Psychology of Personality Exam 1: Chapters 3 and 4

Unconscious Motives — Two Perspectives

Psychoanalytic, Cognitive

Id, Ego, Superego (Tripartite)

Id

• primitive features that are driven by an unconscious need for pleasure (pleasure principle). “I want it now”

• Present at birth. Displays itself as selfish and demands gratification.

Ego

• Develops around the age of 2 and focuses on the reality principle. It reduces the conflict between Id and Superego by implementing defense mechanisms. “We need to plan and wait in order to have it”

Superego

• Develops around the age of 5. It’s our internal morals (morality principle) that we learn from our same-sex parent, that punishes our ego for any wrong through guilt. “You can’t have it, it’s not right!”

Death Instinct

• Desire to die or destruction

• Creates conflicts and anxiety

• Manifested through aggression, cruelty and suicide

• Life instincts and death instincts decides the quality and satisfaction of a persons life

Life Instinct

• Impulse to live

• Aim the survival of the species

• Manifested through love and sex

• LIBIDO is the life maintaining energy which seeks pleasure through sexual gratification

• If the flow blocked, may cause neurotic problems

Sublimation

• Satisfying an impulse (e.g. aggression) with a substitute object. In a socially acceptable way.

• Sport is an example of putting our emotions (e.g. aggression) into something constructive.

Regression

• This is a movement back in psychological time when one is faced with stress.

• A child may begin to suck their thumb again or wet the bed when they need to spend some time in the hospital.

Displacement

• Satisfying an impulse (e.g. aggression) with a substitute object.

• Someone who is frustrated by his or her boss at work may go home and kick the dog.

Projection

• This involves individuals attributing their own unacceptable thoughts, feelings and motives to another person.

• You might hate someone, but your superego tells you that such hatred is unacceptable. You can ‘solve’ the problem by believing that they hate you.

Denial

• Denial involves blocking externals events from awareness. If some situation is just too much to handle, the person just refuses to experience it.

• For example, smokers may refuse to admit to themselves that smoking is bad for their health.

Repression

• Repression is an unconscious mechanism employed by the ego to keep disturbing or threatening thoughts from becoming conscious.

• During the Oedipus complex aggressive thoughts about the same sex parents are repressed.

Defense Mechanisms of the Mind

Repression, Denial, Projection, Displacement, Regression, Sublimation

Freud’s Five Psychosexual Stages of Development

Oral Stage → Anal Stage → Phallic Stage → Latency Stage → Genital Stage

• Oral Stage (Birth to 12 months): Infant’s pleasure centers on mouth “suckling”

• Anal Stage (1 to 3 years): Child’s pleasure focuses on anus from elimination (Toilet Training. Relationship between parents.)

• Phallic Stage (3 to 6 years): Child’s pleasure focuses on genitals; Oedipus (boys), Electra (girls) Penis Envy

• Latency Stage (7 to 11 years): Child represses sexual interest and develops social and Intellectual skills, an interlude

• Genital Stage (Puberty onward): A time of sexual reawakening; source of sexual pleasure becomes someone outside of the family, continues on…

Oedipal Complex

• Named after Greek mythology character who accidentally kills his

father and marries his mother

• Repressed, unconscious sexual desire for opposite sex-parent, rejection of same-sex parent

• Occurs during phallic stage of psychosexual development; resolution of this stage is identification with same-sex parent

Unconscious Drives

• Freud believed that civilized society can lead to increased inhibition and guilt (suppression of sex and aggressive drives)

• Wegner (1992; 1994; 1990) found that suppressing exciting thoughts can lead to negative emotional states (phobias, OCD)

• Two conditions – allowed to think about sex, told not to think about sex

• Both conditions led to emotional arousal

• Suppressing thoughts led to intrusive thoughts and greater emotional lability

• “Suppression may not serve us well either emotionally or psychologically"

Evidence for the Unconscious

• Early research on “subliminal

perception”

• Exposure Therapy research

Subliminal Perception

• Participants shown a picture with a duck image within tree branches; others shown same picture but without the duck image

• Picture presented at a rapid speed so that not visible to naked eye

• Participants then asked to imagine and draw a nature scene: Results?

Exposure Therapy research

• Exposure to fears even outside of awareness shows promise

• Spider phobia

Evidence for the Unconscious

• Perceptual defense research

• Subliminal psychodynamic activation research

Perceptual defense research

We may defend against stimuli that makes us anxious even we not perceived

consciously

• Exposure to emotionally charged (whore, penis) vs. neutral words (apple, dance)

• Physiological response

Subliminal psychodynamic activation research

• Women with disordered eating ate more crackers in response to subliminal exposure to “Mama Is Leaving Me” vs. “Mama is Loaning It” vs. “Mona is Loaning It”

• Psychoanalytic theory of disordered eating suggests that it is in part driven by fear of abandonment/emotional neglect

• Replicated – woman walking away from a sobbing baby vs. a woman walking with a neutral image

• Difference not seen in women without disordered eating

Psychoanalytic Theory & Psychopathology

Freud believed psychopathology was a matter of degree and developmental in nature

• Fixations

– “Stuck” in a psychosexual stage

– Received too little or too much gratification or frustration of the drives, too afraid or not motivated to

move on

– Individual may try to obtain the same type of satisfaction that was appropriate at the earlier stage

• “Oral fixation”

Fixations

Oral, Anal, Phallic

Oral

Demanding, impatient, envious, covetous, jealous, rageful, depressed (feels empty), mistrustful, pessimistic

Anal

Rigid, striving for power and control, concerned with shoulds and oughts, pleasure and possessions, anxiety over waste and loss of control, concern with whether to submit or rebel

Phallic

• Male: exhibitionistic, competitive, striving for success, emphasis on being masculine—macho—potent

• Female: naive, seductive, exhibitionistic, flirtatious

Freud (1856-1939)

• Born in Moravia (now Czech Republic); grew up in Vienna, Austria

• First child to his parents, two older half siblings; seven more children followed

• “Favorite” of his mother

• Antisemitism led to limited opportunities — studied medicine (Neurology)

• Studied under Ernest Brucke - mechanism vs. vitalism

• Depression and anxiety following loss of father led to “self-analysis”

• Professional practice focused on somatic disorders

Psychoanalysis as a Therapeutic Technique

• Hypnosis

• Free Associaion

• “Anna O”: Symptoms: partial paralysis, blurred vision, persistent cough, and difficulty conversing in her native language, German

• Relief from a symptom if she could trace it to a traumatic event in her past

• If she relived the original emotional trauma associated with that event, the symptom would then either be reduced in severity or completely go away

• Catharsis: A release and freeing of emotions by talking about one’s problems or concerns

• Conversion Disorder (Hysteria)

Hypnosis

Therapeutic technique, however, not all patients susceptible to hypnosis

Free Association

Therapeutic technique

• Thoughts without inhibition or falsification

• Hidden associations among ideas

• For Freud, the free-association technique was both a therapy and a scientific method

Transference

• Transference is the “development of attitudes toward an individual that are based on attitudes held earlier in life toward significant others”

• Patients may develop feelings and attitudes toward the analyst they once held earlier: - Transference can occur within any type of therapy but psychoanalysis specifically makes use of it as an agent of change. - Patients play out old conflicts and project wishes and anxieties onto the analyst; analyst then assists patient in identifying this process and the origin of the conflict.

• The psychoanalytic therapeutic relationship can create a “corrective emotonal experience” because: - conflict is less intense, - attitude/approach of the analyst is different from caregivers/parents, - No longer a child and capable of insight via the ego

Interpretation of Dreams

• Dreams have two levels of content:

- Manifest content - storyline of a dream

- Latent content - unconscious ideas, emotions, and drives that are manifested in the

storyline

• The unconscious is symbolic and lacks logic in dreams

- May represent underlying wishes or conflicts

• Dreams are full of symbols: Phallic, Womb, Life (sex), Death (aggression)

Manifest vs. Latent Content

Manifest: Took a trip to the ocean, Lots of blue sky and sun, Suddenly in a classroom, Message on the board in an unknown, language, Kept shouting for help but was alone

Latent?: Free associate about each component

Freud’s View of People

Not inherently “good” – born with certain instinctual drives

Driven by a pleasure principle – felt society existed to restrict and keep pleasurable drives in check

Mind = Energy System

• Not just a library of thoughts; thoughts are having an impact on the person at all times

• Needs of the person create a state of tension, and the person is driven

to reduce that tension to return to a calmer state

• Influenced by Helmholtz – energy can be transformed but not destroyed (conservation of energy)

• How mental energy in the mind is released and impacts a person is the central question of psychoanalytic theory

Model of the Mind (Iceberg)

Conscious Mind (Tip), Preconscious (outside awareness but accessible, water level), Unconscious mind (submerged iceberg, large portion of the whole)

PSYCHOANALYTIC unconscious motives

• Emphasis on illogical, irrational unconscious processes

• Content emphasis on motives and wishes

• Emphasis on motivated aspects of unconscious functioning

COGNITIVE unconscious motives

• Absence of fundamental difference between conscious and unconscious processes

• Content emphasis on thoughts

• Focus on non-motivated aspects of unconscious functioning

Psychological Assessment

• Should be valid and efficient

• Challenging from the psychoanalytic perspective:

– Free Association was a technique that could take weeks to months

– Assumes most aspects of the personality are unconscious

– Defense mechanisms may prevent direct measurement

– Moved to Projective Tests

Projective Tests

Test items are intentionally ambiguous

• A person is asked to interpret an item

• Interpretations reflect personality and how the person is in daily life

– Personality is “projected” on to the test item

• Two common projective tests:

– Rorschach Inkblot Test

– Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

Projective Tests & Psychoanalytic Theory

Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the complexity of personality

• Personality as a dynamic system through which a person organizes and forms their view of the world

• No “yes or no” answers

• Purpose of the test is not revealed to keep defense mechanisms in check

• Psychoanalytic theory emphasizes a holistic understanding of personality

• Projective tests are scored according to an overall pattern of responses rather than by interpreting any single response

Rorschach Inkblot Test

• Hermann Rorschach, Swiss psychiatrist

• First used with his hospitalized patients and narrowed down to ten inkblot cards

• Presented as a way to “understand people” and told they can look at the whole image or any part of the inkblot

• Person is then asked to explain why/how they saw a particular image; everything a person says is recorded

• Assessor is interested in how the response is formed, the reasons for the response, and the content

• Content of responses is then interpreted — Mostly animals? Mostly humans? Inanimate vs. animate objects? Affection or hostility?

• Process is also interpreted – Do they repeatedly ask questions? Change answers?

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

• Developed by Henry Murray, American Psychologist and Christina Morgan, an analyst

• Person is shown a series of cards with scenes on them and asked to make up a story based on the picture

• “The test is based on the well‐recognized fact that when a person interprets an ambiguous social situation he is apt to expose his own personality as much as the phenomenon to which he is attending” (Murray, 1938)

• Responses can be scored systematically according to a scheme developed by Murray

• Particularly strong in assessing achievement motives

Challenges of Projective Tests

• Responses can be impacted by sociopolitical forces

• Responses may not generalize to everyday life

• Different scoring systems have been developed over time; rater to rater reliability may be questionable

• Some argue that projective tests should not be used in clinical settings

Alfred Adler

• Placed more important social drives and conscious thoughts than sexual instincts and the unconscious

• Felt people were strongly motivated to resolve conscious feelings of inferiority and insecurity

• “Will to power”

• Birth Order

Carl Jung

• Once had a strong personal and professional relationship with Freud

– Jung viewed the libido as less sexual and more as a life energy (pleasure, creativity)

– Less emphasis on childhood conflict and more on what drives a person forward

• Collective unconscious

• Cumulative experience of past generations is stored in the mind

• Also focused on the dual aspects, or opposing forces, of the self

Karen Horney

Emphasized cultural factors in the formation of gender identity Believed individuals attempt to cope with “basic anxiety” in one of three ways:

• Moving Toward: Seeks acceptance and approval; may be dependent in relationships and self-sacrificing

• Moving Against: Views others as hostile; denied need for others and attempts to appear “tough” and aggressive

• Moving Away: Emotionally detached, shies away from most contact

Also rejected Freud’s view of women, and emphasized social forces

Womb Envy

Henry Stack Sullivan

Emotional experiences are based in relationships and not biological drives

• Early interactions are important in forming the self; appraisals vs. rejections, good me vs. bad me, etc.

• Believed that social acceptance becomes important even beyond adolescence

Attachment Theory

John Bowlby

• Bowlby was interested in the effects of early separation from parents

• Attachment Behavioral System (ABS) – innate, biological drive to be close to caregivers

• Ideally, adult attachment figures provide a “secure base” for exploration

Mary Ainsworth

“Strange Situation”

• Study in which children were directly observed when mother left the room

• 70% securely attached; not happy mother left but greeted her readily and easily comforted when she returned

• 20% anxious‐avoidant; did not react much to mother’s departure and moved away from her upon her return

• 10% anxious‐ambivalent; difficulty separating from the mother and reuniting with her upon her return, mixed reactions to being comforted

Bartholomew’s Dimensions of Attachment

Neuropsychoanalysis

A field of study that seeks out a brain‐based understanding of psychoanalytic structures and processes – Freud felt that personality was “biologically based”

• Two leading neuropsychoanalysts - Jaak Panksepp (neuroscientist from Estonia) and Mark Solms (South African psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist)

• Instinctual Drives - identified neural systems in subcortical regions that are similar in structure and function in humans and animals in contributing to emotional states (anger, sexual desire)

• Defense Strategies of the Ego – false memories or beliefs are found in individuals with damage to the frontal lobe

• Dreams – dreaming may be distinct from REM sleep; high-level brain mechanisms (related to memory and thinking) have been found to be associated with dreaming

• Alternative Therapeutic Methods – Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS); small electrical device is implanted in a specific region of the brain tied to certain disorders and emotional distress

Strengths & Limitations of Psychoanalytic Theory

S T R E N G T H S

• Provides for the discovery and investigation of many interesting phenomena

• Develops techniques for research and therapy (free association, dream interpretation, transference analysis)

• Recognizes the complexity of human behavior

• Encompasses a broad range of phenomena

L I M I T A T I O N S

• Fails to define all its concepts clearly and distinctly

• Makes empirical testing difficult, at times impossible

• Endorses the questionable view of the person as an energy system

• Tolerates resistance by parts of the profession to empirical research and change in the theory