LP 11B Freud/defense mech 1 Personality is an individual s unique and relatively consistent pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving. There are four basic groups of theorists who try to describe and explain individual similarities and differences. TABLE 11.5 The Major Personality Perspectives Perspective Key Theorists Key Themes and Ideas Psychoanalytic Sigmund Freud Influence of unconscious psychological processes; importance of sexual and aggressive instincts; lasting effects of early childhood experiences Carl Jung The collective unconscious, archetypes, and psychological harmony Karen Horney Importance of parent-child relationship; defending against basic anxiety; womb envy Alfred Adler Striving for superiority, compensating for feelings of inferiority Humanistic Carl Rogers Emphasis on the self-concept, psychological growth, free will, and inherent goodness Abraham Maslow Behavior as motivated by hierarchy of needs and striving for self-actualization; focus on psychologically healthy people Social cognitive Albert Bandura Reciprocal interaction of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors; emphasis on conscious thoughts, selfefficacy beliefs, self-regulation, and goal setting Trait Raymond Cattell Emphasis on measuring and describing individual differences; 16 source traits of personality Hans Eysenck Three basic dimensions of personality: introversion extraversion, neuroticism emotional stability, and psychoticism Robert McCrae and Paul Costa, Jr. Five-factor model: five basic dimensions of personality: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness (use the mnemonic OCEAN)
LP 11B Freud/defense mech 2 Psychoanalytic: Emphasizes the importance of unconscious determinants of behavior, sexual and aggressive drives, and the effects of early childhood experience on later personality development. Freud Influence of unconscious psychological processes; importance of sexual and aggressive instincts; lasting effects of early childhood experiences Neo-Freudians Carl Jung The collective unconscious, archetypes, and psychological harmony Karen Horney Importance of parent-child relationship; defending against basic anxiety; womb envy Alfred Adler Striving for superiority, compensating for feelings of inferiority
LP 11B Freud/defense mech 3 Do We All Speak Freud Here? [Source: Peter Gay in the March 29, 1999 edition of Time p. 68.] Penis envy: Freud s famous theory not favored by feminists that women wish they had what men are born with (a penis). Freudian slip: A seemingly meaningless slip of the tongue that is really e- mail direct from the unconscious Unconscious: Repressed feelings, desires, ideas, and memories that are hidden from the conscious mind. Repression: Involuntary blocking of an unsettling feelings or memories from conscious thought. Oedipus complex: In classic Freudian theory, children in their phallic phase (ages three to six) form an erotic attachment to the parent of the opposite sex, and a concomitant hatred (occasionally murderous) of the parent of the same sex. Castration anxiety: A boy s unconscious fear of losing his penis and his fantasy that girls have already lost theirs. Sublimation: Unconscious shifting of an unacceptable drive (lust for your sister, say) into culturally acceptable behavior (lust for your friend s sister). Transference: Unconscious shifting of feelings about one person in authority (e.g., a parent) to another (e.g., your analyst). Id: The part of the mind from which primal needs and drives (e.g., lust, rage) emerge. Superego: The part of the mind where your parents and society s rules reside; the original guilt trip. Ego: The mind s mechanism for keeping in touch with reality, it referees the wrestling match between id and superego. Phallic symbols: Almost anything can look like a penis, but sometimes, as Freud is supposed to have remarked, A cigar is just a cigar. What are other Freudian terms still with us? Fixation Libido Anal Catharsis When the language is so pervasive in society, it gives credibility to the theory and belief. Does the data support Freud?
Freud s Structure of Personality Structure of personality (see Figure 11.1) LP 11B Freud/defense mech 4 Aspect of personality Ego Superego Id Level of Consciousness Mostly conscious such as thoughts and perceptions All levels, but mostly preconscious such as memories and stored knowledge Unconscious such as: Fears Unacceptable sexual desires Violent motives Irrational wishes Immoral urges Selfish needs Shameful experiences Description or Function Mediates between id impulses and superego inhibitions; deals with reality (reality principle); the rational part of personality Ideals and morals; conscience; incorporated from parents Basic impulses such as sexual urges and aggression; operates on the pleasure principle; seeks immediate gratification; the irrational part of the personality that is impulsive.
LP 11B Freud/defense mech 5 The Neo-Freudians The Neo-Freudians (Jung, Horney and Adler) agreed with Freud that unconscious processes and childhood experiences shape personality. However, there are differences between the Neo- Freudians and Freud. General issues of disagreement: Neo-Freudians did not believe that behavior was primarily motivated by sexual urges. Neo-Freudians disagreed that personality was fundamentally determined by childhood experiences, but rather throughout the lifespan, such as Erik Erikson (see chapter 9). Neo-Freudians did not share Freud s pessimistic view of human nature and society (remember Freud lived through the devastation of World War I, and witnessed the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany).
Freudian Defense Mechanisms LP 11B Freud/defense mech 6 When the demand of the idealized self (superego) and the impulsive self (id) overwhelm the rational self (ego), anxiety results. According to Freud, one way for the rational self (ego) to temporarily reduce this anxiety is to distort your thoughts and perception of reality. These deceptions can help you maintain an integrated self while searching for a realistic and acceptable solution for the conflict between the superego and id that produces anxiety (also you also might think of it in terms of humanist theory when your experiences are inconsistent with your self-concept). The use of defense mechanisms is very common. Many psychologically healthy individuals temporarily use defense mechanisms to deal with stressful events (Chapter 13: Stress, Health and Coping). However, when defense mechanism delay continually distort reality or interfere with our use of more constructive coping strategies, they can be counterproductive and keep us from learning from experience. Why?
LP 11B Freud/defense mech 7 The Major Ego Defense Mechanisms Defense Mechanism Explanation Example Repression Displacement Sublimation Rationalization Projection Reaction Formation Denial Undoing Regression Unacceptable or unpleasant impulses are pushed back into the unconscious The expression of an unwanted feeling or thought is redirected from a more threatening, powerful person to a weaker one Diversion of unwanted impulses into socially approved thoughts, feelings, or behaviors A distortion of reality in which a person justifies what happens (also known as sour grapes) Attributing unwanted impulses and feelings to someone else Thinking or behaving in a way that is the extreme opposite of unacceptable urges or impulses Refusal to accept or acknowledge an anxietyproducing piece of information A form of unconscious repentance that involves neutralizing or atoning for an unacceptable action or thought with a second action or thought People behave as if they were at an earlier stage of development A woman is unable to recall that she was raped A brother yells at his younger sister after a teacher gives him a bad grade A person with strong feelings of aggression becomes a soldier A person who is passed over for an award says she didn t really want it in the first place A man who is angry at his father acts lovingly to his father but complains that his father is angry with him Threatened by their awakening sexual attraction to girls, adolescent boys often go out of their way to tease and torment adolescent girls A person who is convicted for DUI three times this year denies that he has a problem with alcohol. A woman who gets a tax refund by cheating on her taxes makes a larger than usual donation to the church collection on the following Sunday A boss has a temper tantrum when an employee makes a mistake
LP 11B Freud/defense mech 8 Is homophobia an indicator of latent homosexuality? Homophobia consists of feelings of fear, discomfort and aversion that some people experience in interacting with gay individuals. Psychoanalytic theorists have argued that homophobia among men may be rooted in anxiety about the possibility of being homosexual. Psychoanalysts argue that homophobia results from repression of one s latent homosexuality and reaction formation, which leads some men to accentuate their masculinity and to be especially hostile towards gays. The following two groups (heterosexual, highly homophobic men compared with heterosexual, low homophobic men) watched three types of explicit sexually erotic videos and measured their sexual arousal. Differences in Sexual Arousal to Erotic Videos Female heterosexual Homosexual activity activity Heterosexual men High homophobic Low homophobic No Difference in arousal No Difference in arousal Male Homosexual activity Greater arousal by the highly homophobic men Although the highly homophobic men were physiologically more aroused by video of male homosexual activity, their selfreport of sexual arousal was similar to those low in homophobia.