unconscious = can be
    Can be dangerous, aggressive and violent, forbidden desires and needs
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11
Q

How can the unconscious be studied and observed?

A
  1. only indirectly through dreams, neurotic symptoms, irrational fears, freudian slips, type of offensive or aggressive humour we like
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12
Q

What are the 3 Freudian methods to study the unconscious?

A
  1. dream analysis
  2. free associations
  3. talk psychotherapy
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13
Q

What’s an example of dream analysis?

A
  1. the contents of the dream are said to have
    • manifest content (what you see)
    • latent content (true meaning of dream)

Example of manifest content = siblings flying away with wings

Example of latent content = wanting siblings to die and become angels to stop the competition between siblings

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14
Q

The unconscious is dominated by instincts, can’t escape or observe them; what 4 components make up instincts?

A

Each instinct has its own (AOSP)

  1. aims
  2. objects
  3. sources
  4. pressure
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15
Q

What components make up the hunger and sexual instincts?

A

Hunger
1. aim = to eat
2. Object = food
3. Source = in the body
4. Pressure = amount

Sex
1. aim = to reproduce / have sex
2. Object = person
3. Source = in the body
4. Pressure = amount

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16
Q

Is studying the unconscious obsolete?

A

No = Most psychs reject the idea of the unconscious and its dream methods, but now we can study the unconscious with more modern methods

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17
Q

What are the 2 primary instincts?

A
  1. Eros / sexual = holds people together, related to self and species preservation
  2. Thanatos / death = aggressive instinct = destruction of the self and others , argued that living people are made from inorganic matter, and thanatos is trying to return us to our inorganic aspects

We balance between the concurrent and mutually opposed actions of eros and thanatos

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18
Q

What is the structure of personality?

A
  1. ID = biological aspect of personality / ruled by pleasure principle, egocentric, don’t care about consequences or social norms, eg. sex/aggression
  2. Ego (I) - rational aspect of personality, accommodates reality (conscious + preconscious), 1 year of life, understands the problems of the ID, strong ego = strong psych health
  3. Superego (Over-I) the societal aspects of personality, which internalised societal beliefs, norms and values about what is right and wrong
    • develops 3-5 years
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19
Q

What are the personality differences between weak and strong superegos?

A
  1. Weak superego = not concerned with societal norms
  2. Strong superego = overly concerned with societal norms, may have feelings of guilt/shame, explain depression/anxiety
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20
Q

How does Freud’s structure of personality similar to Plato’s cognitive triad?

A
  1. Desire (like ID)
  2. Reason (like ego)
  3. Spirit/conscience (like superego)
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21
Q

What did Anna/Freud think defence mechanisms were used for?

A

To fight against anxiety which is produced by intrapsychic conflicts (eg. between the id and superego)

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22
Q

What are the 5 main defence mechanisms?

A
  1. Repression (Freud) = stimuli/memories that produce anxiety are kept in the unconscious
  2. Reaction formation = exhibit opposite behaviour to what we feel unconsciously
  3. Denial = stimuli creating anxiety/threats is denied, or the importance of the stimuli is denied, eg. alcoholics deny their addiction is a problem
  4. Intellectualisation = stimulus producing anxiety becomes interpreted in an overly intellectual/analytical way, to avoid the emotional significance of the stimulus
  5. Projection = when people ignore their impulses/characteristics they don’t like, and then attribute them to others
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23
Q
  1. What’s an example of reaction formation?
  2. What’s an example of projection?
A
  1. Religious figures say pornography is evil but use it
  2. getting mad at a partner for not telling you where they went while you’re cheating on them
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24
Q

What did Freud believe about early childhood influences on personality?

A
  1. First few years of one’s life are most influential for one’s personality, in interaction with biological traits
  2. First to study personality as set of distinct but related traits, the cause of these traits is due to early child development
  3. Lots of gratification/frustration = leads to fixation of the libido at the different stages, very severe toilet training results in repressed libido,
    = personality develops as anal character, very rigid, not open to anything, stingy, a reaction formation to keeping everything neat when was opposite in childhood
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25
Q

What is narcissism defined as?

What are the individual difference influences on narcissism across age and psychopathology?

A
  1. Individual difference variable and metatheoretical construct
  2. High levels of narcissism in schizophrenia = very uninterested in the external world
  3. Most people are moderate-high on narcissism, while infants have complete narcissism
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26
Q

How does narcissism change and how is it expressed?

Why do we find narcissism attractive?

A
  1. We are born with narcissism and self-preservation tend to be the same, and overtime differentiate into self-preservation and the libido
  2. We express narcissism in our sleep / egotistic dreams
  3. We are attracted to narcissistic libido, because they remind us of the parts of ourselves we got rid of as young children
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27
Q

What are the 2 types of narcissistic libido?

A

Two types of Primary narcissistic libido

  1. ego libido / self-love (self-preservation)
  2. object libido / other-love = species preservation
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28
Q

What did Freud estimate the psychic implications of too much ego or object libido would be?

A
  1. Since there is fixed amount of energy, too much ego libido = less energy for others

If there is too much object libido, there is not enough for yourself, ie. “sacrificing for the object (person) of love

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29
Q

What are the 5 main criticisms of Freud’s theories?

A
  1. untestable / pseudoscience / unfalsifiable, even though Freud saw himself as a scientist, Built on subjective case studies - cannot be verified and reproduced
  2. Tried to explain too many things with his theory: wanted to explain too many things with only a few narrow concepts
  3. Sex and aggression are not the only things that drive behaviour
  4. Influenced by limited environments: jewish/austrian/german, middle class and upper class, late-20th century (maybe cohort effects)
  5. Wanted to have submission to authority “garden of eden” type knowledge
30
Q

What’s the 6 main things to support Freud’s ideas?

A
  1. Support for the unconscious and its influence on our behaviour, eg. implicit cognitive studies
  2. Support for the role of several defence mechanisms
  3. Support for early childhood influences on adult personality
  4. Support for personality as a dynamic and interactive system between biology and environment
  5. Support for narcissism as a distinct psychological construct
  6. Support for the mind being in conflict
31
Q

What modern methods are used to objectively study the unconscious these days?

A
  1. Unconscious priming
  2. Implicit association tests (IAT)
  3. Priming = when behaviour is influenced by something that happened to them beforehand
32
Q

What are 2 examples of priming behaviours?

A
  1. Implicit biases
  2. procedural memory
33
Q

What are the 3 things that Horney differed to Freud in her psychoanalytical theory?

A
  1. Rejected that freud’s theory that biological factors are central
  2. Argued that sociocultural factors shape personality to huge degree
  3. Argued that personality growth occurs not just in the early lifespan
34
Q

What reasons did Horney attribute gender differences in personality development to?

A
  1. Gender differences in personality are not due to biology but due to societal influences of male superiority and power
  2. Argued that most cultures have a “battle of the sexes” - males are afraid of women and so invented particular practices to dominate and control them: creating an ideology to maintain positions of power and make it acceptable and unchangeable as if god had willed it
35
Q

What are the stages and logic of Horney’s theory of Neuroticism?

A

Children without parental warmth or parents whose parents didn’t like them/overcontrolled them/spoiled them = develop basic hostility and the neuroticism

  1. Feel small, weak and helpless as a child, repress hostility from a fear of losing attachment
  2. Then feel anxious and generalised to everyone else and the world “all-pervasive feeling of being lonely and helpless in a hostile world”, neuroticism is applied
    indiscriminately to many different types of people and situations
36
Q

What is the “solution” in Horney’s theory to avoid feeling neurotic?

A

To develop neurotic tendencies - limits the growth of the individual,

preferring fiction to reality and feeling alienated from the real self,

identifying with a ‘false, ideal self’ or the ‘despised, real self’

37
Q

What are Horney’s 3 Coping Strategies?

A
  1. Compliance/love (moving toward)
  2. Aggression (moving against)
  3. Withdrawal (moving away)
38
Q

What is Horney’s “compliance/love coping mechanism?

A

Compliance/love - moving toward/self-effacing solution =

neurotic need for affection and approval, have a strong need to please others, extremely afraid of being disliked, afraid of people being angry at them, some have a need for a partner to take over their life, a partner is so central and cannot be alone, afraid of rejection

Pros = in moving toward people - trying to create a friendly relation to their world

39
Q

What is Horney’s “aggression” coping mechanism?

A

Aggression - moving against/expansive solution

= mastery over other people, neurotic needs to exploit others, to be perfect and have power over others, to achieve things over others, dislike weak people, afraid of feeling weak and helpless, need to exploit others for money, ideas, feelings, feeling pride of exploiting others but afraid of being exploited, neurotic need for social recognition and prestige

Pros = in moving against people to equip oneself for survival in a competitive society

40
Q

What is Horney’s “withdrawal” coping mechanism?

A

Withdrawal - moving away/resignation solution =

don’t want to depend on anyone, neurotic need for self-sufficiency, independence, avoiding other people and interpreting emotional closeness as a threat and a source of anxiety, neurotic need to restrict life to narrow bounders, no ambition, tendency to belittle themselves, afraid to make demands on others

Pros = in moving away from people to attain a certain integrity and serenity

41
Q

Did Horney think the 3 coping mechanisms were abnormal in development?

A

All are fine and normal for development - only abnormal in a neurotic framework: becoming compulsive, rigid and indiscriminate

42
Q

What are Horney’s 2 types of selfs?

A
  1. Real self = what one really is, promoting healthy growth, represents interests, goals and abilities (neurotic personalities don’t like their real self, show fear, anxiety and hostility towards the real self)
  2. Ideal self = what one thinks one should be, not real, alienated from the real self, (takes over the mind of neurotic personalities and can hinder healthy growth)
43
Q

How do Horney’s coping mechanisms identify with the different types of selves?

A
  1. Love/compliance identifies with the despised self
  2. Aggressive coping mechanism identifies with the ideal self
  3. Withdrawal coping mechanism identities with real and ideal self
44
Q

What is the evidence that Horney’s idea of the neurotic personality is very close to personality disorders?

A
  1. Coolidge developed a measure of 57 items with compliance, aggressive and detached scale for personality disorder assessment “only the strongest survival” / “people say i’m unemotional” / “i prefer when i’m in a relationship”
  2. Correlate the scales of personality disorders with Horney’s coping mechanisms

ASPD is related to aggression
APD = detachment
DPD = compliance and aggression, Histrionic PD = aggression
NPD = aggression
OCPD = detachment
Schizoid PD = detachment

45
Q

What aspects of Horney’s theory are also related to childhood personality disorders?

A

Avoidant PD = Aggression and detachment

Conduct disorder = aggression

Dependent PD = compliance

46
Q

Coolidge (2015) - What are the findings on heritability of Horney’s coping mechanisms?

A
  1. Suggests that coping mechanisms have a genetic component since rates of MZ coping mechanisms are higher than DZ twins

Compliance: MZ = 0.37, DZ = .05
Aggression: MZ = 0.59, DZ = 0.48
Detachment: MZ = 0.46, DZ = 0.24

47
Q

What are the 2 fundamental motives posited by Freud’s theory?

A
  1. a psychic life force = libido (
  2. drive towards death and destruction = thanatos
48
Q

What development stage does the ego form?

A

anal stage

48
Q

What development stage does the superego form?

A

phallic stage

49
Q

What is regression according to Freud?

A

the movement backward to a previous developmental stage from a more advanced one

50
Q

What is secondary process thinking?

A

develops into adulthood, ordinary, rational and conscious

51
Q

What is primary process thinking in babies?

A

an unconscious part of the adult mind, characterised by displacement, symbolism and irrational drive for immediate gratification

52
Q

What are parapraxes?

A

forbidden impulses and unconscious thoughts “freudian slips”, memory lapses and unintentional actions

53
Q

What are the 8 defence mechanisms?

A
  1. denial
  2. repression
  3. reaction formation
  4. projection
  5. rationalisation
  6. intellectualisation
  7. displacement
  8. sublimation - socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior, possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse
54
Q

What is psychic determinism?

A

everything psychologically has a cause and could be identified

55
Q

What is compromise formation?

A

the main job of the EGO is to find a compromise between the structures of the mind and desires, the resultant behavior is the compromise

56
Q

What is the doctrine of opposites?

A

the idea that everything implies or contains an opposite

57
Q

What is symbolisation?

A

method of primary process thinking where one thing stands for another

57
Q

What is condensation?

A

method of primary process thinking where several ideas are compressed into one

58
Q

What is transference?

A

the redirection to a substitute, usually a therapist, of emotions that were originally felt in childhood (in a phase of analysis called transference neurosis

59
Q

Neo-Freudians: What did Alfred Adler write about?

A

adult strivings to overcome early childhood feelings of inferiority

60
Q

Neo-Freudians: What did Carl Jung write about?

A
  1. concerning the collective unconscious
  2. the outer, social version of the self called the persona
  3. the concepts of animus and anima;
  4. the distinction between extraversion and introversion
  5. four basic types of thinking that vary in levels in the individual: rational thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting, eg. early MBTI
61
Q

Which neo-Freudian theorist came up with a developmental theory across the whole lifespan?

A

Erik Erikson

62
Q

What did the object relations theorists come up with?

A

Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott
- complex relationships with important emotional “objects” people, ie. primary caregivers
- observed relationships mix pleasure and pain, people often feel guilty about their mixed emotions and need to defend against them

63
Q

What psychoanalytic concepts have been supported by modern day evidence?

A
  1. unconscious mental processes including repression and transference
64
Q

What is Adler’s organ inferiority?

A

the idea that people are motivated to succeed in adulthood in order to compensate for what they felt was there weakest aspect in childhood

64
Q

What is Adler’s masculine protest?

A

the idea that a particular urge in adulthood is an attempt to compensate for one’s powerlessness felt in childhood

65
Q

What is Jung’s collective consciousness?

A

the proposition that all human beings share certain unconscious ideas because of the history of the human species

66
Q

What are the Jungian archtypes?

A

the fundamental images of people contained in the collective unconscious - earth mother, devil, hero and supreme being

67
Q

What is the Jungian persona?

A

the social mask one wears in public settings

67
Q

What is Jungian anima and animus?

A
  1. The anima is the personification of all female psychological tendencies in man
  2. The animus is the personification of all male psychological tendencies in woman

both reside in the collective unconscious

Personality Psychology (10 decks)

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