FINAL EXAM: Ch. 1-12 study guide content

psychoanalytic approach:

argue that people’s unconscious minds are largely responsible for important differences in their behavior styles.

trait approach:

Identify where a person might lie along a continuum of various personality characteristic

biological approach:

point to inherited predispositions and physiological processes to explain individual differences in personality.

humanistic approach:

identify personal responsibility and feelings of self-acceptance as the key causes of differences in personality.

Behavioral/social learning:

theorists explain consistent behavior patterns in terms of conditioning and expectations

cognitive approach:

differences in the way people process information. 

which approach is the best?  

One is not better than the other. No doubt some theories will resonate with you more than others. But it is worth keeping in mind that each approach has been developed and promoted by a large number of respected psychologists. Although not all these men and women are correct about every issue, each approach has something of value to offer in our quest to understand what makes each of us who we are. 

individual vs collectivist culture:

Culture that places great emphasis on individual needs and accomplishments.(most Northern European countries and the United States) vs Culture that emphasizes the importance of belonging to a larger group, such as a family, tribe, or nation.(Asian, African, Central American, and South American) 

Why is it important to note that much of the research done on personality are done in individualistic cultures and not collectivist cultures? 

• In short, it is worth remembering that most of the theories and much of the research covered in this book are based on observations in individualistic cultures. In fact, most of this work was conducted in the United States, the country that was found in one study to be the most individualistic of 41 nations examined (Suh, Diener, Oishi, & Triandis, 1998). This does not mean the research should be dismissed. Rather, we should keep in mind that whether a particular description applies to people in all cultures remains an open question. 

• For example, behavior that suggests excessive dependency or an exaggerated sense of self in one culture might reflect good adjustment in another. 

• quiz 1.4: Which word is not consistent with what you know about collectivist cultures? 

Credit for unique accomplishments 

Belonging to a larger group 

An emphasis on group success 

Cooperation 

Credit for unique accomplishments 

• As related to the study of personality, many countries in Asia, South America, Africa, and Central America would be best described as _______ in nature. 

collectivist 

individualistic 

technological 

agrarian 

collectivist 

• Dr. Fischer is conducting research on personality traits, and she does her data collection at the University of Northern Illinois. What should she bear in mind when drawing conclusions from her data? 

She is gathering data in an individualistic culture and her results may not apply equally to those from collectivist cultures. 

College students are unlike the general population, and as such her results won’t be useful. 

It is unethical to do research in university settings, as students feel compelled to participate. 

It is unlikely that she will get an even mixture of male and female participants in her research. 

She is gathering data in an individualistic culture and her results may not apply equally to those from collectivist cultures. 

 

Characteristics of theories 

independent variable:

The experimental variable used to divide participants into groups. 

ex- the amount of a drug each group receives, how much anxiety is created in each group, or the type of story each group reads' 

aka treatment variable. 

can be more than one ind var 

Dependent variable:

The experimental variable measured by the experimenter and used to compare groups.

aka outcome variable.

What is the Id in the structural model?

• In Freud’s structural model, the part of personality concerned with immediate gratification of needs. 

at birth there is but one personality structure, 

selfish part of you, concerned only with satisfying your personal desires. 

based on the pleasure principle. In other words, the id is concerned only with what brings immediate personal satisfaction regardless of physical or social limitations. 

When babies see something they want, they reach for it. doesn’t matter whether the object belongs to someone else or harmful. 

doesn’t disappear when adults. held in check by the other parts of a healthy adult personality. 

What is the ego in the structural model?

In Freud’s structural model, the part of personality that considers external reality while mediating between the demands of the id and the superego. 

Pimary job of the ego: to satisfy id impulses, but in a manner that takes into consideration the realities of the world. Because id impulses tend to be socially unacceptable, they are threatening to us. The ego’s job is to keep these impulses in the unconscious. Unlike the id, your ego moves freely among the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious parts of your mind. (reality principal) 

What is the super ego in the structural model?

In Freud’s structural model, the part of personality that represents society’s values. 

represents society’s—and, in particular, the parents’—values and standards. The superego places more restrictions on what we can and cannot do. 

Some people have roughly translated the concept of the superego into what is called conscience. 

example of the id, ego and super ego: a $5 bill

f you see a $5 bill sitting on a table at a friend’s house, your id impulse might be to take the money. Your ego, aware of the problems this might cause, attempts to figure out how to get the $5 without being caught. But even if there is a way to get the money without being seen, your superego will not allow the action. Stealing money is a violation of society’s moral code, even if you don’t get caught. The primary weapon the superego brings to the situation is guilt. If you take the money anyway, you’ll probably feel bad about it later and may lose a few nights’ sleep before returning the $5 to your friend. Some people have roughly translated the concept of the superego into what is called conscience.

defense mechanisms

Devices the ego uses to keep threatening material out of awareness and thereby reduce or avoid anxiety.

repression

is an active effort by the ego to push threatening material out of consciousness or to keep that material from ever reaching consciousness. For example, one night a boy sees his father physically assault his mother. When later asked about the experience, the boy insists he has never seen anything of the sort. He may not be lying. Instead, he may have found the scene too horrifying to accept and therefore simply repressed it out of consciousness.

Sublimation

the only truly successful defense mechanism. When using this defense mechanism, the ego channels threatening unconscious impulses into socially acceptable actions. For example, we can express aggressive id impulses by playing an aggressive style of hockey or football. In this case, sublimation is a win–win option. The id is allowed to express its aggressive impulses, the ego doesn’t have to tie up energy holding back those impulses, and society admires the athlete for his or her aggressive play.

displacement

nvolves channeling our impulses to nonthreatening objects. Unlike sublimation, these displaced impulses don’t lead to social rewards. For example, as the result of mistreatment by her spouse, a woman might carry around a great deal of unconscious anger. If expressing that anger toward her spouse might be problematic or dangerous, she might instead direct her emotions toward her coworkers or children. Freud maintained that many of our seemingly irrational fears are in fact symbolic displacements. He once speculated that a fear of horses expressed by a client’s son was really a displaced fear of the father, who was symbolized in the child’s mind as the powerful horse.

denial

we refuse to accept that certain facts exist. This is more than saying we do not remember, as in repression. Rather, we insist that something is not true despite all evidence to the contrary. A widower who loved his wife deeply may act as if she were still alive long after her death. He may set a place for her at the table or tell friends that she is just away visiting relatives. To the widower, this charade is more acceptable than admitting consciously that his wife has died. Obviously, denial is an extreme form of defense. The more we use it, the less in touch with reality we are and the more difficulty we have functioning. Nonetheless, in some cases, the ego will resort to denial rather than allow certain thoughts to reach consciousness.

Reaction Formation

we hide from threatening unconscious ideas or urges by acting in a manner opposite to our unconscious desires. Thus, a young woman who constantly tells people how much she loves her mother could be masking strong unconscious hatred for her mother. People who militantly get involved with antipornography crusades may hold a strong unconscious interest in pornography. It is as if the thought is so unacceptable that the ego must prove how incorrect the notion is. How could a woman who professes so much love for her mother really hate her deep inside?

Intellectualization

remove the emotional content from the thought before allowing it into awareness. Using intellectualization—that is, by considering something in a strictly intellectual, unemotional manner—we can bring previously difficult thoughts into consciousness without anxiety. Under the guise of pondering the importance of wearing seat belts, a woman might imagine her husband in a gruesome automobile accident. A Freudian therapist might guess that the woman holds some unconscious hostility toward her spouse.

Projection

Sometimes we attribute an unconscious impulse to other people instead of to ourselves. This defense mechanism is called projection. By projecting the impulse onto another person, we free ourselves from the perception that we are the one who actually holds this thought. The woman who thinks everyone in her neighborhood is committing adultery may be harboring sexual desires for the married man living next door. The man who declares that the world is full of distrustful and cheating people may unconsciously recognize that he is distrustful and a cheater.

Dreams and the unconcious meaning

everyhting is seggual apparently. things shaped like pp (umbrella, erasers, sticks) and vs(bottles, boxes) a house is the human body and train ride is death??????????

“Triebe“ means what when translated?

roughly translated as drives or instincts.

Libido vs Thanatos

Freud identified two major categories of instincts: the life or sexual instinct, generally referred to as libido, and the death or aggressive instinct, known as Thanatos.

Freud added the death instinct

the desire to die and return to the earth. However, this unconscious motive is rarely expressed in the form of obvious self-destruction. Most often, the death instinct is turned outward and expressed as aggression against others. The wish to die remains unconscious.

Freud attributed most human behavior to what?

Freud attributed most human behavior to the life or sexual instinct. However, he used this description in a very broad sense. Sexually motivated behaviors include not only those with obvious erotic content, but also nearly any action aimed at receiving pleasure.

Na’chelle notices that many of the movies starring Bruce Willis involve the actor portraying a character who kills a lot of people. “That man just can’t seem to kill enough bad guys,” she says. In Freud’s model, Bruce Willis might be described as having a high level of unconscious death instinct, which is also called

transference

resistance

Thanatos

libido

Thanatos

why sex jokes??

Similarly, we can discuss taboo sexual topics through the socially appropriate outlet of sexual humor. Open discussions of sex are inappropriate in many social settings, yet jokes about sex are often not only tolerated but encouraged and rewarded. I have seen normally conservative and proper people who would never bring up the topic of sex in public deal with all kinds of taboo subjects simply by repeating a joke “someone told me.” One team of researchers found that sexual jokes provided adolescent girls with an easy way to introduce otherwise embarrassing topics into their lunchtime conversations (Sanford & Eder, 1984).

why do we laugh at sex jokes or

Freud also noticed that the laughter following a hostile or sexual joke is rarely justified by the humor content of the joke. If you stop to consider the next sexually oriented joke you hear, you’ll probably notice that the joke often contains very little humor. So why do we laugh? Freud explained our reaction in terms of tension reduction, or catharsis. Descriptions of aggressive or sexual behavior create tension. The punch line allows a release of that tension. We get pleasure from many jokes not because they are clever or witty but because they reduce tension and anxiety. “Strictly speaking, we do not know what we are laughing at,” Freud explained. “The technique of such jokes is often quite wretched, but they have immense success in provoking laughter” (1905/1960, p. 102).

hostile humor allows us to satisfy aggressive impulses. If Freud is correct, we should find a joke funnier when it pokes fun at a person or group we don’t like. Give an example of this.

Men and women in one study were presented with a series of hostile jokes and cartoons (Mundorf, Bhatia, Zillmann, Lester, & Robertson, 1988). Some of the material ridiculed men, whereas other jokes and cartoons made fun of women. Consistent with Freud’s observations, men found humor that targeted women funnier than humor that aimed at men, whereas the women enjoyed humor that put down men more than humor that made fun of women.

It seems hostile humor sometimes reduces anger and aggression yet other times increases it. How can we make sense of these findings?

Most likely, hostile humor has the potential to trigger more than one reaction. It may be, as Freud speculated, that hostile humor can defuse aggressive tendencies in some situations. But, as discussed in Chapter 14, people often imitate aggressive models. The aggression described in hostile jokes or shown in cartoons might readily be imitated by an angry reader. In addition, as discussed in Chapter 16, hostile humor can tap into existing thoughts about anger and aggression, which then increase the likelihood that the individual will act aggressively. Given all these potential responses, playing with hostile humor may be playing with fire.

explain how we find a situation funny when what happens is inconsistent with what we expect.

When applied to sexual and aggressive humor, it’s possible that people find these kinds of jokes funny because sex and aggression are out of place in the setting. Imagine a movie scene in which two sophisticated women bump into each other at a department store. Imagine further that they either get into a physical fight or say something with sexual connotations. We may find this situation funny for the reasons outlined by Freud. But it might also bring a laugh because we do not expect sophisticated women to act this way in this setting.

Sigmund Freud identified a kind of humor called tendentious jokes, which were believed to give insight into the psyche of both the joke teller as well as the person who laughs. He believed that there were two kinds of such jokes—those that dealt with ____ and those that addressed _________.

1. adulthood; childhood

2. hostility; sex

3. the conscious; the unconscious

4. men; women

hostility; sex

Rejoinder: Remember that unconscious aggressive and sexual impulses made up the foundation of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. He felt that these themes frequently permeated our nighttime dreams, so it is not surprising that he also felt that they were an important part of the jokes that people tell.

Edith is not surprised when her husband Archie comes home from work in a bad mood. She knows him to be a generally angry person, and she’s learned to deal with his moods over the years. According to Freud’s model, what kind of joke might Edith tell Archie in order to decrease his overall anger?

1. A hostile joke

2. A joke with a sexual theme

3. A self-deprecating joke

4. Freud would argue that joking with an angry person will only intensify his or her anger, so Edith should not use humor at this moment

1. The correct answer

   A hostile joke

   Rejoinder: Freud felt that a hostile joke could provide a safe outlet for the aggressive feelings that an angry person is experiencing. This ability to rechannel aggressive impulses is related to his Freud’s concept of catharsis, and this model of hostile humor has received mixed support in the research literature.

Brentley wants to tell his friend a joke that has a sexual overtone to it, and to increase the perceived funniness of the joke, Brentley wants to take advantage of the concept of incongruity. In which setting should Brentley tell his risqué joke?

1. At a seedy bar

2. In a loud nightclub

3. In a church just before mass

4. In a store that sells sexual merchandise

In a church just before mass

Rejoinder: The concept of incongruity points to the idea that a joke might be seen as funnier when its content is inconsistent with what we expect. While one might expect sexual humor in a bar, club, or adult store, one certainly would not expect it sitting in a religious setting. This “surprise” factor may serve to enhance the perceived funniness of the joke.

According to Freud, one of the reasons why humor is an important part of human behavior is because it allows for one to reduce one’s overall levels of tension. He called this effect _______.

1. catharsis

2. projection

3. sublimation

4. reaction formation

1. catharsis

One account of hypnosis with a psychoanalytic flavor is called neodissociation theory. what is it??

According to this explanation, deeply hypnotized people experience a division of their conscious. One part of their conscious—the hypnotized part—enters a type of altered state. But another part remains aware of what is going on during the hypnotic session. This second part is said to act as a “hidden observer” monitoring the situation. The hypnotized part of the conscious is unaware of the observer part.

what expiriment supports the neodissociation theory view?

Highly responsive participants in one study were hypnotized and told they would not experience pain (Hilgard, 1977). Their arms were then lowered into ice water for up to 45 seconds. Like any of us, when not hypnotized, these participants reported severe pain almost as soon as their arms touched the water. However, when hypnotized, they appeared to withstand the icy water with little evidence of suffering. But this ability to withstand pain under hypnosis has been demonstrated before. The new twist was asking participants to report their experiences through automatic writing or automatic talking. The hand not immersed in the ice water was placed under a covered box where the participant used either a pencil or a keypad to write. The researcher found that hypnotized participants could keep one arm in the cold water while writing with the other arm that the experience is quite painful. Advocates of neodissociation theory argue that the part of the participant’s conscious that was in the altered state was able to deny the pain and keep the arm submerged in the water. However, the hidden observer part—presumably the part of consciousness that controls the automatic writing—was aware of the pain and could report it.

But how do these psychologists explain some of the unusual things people do when hypnotized?

The answer is that the same concepts that explain everyday behavior—such as expectancy, motivation, and concentration—also account for hypnotic phenomena (Barber, 1999; Lynn, Laurence, & Kirsch, 2015; Wagstaff, David, Kirsch, & Lynn, 2010). To illustrate the point, I sometimes ask a few students in my class to stand up and spin like a top. In every case, the students comply. When I ask why they are doing this, they say it is because I asked them to. None have ever said it was because they were hypnotized. Yet, most people who see hypnosis participants stand and spin like tops at the hypnotist’s request say the people act that way because they are hypnotized. What is the difference between these two situations? Does the hypnotist use certain magical words that suddenly transform people into a trance? Sociocognitive theorists argue that hypnotized and nonhypnotized people stand up and spin for the same reason: They think they are supposed to.

what explains posthypnotic amnesia

Hypnosis participants are often told they will not remember what has happened during hypnosis until the hypnotist tells them to. Indeed, many of these people recall little or nothing of the experience until given permission. Psychoanalytically oriented theorists explain that the experience either has been repressed out of consciousness or has been recorded in a part of the mind not accessible to consciousness. However, sociocognitive theorists argue that hypnosis participants expect not to recall what happens to them and therefore make no effort to remember (Coe, 1989; Sarbin & Coe, 1979; Spanos, Radtke, & Dubreuil, 1982). These psychologists argue that under the right circumstances, people can be persuaded to make that effort. For example, how long would posthypnotic amnesia continue if participants were offered $1,000 to describe what happened while they were hypnotized?

What kind of person makes the most responsive participant?

For decades, investigators looked for personality trait measures that could predict hypnotic responsiveness. Researchers speculated that the most responsive participants might score high on measures of sensation seeking, imagination, or intelligence and low on measures of dogmatism, independence, extraversion, and so on. Unfortunately, few correlations between personality scores and hypnotic responsiveness were found, and replications were seldom reported

Short of hypnotizing the person, no measure was discovered that reliably predicted responsiveness to hypnosis. Even Freud could not tell beforehand which patients would be highly responsive. He only observed that “neurotics can only be hypnotized with great difficulty, and the insane are completely resistant”

What kind of person makes the most responsive participant?

However, later research identified a few personality variables other than neurosis and insanity that predict hypnotic responsiveness. These studies succeeded where earlier efforts had failed because investigators measured traits that more directly relate to the hypnotic experience. For example, a person’s ability to become immersed in a role predicts hypnotic responsiveness (Sarbin & Coe, 1972). This may be why drama students are more responsive to hypnotic suggestions than other students (Coe & Sarbin, 1991). Recently, investigators have identified differences in brain activity between highly responsive participants and poor responders (Gruzelier, 2006; Oakley, 2008). Thus, some day it may be possible to predict how responsive you will be to hypnosis by examining electroencephalograph and fMRI data.

But the most successful efforts to date to predict hypnotic responsiveness from personality traits come from work on a trait called absorption. People who score high on measures of absorption have the ability to become highly involved in sensory and imaginative experiences. They are open to new experiences and are prone to fantasies and daydreams Researchers consistently find that people who score high on measures of absorption are more responsive to hypnotic suggestions than those who score low (Cardena & Terhune, 2014; Glisky, Tataryn, Tobias, Kihlstrom, & McConkey, 1991; Nadon, Hoyt, Register, & Kihlstrom, 1991). In other words, if you are the kind of person who gets involved in a good book or a movie and can block out all the distracting experiences around you, you probably will be responsive to hypnotic suggestions.

Beyond this, three important variables affect hypnotic responsiveness: attitude, motivation, and expectancy (Barber, 1999). People with a positive attitude toward hypnosis are more responsive than those who view hypnosis with suspicion and mistrust. Participants taught to develop positive attitudes and who think of hypnosis in terms of actively taking part in the experience instead of passively receiving suggestions often become more responsive to suggestions (Gorassini, Sowerby, Creighton, & Fry, 1991; Gorassini & Spanos, 1986). In addition, the more motivated people are to experience hypnosis, the more responsive they will be. Finally, what people expect to happen during the hypnotic experience affects their responsiveness (Benham, Woody, Wilson, & Nash, 2006; Fassler, Lynn, & Knox, 2008). Participants told in one study that responding to suggestions was difficult were not as responsive as those told it was easy (Barber & Calverley, 1964). Similarly, students who first watched a highly responsive participant were more responsive to hypnotic suggestions than those who watched a nonresponsive model (Klinger, 1970). In short, people tend to act under hypnosis the way they think they are supposed to act. Little wonder that people who expect to see bizarre behavior at a hypnosis show often act bizarrely when they are brought up on stage and hypnotized.

Lucia is going to use hypnosis to help her get through a particular task that she dreads. Based on the textbook’s discussion of the practical uses of hypnosis, which of the following is Lucia going to do face?

1. Seeing a psychotherapist to help her recover repressed memories.

2. Learning to speak a new language.

3. Stopping her use of cigarettes after developing emphysema.

4. Going to the dentist to have some repairs done.

Going to the dentist to have some repairs done.

Rejoinder: There are several practical uses of hypnosis, but they may be different than many people think. It is used for helping people have dental work done without painkillers, can help investigators recover details of a crime, and helps with a variety of problems in therapy, including chronic pain.

In which theory of hypnosis is the concept of a “hidden observer” the most salient?

1. Sociocognitive theory

2. Psychoanalytic theory

3. Neodissociation theory

4. Archetype theory

Neodissociation theory

Rejoinder: Neodissociation theory of hypnosis suggests that the hypnotized part of a person’s conscious enters an altered state of awareness, but that the other part remains aware of what is going on during the session. This second part can act as a “hidden observer” that informs the altered part of the self how to behave in any given moment.

Morgan is very receptive to entering a hypnotic state with her therapist and they regularly use this technique in their sessions. With this information in mind, what can we also assume about Morgan?

1. She is in her forties or older.

2. She is a very down-to-earth, grounded person.

3. She would be open to hypnosis with another hypnotherapist.

4. She does not have a romantic partner in her life.

She would be open to hypnosis with another hypnotherapist.

Rejoinder: How responsive people are to hypnotic suggestions is a fairly stable individual difference. People who are highly responsive to one hypnotist’s suggestions will probably be responsive to another hypnotist. Moreover, how responsive you are to hypnotic suggestions today is an excellent predictor of how responsive you will be years from now.

According to the sociocognitive theory of hypnosis, all but which of the following factors contribute to hypnotic phenomena?

Concentration

Expectancy

Extraversion

Motivation

Extraversion

Alfred Adler contributed what ideas? what was his psychology called?

remember AI alfred individual psy

went on to develop his own society, establish his own journal, and even select a name for his new psychology. He called his approach individual psychology. Among Adler’s important contributions to our understanding of personality are the notion of striving for superiority, the role of parental influence on personality development, and the effects of birth order.

addlers view on birth order: what happens if yr 1st, 2 or baby 3?

firstborn children are subject to excessive attention from their parents and thus to pampering. pampering is short-lived. With the arrival of the second child, the firstborn is “dethroned.” Adler suggested that among firstborns we often find “problem children, neurotics, criminals, drunkards, and perverts.”

middle children— These children are never afforded the luxury of being pampered, for even when they are the youngest there is always another sibling or two demanding much of the parents’ time. Adler argued that middle children develop an intense superiority striving. They are not quite as strong, not quite as fast, and not quite as smart as older brothers and sisters. It’s as if they are always just a step behind. As a result, middle-born children spend a lifetime trying to catch up. They are always looking at the person slightly ahead of them in school or in the office, always putting in a little extra effort to close the gap. Consequently, Adler said, middle-born children are the highest achievers.

last-borns Last-born children are pampered throughout their childhood by all members of the family. Older children often complain that their little brother or sister “gets away with murder,” which would not have happened “when I was that age.” However, Adler argued that this special treatment carries a price. A spoiled child is a very dependent child—a child without personal initiative. Last-born children also are vulnerable to strong inferiority feelings because everyone in their immediate environment is older and stronger.

is birth order a good way to measure/predict a childs personality?

do not always support Adler’s predictions. Birth order often does not predict how people will score on personality measures and effects found in one study frequently fail to replicate in another\. One recent investigation looked at birth order in a sample of more than 377,000 high school students (Damian & Roberts, 2015). The researchers found the overall effect of birth order on personality to be extremely small and often at odds with predictions. In other words, although Adler succeeded in drawing attention to the role family dynamics play in the development of personality, most likely the impact of birth order is more complex and perhaps more subtle than he imagined

primordial images.

The collective unconscious is made up of primordial images. Jung described these images in terms of a potential to respond to the world in a certain way. Thus, newborns react quickly to their mothers because the collective unconscious holds an image of a mother for each of us. Similarly, we react to the dark or to God because of unconscious images inherited from our ancestors. Jung referred to these images collectively as archetypes. Among the many archetypes Jung described were the mother, the father, the wise old man, the sun, the moon, the hero, God, and death. He maintained there are “as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life.”

what was jungs Evidence for the Collective Unconscious

One criticism sometimes directed at Jung is that his theory is difficult to examine through scientific methods. However, Jung was not indifferent to the need for evidence to support his ideas. Through a lifelong study of modern and ancient cultures, and in his role as a psychotherapist, Jung arrived at what was for him indisputable evidence for the collective unconscious and other constructs in his theory. Rather than rely on data from rigorous investigations, he turned to sources like mythology, cultural symbols, dreams, and the statements of schizophrenics. Jung argued that if the collective unconscious is basically the same for each of us, then primordial images should be found in various forms across all cultures and throughout human history.

according to Carl Jung, why does religion surface in all cultures? Why is some entity similar to the Judeo-Christian God found in each of these cultures?

Jung’s answer was that each of us inherits a God archetype in our collective unconscious. This primordial image causes Godlike images to surface in the dreams, folklore, artwork, and experiences of people everywhere. We can easily conceive of a God, find evidence for His existence, and experience deep religious feelings because we were born with a kind of unconscious predisposition for Him. Scholars continue to debate whether Jung meant by this that God exists only in our collective unconscious and therefore that the traditional description of God as an external entity is a myth (Bianchi, 1988). Although at times Jung does appear to argue that God exists only in the human mind, other references suggest he was not ready to make such a bold statement.

Carl jungs crazy theories, he supported his nutso ideas off of what speciifc story?

Jung pointed to the recurrence of certain symbols in dreams and hallucinations, as well as the images found in art, folklore, and mythology. Why does a symbol like a vulture appear in the dreams of people today in the same basic way it appears in religious writings and ancient mythologies of cultures unknown to the dreamer? Jung described an early discovery of this type when he spoke with a mental patient suffering from schizophrenia:

“One day I came across him there, blinking through the window up at the sun, and moving his head from side to side in a curious manner. He took me by the arm and said he wanted to show me something. He said I must look at the sun with eyes half shut, and then I could see the sun’s phallus. If I moved my head from side to side the sun-phallus would move too, and that was the origin of the wind. (1936/1959, p. 51)“

A few years later, while reading Greek mythology, Jung came across a description of a tube-like element hanging from the sun. According to the myth, the tube was responsible for the wind. How could such an image appear in both the hallucinations of the patient and the stories of the ancient Greeks? Jung maintained that the image existed in the collective unconscious of the Greek storytellers as well as in those of psychotic patients and, therefore, in the collective unconscious of us all.

basic explination of ericsons 8 stages of developement.

Erikson’s stages of personality development bring to mind the image of a path. We continue down this path from infancy to old age, but at eight different points along the way we encounter a fork—two directions in which to proceed. In Erikson’s model, these forks represent turning points in personality development, what he called crises. How we resolve each crisis determines the direction our personality development takes and influences how we resolve later crises. Of the two alternatives for resolving each crisis, one is said to be adaptive, the other not. Individuals who take a wrong turn on this path and fail to adaptively resolve a crisis may need to return to the critical juncture later in life during psychotherapy to set things right (Marcia & Josselson, 2013). For example, a therapist might trace a man’s problems with intimacy back to his failure to establish a sense of basic trust before he was even a toddler.

PICK UP ON ERISONS STAGES OF DEV