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