What is Personality?
Personality
an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting
basic perspectives covering how personality develops and is assessed
Psychoanalytic
Humanistic
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
From Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) theory which proposes that childhood sexuality and unconscious motivations influence personality
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
Psychoanalysis
Freud’s theory of personality that attributes our thoughts and actions to unconscious motives and conflicts
techniques used in treating psychological disorders by seeking to expose and interpret unconscious conflicts & motives, by providing insight into one’s thoughts & actions
Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis grew from his early observation that some patients who consulted him seemed to have no physical cause.
Freud experimented with hypnosis, but found that some patients could not be hypnotized and thus developed the technique of:
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
Free Association
in psychoanalysis, a method of exploring the unconscious mind
person relaxes and says whatever comes to mind, no matter how trivial or embarrassing
Free Association – Let’s
Try!
rainforest:
grape:
icy:
lucky charm:
telescope:
radio station:
butterscotch:
bouquet of:
boiled:
pottery:
Personality Structure
Freud’s compared the human mind’s structure to an iceberg
Id
Superego
Ego Conscious mind
Unconscious
mind
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
Unconscious
according to Freud, a reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, desires, & memories. If he could patients open the door to the unconscious mind, they could recover from painful childhood memories and heal.
contemporary viewpoint- information processing of which we are unaware
The conscious mind are the thoughts and feelings that we are aware of.
The preconscious mind consists of thoughts & memories not in our current awareness but easily retrieved.
Freud believed that our personality grows out of a basic human conflict. Each of us is born with aggressive, pleasure seeking biological impulses.
But we live in a society that restrains these impulses. The way that each of us resolves the conflict between social restraints and pleasure seeking impulses shapes our individual personality.
Three forces interact during this conflict:
Personality Structure
Id
contains a reservoir of unconscious energy
strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives
operates on the pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification
Personality Structure
Superego
the part of personality that presents internalized ideals and standards for judgement. It is the voice of conscience that focuses on what we should do.
Personality Structure
Ego
the largely conscious part of personality
mediates among the demands of the id, superego,
operates on the reality principle, satisfying the id’s desires in ways that will realistically bring pleasure rather than pain. Represents good sense & reason.
Oh Krunk….
YouTube: Avengers 2 - Thor vs. Iron Man -- Captain America Breaks it
up
Freud concluded that our personality is formed during the first 5 to 6 years of life. He believed that his patient’s problems originated in conflicts that had not been resolved during childhood years.
Freud believed the patient had become “FIXATED” or stuck on one of the psychosexual stages of development. Each stage is marked by the id’s pleasure seeking focus on a different part of the body.
Personality
Development
Identification
the process by which children incorporate their parents’ values into their developing superegos
Fixation
a lingering focus of pleasure-seeking energies at an earlier psychosexual stage, where conflicts were unresolved
Personality
Development
Psychosexual Stages the childhood stages of development
during which the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on distinct erogenous zones
Oedipus Complex a boy’s sexual desires toward his
mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father during the phallic stage
Personality
Development
Freud’s Psychosexual Stages
Stage Focus
Oral Pleasure centers on the mouth--
(0-18 months) sucking, biting, chewing
Anal Pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder
(18-36 months) elimination; coping with demands for
control
Phallic Pleasure zone is the genitals; coping with
(3-6 years) incestuous sexual feelings
Latency Dormant sexual feelings
(6 to puberty)
Genital Maturation of sexual interests
(puberty on)
School of Life - Freud
How does the ego negotiate between the id & the superego?
Clashes are called intrapsychic or psychodynamic conflicts.
Process can cause stress & anxiety.
Ego tries to prevent anxiety, guilt & other unpleasant
feelings. Sometimes the ego helps us negotiate situations
well & sometimes we use… Defense Mechanisms
Defense Mechanisms
Defense Mechanisms
the ego’s protective methods of reducing anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality
Defense Mechanisms
Repression
the basic defense mechanism that banishes anxiety-arousing thoughts, feelings, and memories from consciousness
Defense Mechanisms
Regression
defense mechanism in which an individual faced with anxiety retreats to a more infantile psychosexual stage
Defense Mechanisms
DENIAL
refusal to accept reality, the truth.
SUBLIMATION-
Channeling one’s frustrations towards another, more positive goal.
Defense Mechanisms
Reaction Formation
defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites
people may express feelings that are the opposite of their anxiety-arousing unconscious feelings
Defense Mechanisms
Projection defense mechanism by which people
disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others
Rationalization defense mechanism that offers self-
justifying explanations in place of the real, more threatening, unconscious reasons for one’s actions
Defense Mechanisms
Displacement
defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person
as when redirecting anger toward a safer outlet
Defense Mechanisms –
Everywhere!
Even in Will Ferrell movies…
Neo-Freudians
Those people that agreed with Freud’s basic idea of psychoanalysis, but disagreed with specific parts.
You Try It!
Id’s – Carl Jung (pg 384-385)
Ego’s – Alfred Adler (pg 385)
Superego’s – Karen Horney (pg 386)
Carl Jung (1875-1961) – Freud’s closest associate
Believed that we have an individual unconsciousness as well as a:
The Collective Unconscious
concept of a shared, inherited reservoir of memory traces from our species’ history
Archetypes
Inherited idea based on experiences of one’s ancestors – shapes our experience of the world
Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
importance of childhood social tension were crucial in the development of personality.
Believed that psychological problems in personalities were based on feeling of inferiority (complex).
The way parents treat their children influences the styles of life they choose (overpampering vs neglection)
Karen Horney (1885-1952)
sought to balance Freud’s masculine biases. Social expectations, not biological variables were the foundation of personality development.
Anxiety is the helplessness & isolation that people feel in a hostile world as a result of the competitiveness of today’s society.
If children are raised in an atmosphere of love and security – children can avoid Freud’s psychosexual parent-child conflict
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