Theories of Personality Exam 3 Dr. Dimos

Freud Key Word

FORCES

• Emphasized unconscious forces (instincts, drives, psychic energy) controlling behavior

Freudian Basic Assumptions

• Psychic Determinism (there is a psychic meaning underlying all thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; freudian slips)

• Influence of the Unconscious Mind (all thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are determined by unconscious forces)

• Personality is a Closed System

  • There is a limited amount of energy

  • Energy can be blocked but does not “just go away,” instead gets expressed in some other manner, along a path of least resistance

  • The mind functions to achieve a state of homeostasis

Freud's Instincts and Psychic Energy

1. Life instinct (libido): drives people toward the preservation and reproduction of the organism

2. Death instinct: the destructive, dark motivational force to use psychic energy to get what you want (sex)

Freud's 3 Regions of the Mind

1. Unconscious mental contents are parts of the mind we are unaware and cannot become aware of except under special circumstances

2. Preconscious level could be aware if attended to

3. Conscious level includes thoughts we are aware of

The Id

• The core of personality

• Operates on the pleasure principle

• Present at birth, gets pushed into unconscious region in early life

• Source of psychic energy and instincts

The Ego

• Develops in response to the demands of the real world

• Operates on reality principles

• Functions to meet the demands of the id within the confines of reality and morality

The Superego

• The Moral Authority of Personality

• Develops as the internalized voice of society; a conscience

Freud attempted to understand the properties of the unconscious by analyzing a variety of psychological phenomena:

• Psychoses

• Dreams

• Slips of the tongue

• Works of art

• Neuroses

• Rituals

Psychodynamic Perspective Overview

• Purpose: assist the ego to deal with the conscious and unconscious threats of anxiety

• Healthy use vs Unhealthy use

  • Selective use in conscious awareness can serve as an effective temporary strategy

  • Excessive unconscious activation can result in the development of psychopathology

• Key to the Freudian Personality Structure: Balance

Freud's Ego Defense Mechanisms

• Sublimation: finding a social appropriate outlet

• Undoing: making up for your guilt indirectly

• Projection: YOU have the problem!

• Repression: most basic

• Reaction Formation: expressing the opposite feeling

• Rationalization: talking yourself into it

• Regression: becoming child-like

• Denial: distant reality to make it more comfortable (most common)

• Displacement: kicking the dog after a big argument (hurt people, hurt people)

Theory of Psychosexual Stages of Development

• Development occurs in a series of distinct steps/stages

• In each stage, we look for successful resolution which propels us to the next stage, or we can get “fixated” by either indulging or repressing the desire

• On April, Peter Learned Growth

Oral Stage of Development

• 0-18 months (0-2 yo)

• Focus: Pleasure centers on the mouth (sucking, biting).

• Key Task: Weaning from breast feeding; developing trust and a sense of security.

• Successful: the emergence of the ego and the development of delay of gratification

• Unsuccessful: ego too weak to control oral impulses (chewing gum/nails/kissing)

Anal Stage of development

• 2-3 yo

• Focus: Pleasure shifts to the anus (withholding and expelling feces).

• Key Task: Toilet training; learning self-control and obedience.

• Successful: superego emerges

• Unsuccessful: associate bowel movements with losing something (anal retentive; rigid and controlling) or a prize/gift to others (anal sadistic: messy/careless)

Phallic Stage of Development

• 3-7 yo

• Focus: Pleasure focuses on the genitals.

• Key Task: Resolving the Oedipus or Electra complex; identifying with same-sex parent.

  • Oedipus complex: boys wanting to kill father (jelousy) to get to mother

  • Castration anxiety: boys fear of losing genital; realization that girls don't have a penis

• Successful resolution: hostility towards father leads to increased castration anxiety and eventual abandonment of oedipus complex

• Unsuccessful: stays a mama's boy; don't develop appropriate male interests

Latency Stage of Development

• 7-11 yo

• Focus: Suppression of sexual impulses; emphasis on social and intellectual development; realization of libido; decrease in sexual urges and interest

• Key Task: Developing social and cognitive skills; forming relationships outside the family

Genital Stage of Development

• 11 yo+

• Focus: Reawakening of sexual interests (resurgence of libido); directed towards mature, adult relationships.

• Key Task: Establishing intimate relationships; contributing to society.

• Successful: mature sexual relationships and expression

• Unsuccessful: failure to establish emotional relationships in adulthood

Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development

1. Trust vs Mistrust (1 year)

2. Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt (2-3 years)

3. Initiative vs Guilt (4-5 years)

4. Industry vs Inferiority (6-12 years)

5. Identity vs Role Confusion (Adolescence)

6. Intimacy vs Isolation (Early Adulthood)

7. Generativity vs Stagnation (Adulthood)

8. Integrity vs Despair (Elderly)

Carl Jung

• Neo-Freudian, analytic psychology; psychodynamic, personality as an open system

• Libido: is all types of energy, not just sexual

• Studies: dream studies/interpretation

• Emphasis on people’s struggle with opposing forces

• Fundamental personal tasks:

  • Life is a journey to know your true self

  • Own the acceptable and unacceptable parts of the self

  • Integrate various opposing faces of the psyche

Jung Key Word

JOURNEY

• Believed life is a journey toward the Self and individuation

The Jungian “Open System”

• Collective unconscious: holds past experiences of generations we "all dive into"; is universal

• Archetypes: universal symbols we recognize and react to

  • Seen in fairy tales, dreams, myths, and some psychotic thoughts

  • We tend to instinctively recognize and react to archetypes

  • This recognition is evidence that they are buried in our collective unconscious

Jung and the Self

• Complex - a collection of thoughts, feelings, and attitudes that center on a particular concept

• Animus - masculine aspects of females

• Anima - feminine aspects of males

• Persona - predisposition to conform to social norms

• Shadow - primitive aspects of personality

• Self - central, unifying aspect of all aspects of the individual’s personality

Alfred Adler

• Neo-Freudian, psychodynamic; ego and individual psychology

• Theories based on social interest: the desire to relate to others and cooperate

• Suggested we had more conscious control of the Self

• A move towards ego psychology and individual psychology

• Contributions: basic mistakes, style of life, inferiority/superiority complexes, childhood influences personality formation

Adler Key Word

ADVANCE

• Focused on striving to overcome inferiority and move forward

and ARRIVAL

• Birth Order Theory

Adler’s Basic Approach

• How a person copes with inferiority becomes a distinctive aspect of his/her personality functioning

  • Our early wounds force us to compensate

• Striving for superiority

  • Efforts to go beyond compensation to reach one’s full potential

  • One’s full potential is always met through social interest

• “It is the feeling of inferiority, inadequacy, insecurity, which determines the goal of an individual’s existence”

Psychodynamic Theory of Personality Perspectives

• Freudians: see an extremely aggressive woman as expressing penis envy

• Jungians: aggression complex; warrior archetype

• Adlerians: see such persons as in a normal developmental process compensating for stereotyped feminine role of weakness and inferiority

  • Psychodynamic ToP but with a continuing shift to a developmental and growth perspective

Adler’s Birth Order Theory

• Parents and siblings matter

• The Pampered child vs the Rejected child

• Birth order effect has specific advantages and disadvantages to each situation and compensating that leads to striving for superiority

Modern Birth Order Theory

• Based on Adler’s theories, but less deterministic

• More related to availability of roles

Karen Horney

• Neo-Freudian, psychodynamic

• Studied the role of culture in the development of gender identity

• Contributions: criticized Freud, stated that personality is molded by current fears and impulses rather than being determined solely by childhood experiences and instincts, neurotic trends

• Social security: main driving force in her theory; emphasis on neurotic functioning and how people cope with childhood anxiety and feeling isolated and helpless

• Responded to penis envy with womb envy (men are jealous that women can conceive children)

Horney Key Word

HOSTILITY

• Centered on basic anxiety, insecurity, and neurotic responses to others

Horney's 3 ways to respond to basic anxiety

• Moving toward: excessive interest in being accepted, needed, and approved

• Moving against: person assumes that everyone is hostile and that life is a struggle against all

• Moving away: person shrinks away from others in neurotic detachment

Harry Stack Sullivan

• Theory of interpersonal relations

• Turned off of psychodynamic approach to personality because of Freud’s sexual approach

• Connection between mental illness and loneliness and disconnection and also noticed many trauma backgrounds

• Theorized that the qualities of connection in childhood set momentum and trajectory to the way in which you would connect with others as adults, which is vital and influential on your mental health or betterment

Sullivan Key Word

SOCIAL

• Personality is shaped through interpersonal relationships

Attachment theory

Bowlby's Attachment Behavioral System (ABS)

• We have a fundamental need for attachment

  • Secure attachment starts in childhood

    • Securely attached children become adults with healthy self expression and boundaries

    • Separation distress is normal and healthy

  • Securely attached children grow into adolescents who feel safe enough to individuate and form healthy attachments to people outside of the family

  • Securely attached adolescents grow into adults with healthy boundaries (vulnerable enough to invest in intimate relationships, maintain an appropriate sense of self that is not defined by others, and does not see these two a paradox)

Carl Rogers

• Humanistic

• Contributions: founded person-centered therapy, theory that emphasizes the unique quality of humans especially their freedom and potential for personal growth, unconditional positive regard, fully functioning person

Rogers Key Word

REAL

• Emphasized the real self, authenticity, and congruence

Rogers' View of the Person

• Developed the idea that our most fundamental motivation is toward positive growth

• Self-actualization:

  • An organism’s tendency to grow from a simple entity to a complex one

  • Move from fixity and rigidity to a process of change and freedom of expression

• The ‘reality’ we observe is really a ‘private’ world of experience, the phenomenal field

• Phenomenal field (subjective construction): space of perceptions that makes up our experience ("your truth")

Rogers and the Self

• The Self = key structural aspect of phenomenological experience

  • Actual self: who we believe we are now

  • Ideal self: how we ideally see ourselves becoming in the future

• “Feelings of Authenticity”

  • Individuals can realize a state in which their conscious experiences and goals are consistent with their inner, viscerally-felt values

Rogers' 2 basic ways in which humans best thrive

1. Need for Positive Regard: need to be accepted/respected

• Unconditional Positive Regard: accepting others for who they are without passing judgment on them

• Conditional Positive Regard: being accepting of others only when they meet your expectations

2. Congruence (genuineness):

• Showing up with our whole selves to the present moment, whatever it is, with integrity, honesty, and courage

• We can think of numbing out, checking out, or being fake as the opposite of congruence

Abraham Maslow

Humanist psychologist who developed a pyramid representing hierarchy of human needs

• Deficiency Needs: Basic survival and psychological needs that arise from a lack of deprivation (show fear towards those with being needs)

• Being Needs: Needs for personal development and fulfillment, not driven by a deficit (show condescension towards those with deficiency needs)

Maslow Key Word

MOUNTAIN

• His hierarchy is literally a climb upward

Hierarchy of needs

1. Physiological needs (basic needs necessary for survival)

2. Safety (need for stability, order, and predictability— reduce daily uncertainty)

3. Belongingness and Love (establish and maintain meaningful relationships— receive social support from others)

4. Esteem (self-respect and respect of others— leadership ability)

5. Self-actualization (express one's ability to their full potential)

Self-actualization individuals

People have a deep feeling of identification, sympathy, and affection for human beings in general

Are there gender differences in personality?

Yes; but they are small, complex and nuanced and with many counter-examples

• Those differences are changing over time

• Descriptive not prescriptive

What causes gender differences of personality?

Really complex and multiple interacting factors that result in gender differences in personality

What are some stable differences between males and females in personality

• SLOPES

  • Self-esteem and Confidence

  • Love

  • Overt physical aggression

  • Passive/indirect aggressiveness

  • Emotional expressiveness

  • Sexuality

Variations in Self-esteem and Confidence

• Tend to be lower in women than in men

• Women tend to underestimate their competence, men tend to overestimate

Variations in Love

• Females report being in love more often and more intense feelings of love

• Females have more pragmatic expectations and are more cautious

• Men tend to fall in love more quickly

Variations in Overt Physical Aggression

Across various cultures and at an earlier age of onset, males tend to exhibit more acts of physical aggression than females

Variations in Passive/Indirect Aggression

Across various cultures, greater female aggression includes gossiping, name calling, and social rejection

Variations in Emotional Expressiveness

• Females demonstrate more self-report expressions of emotions; no gender differences when using objective measures

• Except for aggression, females display more facial and verbal emotional expression, experience their emotions more intensely, and express their emotions in a more socially acceptable manner

Variations in Sexuality

• Males have more casual attitudes about sex and have more sex than females

• Females seek intimacy for sex while males seek gratification for sex

• Both report similar levels of sexual gratification

• Viewing men as sexual deviants and women as sexually uninterested is dehumanizing to both

• Men’s brains function in hemispheres, and women’s brains jump back and forth between them