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Ch 11 Personality Day 1 (1)

Personality Overview

  • Definition: Personality refers to an individual’s unique and relatively consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

  • Personality Theory: Describes and explains how people are alike, how they differ, and why each person is unique.

Perspectives on Personality

  • Four Major Perspectives:

    • Psychoanalytic Perspective

    • Humanistic Perspective

    • Social-Cognitive Perspective

    • Trait Perspective

Psychoanalytic Perspective

  • Core Idea: Emphasizes the role of unconscious processes and early childhood experiences.

  • Key Figure: Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), physician and researcher.

  • Freud's Clinical Context:

    • Investigated the medical use of cocaine, later deemed addictive.

    • His daughter, Anna Freud, became a prominent psychoanalytic theorist.

Theoretical Foundations of Freud

  • Self-Analysis & Patient Observation: Critical processes in developing psychoanalysis.

  • Technique of Free Association: Patients report their thoughts and feelings freely, revealing unconscious material.

  • Dream Analysis: Freud attributed significant meaning to dreams, considering them as paths to unconscious desires.

Freud’s Dream Interpretation

  • Every Dream is Meaningful: Dreams contain symbols that reveal hidden urges.

  • Association Method: Patients link dream elements to their personal meanings rather than relying on a standard interpretation.

  • Dreams as Fulfillment: Dreams disguise repressed childhood wishes, with latent meanings that may differ from surface impressions.

Freud’s Dynamic Theory of Personality

  • Psychoanalysis as Therapy: Both a theory of personality and a therapeutic approach.

  • Personality as Interplay of Forces: Behavior results from conflicts among the id, ego, and superego.

  • Unconscious Motivation: Key causes of behavior lie buried in the unconscious mind.

Levels of Awareness in Personality

  1. Conscious: Current thoughts and feelings.

  2. Preconscious: Memories easily retrievable.

  3. Unconscious: Deep-seated thoughts, feelings, and drives that influence consciousness.

Structure of Personality Components

Id

  • Characteristics:

    • Unconscious and irrational.

    • Seeks immediate gratification and pleasure (pleasure principle).

Ego

  • Characteristics:

    • Partly conscious and rational.

    • Mediates between id and real-world restrictions (reality principle).

    • Internalizes rules and social values (Freud’s analogy: "id is a horse; ego is the rider").

Superego

  • Characteristics:

    • Self-evaluative and moralistic.

    • Formed through the internalization of societal and parental guidelines.

    • Evaluates behavior and provides sense of pride or guilt.

Ego Defense Mechanisms

  • Purpose: Reduce anxiety when id or superego demands overwhelm ego.

  • Types of Mechanisms:

    • Repression: Excluding anxiety-inducing memories from consciousness.

    • Displacement: Redirecting emotional impulses toward a less threatening target.

    • Sublimation: Transforming sexual urges into productive activities.

    • Rationalization: Offering acceptable reasons for one’s behavior instead of acknowledging true motives.

    • Projection: Attributing one's feelings or urges to others.

    • Reaction Formation: Behaving in a manner opposite to one's desires.

    • Denial: Refusing to acknowledge unpleasant information.

    • Regression: Resorting to behaviors characteristic of an earlier developmental stage.

Freud's Psychosexual Stages of Development

  • Five Stages:

    1. Oral

    2. Anal

    3. Phallic

    4. Latency

    5. Genital

  • Focus of Sexual Energies: Each stage represents a different focus for the id’s energies; foundational personality traits develop during these stages.

Fixation Consequences

  • Definition: Unresolved conflicts in any psychosexual stage.

  • Effects: Result in unmet needs or overindulgence, leading to fixation and challenges in adulthood.

The Oedipus Complex

  • Definition: A child's unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and hostility towards the same-sex parent.

  • Critical Conflict Resolution: Necessary for healthy development, especially during the phallic stage.

  • Resolution Process: Boys emulate fathers; girls identify with mothers.

Latency Stage and Genital Stage

  • Latency: Repressed sexual urges; children bond with same-sex peers.

  • Genital Stage: Final resolution of the Oedipus complex; urges surface but are directed towards socially acceptable relationships.

Neo-Freudian Contributions

  • General Agreement: Importance of the unconscious and early childhood.

  • Key Differences from Freud:

    • Dispute over sexual motivation as the primary driver of behavior.

    • Questions the determinative role of early childhood experiences on personality.

    • More optimistic view of human nature.

Carl Jung's Theories

  • Collective Unconscious: Inherited images (archetypes) shared across cultures.

  • Archetypes Examples: Represent universal themes such as hero/villain and ideas of wisdom, strength.

Karen Horney's Contributions

  • Emphasis on Social Relationships: Focus on cultural influences over sexual conflicts in psychological development.

  • Concept of 'Womb Envy': Suggests men envy women’s reproductive capabilities.

Alfred Adler's Theories

  • Striving for Superiority: Central human motivation based on feelings of inadequacy during childhood.

  • Importance of Compensation: Encouragement of individual growth and talents due to feelings of inferiority.

Evaluating Psychoanalysis

  • Contributions:

    • Validated the unconscious's role in mental life.

    • Highlighted early childhood's impact on adult relationships.

    • Informed therapeutic practices.

  • Limitations:

    • Evidence inadequacy.

    • Difficulty in testability.

    • Possibility of sexism and a biased perspective of gender roles.