PSYCHOANALYTIC/
PSYCODYNAMIC
Motivational
Factors/Focus of
Theory
Sigmund Freud
Psychoanalytic Theory
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Social Influences and by their
striving for superiority or
success through inferiority.
Man are motivated by striving
for superiority
Inferiority and birth order were
main factors influencing
personality development.
Carl Jung
Analytical Psychology
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Sex and Aggression drives for
personality
Man are motivated by
unconscious forces
3 part personality in constant
conflict
5 psychosexual stages
Defense mechanisms protect
personality from anxiety
Endured because it
postulated sex and
Aggression as universal
themes
Repressed experiences
and certain emotionally
toned experiences
inherited from our
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ancestors. Psychology of
opposites
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Collective uncon. Is
primary drive of
personality development.
Where Freud’s view of humanity was 
Houses “Archetypes” –
pessimistic and rooted in biology,
common symbols across
Adler’s view was optimistic, idealistic,
culture
and rooted in family experiences.
Jung believed that people are
extremely complex beings
who possess a variety of
opposing qualities, such as
introversion and extraversion,
masculinity and femininity,
and rational and irrational
drives.
Unconscious is the centre of
our mental life which
represses high levels of
anxiety created from our early
childhood experiences. Man
are motivated by unconscious
forces. Beyond awareness
but motivate most human
behaviours.
Preconscious: contains images
that are not in awareness but
that can become conscious
quite easily or with some level
of difficulty.
Conscious: plays a small part.
Conscious ideas stem from
either the perception of
external stimuli or from the
unconscious and preconscious
after they have evaded
censorship.
Argues that human behaviour
is the result of the
interactions among three
component parts of the mind:
the id, ego and superego.
Id: completely unconscious,
serves the pleasure principle
and contains our basic
instincts. Operates through
primary process.
Ego: secondary process. Is
governed by the reality
principle and is responsible
1)
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Structures and
Concepts
Alfred Adler
Individual Psychology
People begin life with both an
innate striving force and physical
deficiencies, which will combine
to produce the feeling of
inferiority.
2) People set a goal of overcoming
their inferiority.
3) Social interest is the sole
criterion by which human
actions should be judged.
4) 3 major problems in life:
neighbourly love, sexual love
and occupation.
5) All behaviours are consistent
with the person’s final goal and
is shaped by people’s subjective
perception of a situation.
6) Protective devices called
safeguarding techniques are
patterns of behaviour to protect
people’s exaggerated sense of
self-esteem against public
disgrace.
** the personality is dependent on
how one views the future
** We are born inferior for us to
strive to superiority or success.
Organ inferiority leads to feelings of
inferiority.
1. Superiority: inferiority complex,
overcompensation, superiority
complex
2. Success: social interest
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
A theory of mind that
emphasizes the
importance of wholeness
for each individual.
Emphasizes the
significance of the
present, including the
role that cultural shifts
and archetypes
(underlying universal
symbols) play in
individual psychology.
Rests in the assumption
that occult phenomena
can and do influence the
lives of everyone.
The unconscious is the
most important aspect of
each individual’s psyche,
and that making as much
of the unconscious
known as possible can
help with healing the
attainment of wholeness.
Eg: Dreams
The most important
portion of the
unconscious springs is
the collective
unconscious or the
distant past of human
existence.
Melanie Klein, Bowlby, Mahler,
Kohut
Object Relations Theory
Human contact and relatedness.
Shaped by relationship to
mother.
Many personality theorists have
accepted some of Freuds basic
assumptions while rejecting
others. Unlike Jung and Adler
who rejected Freud’s ideas,
Klein tried to validate Freud’s
development stages downward
to the first 4-6 months after
birth.
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7)
Emphasizes interpersonal
relations, primarily in the
family and especially
between mother and child.
Important part of any
relationship is the internal
psychic representations of
early significant objects
such as a mothers breast
and the father’s penis.
During the first 4 or 6
months is the most crucial
time for personality
development
The child’s relation to the
breast is fundamental and
serves as a prototype for
later relations to whole
objects such as mother and
father
Infant experiences the
“death instinct” as a fear of
death or annihilation.
Children adopt several
psychic defence
mechanisms to protect
their ego against the
anxiety aroused by their
own destructive fantasies
Oediopus complex is in
Genital Stage or Phase
*** the child’s relation to an
object (the breast) serves as the
Karen Horney
Psychoanalytic Theory
Erich Fromm
Humanistic Psychoanalysis
Erik Erikson
Post Freudian
Cultural influences as the
primary basis for both
neurotic and normal
personality development
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Security and parental
relationships are major
influencers on personality
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Took issue with sexist
beliefs of penis envy,
women as submissive and
dependent.
Hornet’s psychoanalytic social
theory assumes that social and
cultural conditions, especially
during childhood have a
powerful effect on later
personality. Like Klein, Hornet
accepted many of Freud’s
observations, but she objected
to most of his interpretations,
including his notions of
feminine psychology.
*** Social, cultural and
childhood experiences shape
personality.
Humans have been ‘torn
away’ from their
prehistoric union with
nature.
Looks at people from the
perspective of psychology,
history and anthropology.
Influenced by Freud and
Horney, Fromm developed
a more culturally oriented
theory then Freud’s and a
much broader theory than
Horney’s.
 Ego is the center of
personality. It is
responsible for a
unified sense of self
 Psychosocial stages of
personality
development.
Erickson postulated 8
stages of psychosocial
development through
which people progress.
Although he differed
from Freud in his
emphasis on the ego and
on social influences, his
theory is an extension,
not a repudiation, of
Freudian psychoanalysis.
Fromm believed that
humans have been torn
away from their
prehistoric union with
nature and left with no
powerful instincts to adopt
to a changing world. But
because humans have
acquired the ability to
reason, they can think
about their isolated
condition-a situation
Fromm called the human
dilemma.
Human Needs:
According to Fromm, our
human dilemma cannot be
solved by satisfying our
animal needs. It can only
be addressed by fulfilling
our uniquely human
needs, an accomplishment
that moves us towards a
reunion with the natural
world. Fromm identified 5
of these distinctively
human or existential
needs:
1. Relatedness: can
take the form of :
a. Submission
b. Power
c. Love – or the
ability to unite
The ego is post Freudian
Psychology:
One of Erikson’s chief
contributions to
personality theory was
his emphasis on ego
rather than id functions.
According to Erikson, the
ego is the centre of
personality and is
responsible for a unified
sense of self. It consists
of three interrelated
facets: the body ego, the
ego ideal, and the ego
identity.
Society’s influence:
The ego develops within
a given society and is
influenced by childrearing practices and
other cultural customs.
All cultures and nations
develop a pseudo
species, or a fictional
notion that they are
superior to other
cultures.
Epi genetic Principle:
The ego develops
according to the epi
genetic principle, that is,
it grows according to a
genetically established
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Basic hostility
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Basic anxiety
Protective devices against
isolation:
a) Affection
b) Submissiveness
c) Power, prestige,
possession
d) Withdrawal
10 Neurotic needs
Neurotic trends
a) Moving towards
people
b) Moving against
people
c) Moving away from
people
Hornet’ s writings deal mostly
with neuroses and neurotic
personalities, BUT her
theories also suggest much
that is appropriate to normal
development. She agreed
with Freud that early
childhood traumas are
important, but she placed far
more emphasis on social
factors.
for reconciling the unrealistic
demands of the id and the
superego.
7. Superego: serves the idealistic
principle. 2 subsystems, the
conscious and the ego-ideal.
Conscious: results from
punishment for improper
behaviour, ego ideal: stems
from rewards for socially
acceptable behaviour.
8. Places great importance on
how unconscious conflicts
among the parts of the mind
shape behaviour and
personality.
9. Focus on sexuality as the main
driver of human personality
development
10. The ego initiates various
defence mechanisms to
protect itself from anxiety.
11. First 4 or 5 years of life, or the
infantile stage are the most
crucial for personality
formation amongst the 3
major stages of development.
12. Oedipus Complex is in the
Philip stage or phase.
Drives:
Instincts/impulses/Dynamics of
Personality
1. Sex: Life instincts (Eros) –
aim is pleasure, gained
through erogenous
zones, mouth, anus,
genitals. Object of sex
instinct is any person or
thing that brings
pleasure.
Narcissism – all infants
possess primary
narcissism, but the
secondary narcissism of
adolescence and
adulthood is not
universal.
Love- sadism and
masochism – satisfy both
sex and aggression.
2. Aggression: Death
instincts (Thanatos) –
aims to return a person
to an inorganic state,
ordinarily directed
against others.
Anxiety: - only the ego feels
anxiety. Id, superego and the
Fictional final goal
Organ dialect
Creative Power
Style of Life
The final goal: of either success or
superiority, toward which all people
strive, unifies personality and makes
all behaviour meaningful.
Striving force as Compensation –
because people are born with small
inferior bodies, they feel inferior and
attempt to overcome these feelings
through their natural tendency to
move toward completion. The
striving force can take once of two
courses: personal gain (superiority) or
community benefit (success).
Striving for Personal Superiority –
Psychologically unhealthy individuals
strive for personal superiority with
little concern for other people.
Although they may appear to be
interested in other people, their basic
motivation is personal benefit.
Striving for Success – in contrast,
psychologically healthy people strive
for the success of all humanity, but
they do so without losing their
personal identity.
Subjective Perceptions – people’s
subjective view of the world – not
reality – shapes their behaviour.
Fictionalism – fictions are a person’s
expectations of the future. Adler
held that fictions guide behaviour,
because people act as if these fictions
are true. Adler emphasized teleology
over causality, or explanations of
behaviour in terms of future goals
rather than past causes.
Organ inferiorities – Adler believed
that all humans are “blessed” with
organ inferiorities, which stimulate
subjective feelings of inferiority and
move people toward perfection or
completion.
Unity and Self-Consistency of
Personality – believed that all
behaviours are directed towards a
single purpose. When sene in the
Jung saw the human psyche
as being divided into a
conscious and an unconscious
level, with the latter further
subdivided into a personal
and collective unconscious.
Levels of Psyche:
1. Conscious (EGO is
the centre) - Images
sensed by the ego
are said to be
conscious. The ego
thus represents the
conscious side of
personality, and In
the psychologically
mature individual,
the ego is secondary
to the self.
2. Unconscious (SELF is
the centre)
-personal - the
unconscious refers
to those psychic
images not sensed
by the ego. Some
unconscious
processes flow from
our personal
experiences, but
others from our
ancestors’
experiences with
universal themes.
Jung divided the unconscious
into personal, which contains
the complexes (emotionally
toned groups of related ideas)
and the collective
unconscious, or ideas that are
beyond our personal
experiences and that originate
from the repeated
experiences of our ancestors.
Collective Unconscious –
images are not inherited
ideas, but rather they refer to
our innate tendency to react
in a particular way whenever
personal experiences
stimulate an inherited
predisposition towards action.
Contents of the collective
unconscious are called
archetypes.
prototype to future
interpersonal relationships.
.
Phantasies
Objects
-good breast
-bad breast
Object relations theory differs
from Freudian theory in at least
3 ways:
1. It places more emphasis
on interpersonal
relationships
2. It stresses the infants
relationship with the
mother rather than the
father
3. It suggests that people
are motivated primarily
for human contact rather
than sexual pleasure.
The term object in object
relations theory refers to any
person or part of a person that
infants introject, or take into
their psychic structure and then
later project onto other people.
Psychic life of an infant:
Klein believed that infants begin
their life with an inherited
predisposition to reduce the
anxiety that they experience as
a consequence of the clash
between the life instinct and the
death instinct.
Fantasies: Klein assumed that
very young infants possess an
active, unconscious fantasy life.
Their most basic fantasies are
images of the “good” breast and
the “bad” breast.
Objects:
Klein agreed with Freud that
drives have an object but she
was more likely to emphasize
the child’s relationship with
these objects (parents’ face,
hands, breast, penis, etc.) which
she saw as having a life of their
own within the child’s fantasy
world.
Positions:
In their attempts to reduce the
conflict produced by good and
bad images, infants organize
Hornet and Freud compared:
Hornet criticized Freud on 3
accounts:
1. It’s rigidity toward
new ideas
2. It’s skewed view of
feminine psychology
3. It’s overemphasis on
biology and the
pleasure principle.
The impact of culture:
Hornet insisted that modern
culture is too competitive and
that competition leads to
hostility and feelings of
isolation. These conditions
lead to exaggerated needs for
affection and cause people to
overvalue love.
The importance of Childhood
experiences:
Neurotic conflict stems largely
from childhood traumas, most
of which are traced to a lack
of genuine love. Children
who do not receive genuine
affection feel threatened and
adopt rigid behavioural
patterns in an attempt to
regain love.
Basic hostility and Basic
anxiety:
All children need feelings of
safety and security, but these
can only be gained by love
from parents. Unfortunately
parents often neglect,
dominate, reject, or
overindulge their children,
conditions that lead to the
child’s feelings of basic
hostility toward parents. If
children repress feelings of
basic hostility towards
parents. If children repress
feelings of basic hostility, they
will develop feelings of
insecurity and a pervasive
sense of apprehension called
basic anxiety. People can
protect themselves from basic
anxiety through a number of
protective devices, including:
1. Affection
2. Submissiveness
3. Power, prestige, or
possession
4. Withdrawal.
2.
3.
4.
with another
while retaining
one’s own
individuality and
integrity, is the
only relatedness
need that can
solve our basic
human dilemma.
Transcendence –
being thrown
into the world
without their
consent, humans
have to
transcend their
nature by
destroying or
creating people
or things.
Humans can
destroy through
malignant
agression, or
killing for
reasons other
than survival,
but they can also
create and care
about their
creations.
Rootedness: is
the need to
establish roots
and to feel at
home again in
the world.
Productively,
rootedness
enables us to
grow beyond the
security of our
mother and
establish ties
with the outside
world. With the
nonproductively
strategy, we
become fixated
and afraid to
move beyond
the security and
safety of our
mother or a
mother
substitute.
Sense of
identity: The
fourth human
rate and in a fixed
sequence.
Stages of Psychosocial
Development:
Each of the 8 stages of
development is marked
by a conflict between
syntonic (harmonious)
element and a dystonic
(disruptive) element,
which produces a basic
strength or ego quality.
Also, from adolescence
on, each stage is
characterized by an
identity crisis, or turning
point, which may
produce either adaptive
or maladaptive
adjustment.
outside world can each be a source
of anxiety.
1. Neurotic – stems from
the ego’s relationship
with the id
2. Moral – similar to guilt
and results from the
ego’s relation with the
superego.
3. Realistic – similar to fear.
Is produced by the ego’s
relation with the outside
world.
Defence Mechanisms:
Repression: forcing unwanted
anxiety loaded experiences into
the unconscious. Most basic of all
defence mechanisms as it is an
active process in each of the others
Undoing and Isolation: undoing is
the ego’s attempt to do away with
unpleasant experiences and their
consequences, usually with
repetitious ceremonial actions.
Isolation is marked by obsessive
thoughts and involves the ego’s
attempt to isolate the experience
by surrounding it with a blackedout region of insensibility.
Reaction formation: marked by the
repression of one impulse and the
astentatious expression of it’s
exact opposite.
Displacement: takes place when
people redirect their unwanted
urges onto other objects or people
to disguise the original impulse.
Fixation: develops when psychic
energy is blocked at one stage of
development making psychological
change difficult.
Regression: occurs whenever a
person reverts to earlier, more
infantile modes of behaviour
Projection: seeing in others those
unacceptable feelings or
behaviours that actually reside in
one’s own unconscious. When
carried to extreme, projection can
become paranoia, which is
characterized by delusions of
persecution.
Introjection: takes place when
people incorporate positive
qualities of another person into
their own ego to reduce feelings of
inferiority.
Sublimation: sublimation involve
the elevation of the sexual
light of that sole purpose, seemingly
contradictory behaviours can be seen
as operating in a self-consistent
manner.
Organ dialect – People often use a
physical disorder to express style of
life, a condition Adler called organ
dialect.
Conscious and Unconscious – these
processes are unified and operate to
achieve a single goal. The part of our
goal that we do not clearly
understand is unconscious; the part
of our goal that we fail to fully
comprehend is conscious.
Social Interest – Human behaviour
has value to the extent that it is
motivated by social interest, that is, a
feeling of oneness with all humanity.
Origins of Social interest – although it
exists in all people, it must be
fostered in a social environment.
Adler believed that the parent-child
relationship can be so strong that out
negates the effects of heredity.
Importance of Social Interest –
According to Adler, social interest is
“the sole criterion of human values”
and the worthiness of all one’s
actions must be seen by this
standard. Without social interest,
societies could not exist; individuals
in antiquity could not have survived
without cooperating with others to
protect themselves from danger.
Even today, an infant’s helplessness
predisposes it toward a nurturing
purpose.
Style of life – the manner of a
person’s striving is called style of life,
a pattern that is relatively well set by
4 or 5 years of age. Adler believed
that healthy individuals are marked
by flexible behaviour and that they
have some limited ability to change
their style of life.
Creative power – Style of life is
partially a product of heredity and
environment – the building blocks of
personality- but ultimately style of
life is shaped by people’s creative
power, that is, by their ability to
freely choose a course of action.
Abnormal Development – Creative
power is not limited to healthy
Archetypes – they originate
through repeated experiences
of our ancestors and that they
are expressed in certain types
of dreams, fantasies,
delusions, and hallucinations.
Several archetypes acquire
their own personality, and
Jung identified these by name.
One is the persona-the side of
our personality that we show
to others. Another is the
shadow-the dark side of
personality. To reach full
psychological maturity, Jung
believed, we must first realize
or accept our shadow. A
second hurdle in achieving
maturity is for men to accept
their anima, or feminine side,
and for women to embrace
their animus or masculine
disposition. Other archetypes
include the great mother (the
archetype of nourishment and
destruction); the wise old man
(the archetype of wisdom and
meaning); and the hero (the
image we have of a conqueror
who vanquishes evil, but who
has a single fatal flaw). The
most comprehensive
archetype is the self; that is,
the image we have of
fulfillment, completion, or
perfection. The ultimate in
psychological maturity is selfrealization, which is
symbolized by the mandala,
or perfect geometric figure.
Dynamics of Personality –
Jung believed that the
dynamic principles that apply
to physical energy also apply
to psychic energy. These
forces include causality and
teleology as well as
progression and regression.
Causality and Teleology - Jung
accepted a middle position
between philosophical issues
of causality and teleology. In
other words, humans are
motivated both by their past
experiences and by their
experiences and by their
expectations of the future.
their experience into positions,
or ways of dealing with both
internal and external objects.
Paranoid – Schizoid Position
The struggle infants experience
with the good breast and the
bad breast lead to two separate
and opposing feelings: a desire
to harbour the breast and a
desire to bite or destroy it. To
tolerate these feelings the ego
splits itself by retaining parts of
its life and death instincts while
projecting other parts onto the
breast. To control this situation,
infants adopt the paranoidschizioid position, which is a
tendency to see the world as
having both destructive and
omnipotent qualities.
Depressive Position:
By depressive position, Klein
meant the anxiety that infants
experience around 6 months of
age over losing their mother and
yet, at the same time, wanting
to destroy her. The depressive
position is resolved when infants
fantasize that they have made
up for their previous
transgressions against their
mother and also realize that
their mother and also realize
that their mother will not
abandon them.
Psychic Defence Mechanisms:
Children adopt various psychic
defuse mechanisms to protect
their ego against anxiety
aroused by their own
destructive fantasies.
Introjection: the fantasy of
taking into one’s own body the
images that one has of an
external object, especially the
mother’s breast. Infants usually
introject good objects as a
protection against anxiety, but
they also introject bad objects
in order to gain control of them.
Projection:
The fantasy that one’s own
feelings and impulses reside
within another person is called
projection. Children project
both good and bad images,
especially onto their parents.
Splitting:
Normal people have the
flexibility to use any or all of
these approaches, but
neurotics are compelled to
rely rigidly on only one.
Compulsive Drives:
Neurotics are frequently
trapped in a vicious circle in
which their compulsive need
to reduce basic anxiety leads
to a variety of self-defeating
behaviours; these behaviours
then produce more basic
anxiety, and the cycle
continues.
Neurotic Needs:
Horney identified 10
categories of neurotic needs
that mark neurotics in their
attempt to reduce basic
anxiety. These include needs:
1. For affection and
approval
2. For a powerful partner
3. To restrict ones life
within narrow borders
4. For power
5. To exploit others
6. For social recognition or
prestige
7. For personal admiration
8. For ambition and
personal achievement
9. For self sufficiency and
independence
10. For perfection and
unassailability
Neurotic Trends:
Later Horney grouped these
10 neurotic needs into 3 basic
neurotic trends, which apply
to both normal and neurotic
individuals in their attempt to
solve basic conflict. The 3
neurotic trends are:
1. Moving towards people,
in which compliant
people protect
themselves against
feelings of
helplessness by
attaching themselves
to other people.
2. Moving against people,
in which aggressive
people protect
themselves against
perceived hostility of
need is for a
sense of identity,
or an awareness
of ourselves as a
separate person.
The drive for a
sense of identity
is expressed non
productively, as
conformity to a
group and
productively as
individuality.
5. Frame of
orientation:
Fromm meant a
road map or
consistent
philosophy by
which we find
our way through
the world. This
need is
expressed
nonproductively
as a striving for
irrational goals
and productively
as movement
toward rational
goals.
The burden of freedom: as
the only animal possessing
self-awareness, humans
are what Fromm called the
“freaks of the universe”.
Historically, as people
gained more political
freedom, they began to
experience more isolation
from others and from the
world and to feel free
from the security of a
permanent place in the
world. As a result,
freedom becomes a
burden, and people
experience basic anxiety,
or a feeling of being alone
in the world.
Mechanisms of escape: To
reduce the frightening
sense of isolation and
aloneness, people may
adopt one of the 3
mechanisms escape:
1. Authoritarianism, or
the tendency to give
up one’s
instinct’s aim to a higher level,
which permits people to make
contributions to society and
culture.
people; unhealthy individuals also
create their own personalities. Thus,
each of us is free to choose either a
useful or useless style of life.
]The most important factor in
abnormal development is lack of
social interest. In addition, people
with a useless style of life tend to (1)
set their goals too high, (2) have a
dogmatic style of life, and (3) live in
their own private world.
External factors to maladjustment:
three factors that relate to abnormal
development.
1. Exaggerated physical
deficiencies, which do not by
themselves cause abnormal
development but may
contribute to it by generating
subjective and exaggerated
feelings of inferiority.
2. A pampered style of life which
contributes to an overriding
drive to establish a permanent
parasitic relationship with the
mother or a mother substitute.
3. A neglected style of life, which
leads to distrust of other
people.
Safeguarding tendencies: both
normal and neurotic people create
symptoms as a means of protecting
their fragile self-esteem. These
safeguarding tendencies maintain a
neurotic style of life and protect a
person from public disgrace. The
three principal safe guarding
tendencies are:
1. Excuses, which allow people to
preserve their inflated sense of
personal worth;
2. Aggression, which may take the
form of depreciating others’
accomplishments accusing
others of being responsible for
one’s own failures or selfaccusation.
3. Withdrawal: which can be
expressed by psychologically
moving backward, standing
still. Hesitating, or constructing
obstacles.
Masculine Protest – Both men and
women sometimes overemphasize
the desire ability of being manly, a
condition that Adler called masculine
protest. The frequently found
inferior stated of women is not based
Progression and Regression To achieve self-realization,
people must adapt to both
their external and internal
worlds. Progression involves
adaptation to the outside
world and the forward flow of
psychic energy, whereas
regression refers to
adaptation to the inner world
and the backward flow of
psychic energy. Jung believed
that the backward step is
essential to a person’s
forward movement towards
self-realization.
Psychological types – 8 basic
psychological types emerge
from the union of 2 attitudes
and 4 functions.
Attitudes – are
predispositions to act or react
in a characteristic manner.
The two basic attitudes are
introversion which refers to
people’s subjective
perceptions, and extraversion,
which indicates an orientation
toward the objective world.
Extraverts are influenced
more by the real world than
by their subjective perception,
whereas introverts and
extraverts often mistrust and
misunderstand one another.
Functions
The 2 attitudes or
extraversion and introversion
can combine with 4 basic
functions to form 8 general
personality types. The 4
functions are (1) thinking or
recognizing the meaning of
stimuli; (2) feeling, or placing
a value on something; (3)
sensation, or taking in sensory
stimuli; and (4) intuition, or
beyond awareness. Jung
referred to thinking an feeling
as rational functions and to
sensation and intuition as
irrational functions.
Development of Personality:
Infants tolerate good and bad
aspects of themselves and of
external objects by splitting, or
mentally keeping apart,
incompatible images. Splitting
can be beneficial to both
children and adults, because it
allows them to like themselves
while still recognizing some
unlikable qualities.
Projective identification: is the
psychic defence mechanism
whereby infants split off
unacceptable parts of
themselves, project them onto
another object, and finally
introject them in an altered
form.
Internalizations:
After introjecting external
objects, infants organize them
into a psychologically
meaningful framework, a
process Klein called
internalization.
Ego: Internalizations are aided
by the early ego’s ability to feel
anxiety, to use defense
mechanisms, and to form object
relations in both fantasy and
reality. However, a unified ego
emerges only after first splitting
itself into two parts: those that
deal with the life instinct and
those that relate to the death
instinct.
Superego:
He believed that the superego
emerged much earlier than
Freud has held. To her, the
superego preceded rather than
followed the Oedipus complex.
Klein also saw the superego as
being quite harsh and cruel.
Oedipus Complex:
Klein believed that the Oedipus
Complex begins during the first
few months of life, then reaches
it’s zenith during the genital
stage at about 3 or 4 years of
age, or the same time Freud had
suggested it began. Klein also
held that much of the Oedipus
complex is based on children’s
fear that their parents will seek
revenge against them for their
fantasy of emptying the parent’s
body. For healthy development
during the Oedipal years,
others by exploiting
others
3. Moving away from
people, in which
detached people
protect themselves
against feelings of
isolation by appearing
arrogant and aloof.
Intrapsychic Conflicts
People experience inner
tensions or intrapsychic
conflicts that become part of
their belief system and take
on a life of their own,
separate from the
interpersonal conflicts that
created them.
The idealized self image:
People who do not receive
love and affection during
childhood are blocked in their
attempt to acquire a stable
sense of identity. Feeling
alienated from self, they
create an idealized self image
or an extravagantly positive
picture of themselves.
Horney recognized 3 aspects
of the idealized self:
1. The neurotic search for
glory, or a
comprehensive drive
toward actualizing the
ideal self.
2. Neurotic claims, or a
belief that they are
entitled to special
privileges
3. Neurotic pride, or a false
pride based not on a
distorted and idealized
view of self.
Self Hatred:
Neurotics dislike themselves
because reality always falls
short of their idealized view of
self. Therefore they learn
self-hatred, which can be
expressed as:
1. Relentless demands on
the self
2. Merciless self accusation
3. Self-contempt
4. Self frustration
5. Self torment or self
torture
6. Self destructive actions
and impulses
independence and to
unite with a
powerful partner
2. Destructiveness, an
escape mechanism
aimed at doing away
with other people or
things.
3. Conformity, or
surrendering of
one’s individuality in
order to meet the
wishes of others.
Positive Freedom: the
human dilemma can only
be solved through positive
freedom, which is the
spontaneous activity of
the whole, integrated
personality, and which is
achieved when a person
becomes reunited with
others.
Character Orientations:
People relate to the world
by acquiring and using
things (assimilation) and
by relating to self and
others (socialization), and
they can do so either
productively or
nonproductively.
Nonproductive
orientations:
Fromm identified four
nonproductive strategies
that fail to move people
closer to positive freedom
and self-realization.
People with a receptive
orientation believe that
the course of all good lies
outside themselves and
that the only way they can
relate to the world is to
receive things, including
love, knowledge, and
material objects. People
with an exploitative
orientation also believe
that the source of good
lies outside themselves,
but they aggressively take
what they want rather
than passively receiving it.
Hoarding characters try to
save what they have
already obtained,
including their opinions,
Therapy Used
Free Association, dream analysis
and Freudian slips, transference
and counter transference, neurotic
symptoms of his patients during
therapy.
1890’s Freud used an aggressive
technique in which he strongly
suggested to patients they had
been sexually seduced as children.
He later abandoned the belief that
on physiology but on historical
developments and social learning.
Unique among personality
theorists was Jung’s emphasis
on the second half of life.
Jung saw middle and old age
as times when people may
acquire the ability to attain
self-realization.very
Stages of Development: 4
broad stages:
1. Childhood, which lasts
from birth until
adolescence
2. Youth – puberty until
middle life. A time fro
extroverted
development and for
being grounded to the
real world of
schooling, occupation,
courtship, marriage,
and family
3. Middle life, which is a
time from about 35-40
until old age when
people should be
adapting an
introverted attitude
4. Old age – a time for
psychological rebirth,
self-realization, and
preparation for death.
Self-realization –
Self-realization and
individuation involves a
psychological rebirth and an
integration of various parts of
the psyche into a unified or
whole individual. Selfrealization represents the
highest level of human
development.
children should retain positive
feelings for each parent.
According to Klein, the little boy
adopts a “feminine” position
very early in life and has no fear
of being castrated as
punishment for his sexual
feelings for his mother. Later,
he projects his destructive drive
on his father, whom he fears will
bite or castrate him. The male
Oedipus complex is resolved
when the boy establishes good
relations with both parents. The
little girl also adopts a
“feminine” position toward both
parents quite early in life. She
has a positive feeling for both
her mother’s breast and her
father’s penis, which she
believes will feed her with
babies. Sometimes the girl
develops hostility toward her
mother, whom she fears will
retaliate against her and rob her
of her babies, but in most cases,
the female Oedipus complex is
resolved without any jealousy
toward the mother.
Later views on object relations:
Feminine Psychology: Horney
believed that psychological
differences between men and
women are not due to
anatomy but to culture and
social expectations. Her view
of the Oedipus complex
differed markedly from
Freud’s in that she insisted
that any sexual attraction or
hostility of child to parent
would be the result of
learning and not biology.
feelings, and material
possessions. People with
a marketing orientation
see themselves as
commodities and value
themselves against the
criterion of their ability to
sell themselves. They
have fewer positive
qualities than the other
orientations because they
are essentially empty.
The productive
orientation:
Psychologically healthy
people work toward
positive freedom through
productive work, love, and
reasoning. Productive
love necessitates a
passionate love of all life
called biophilia.
Personality disorders:
Unhealthy people have
nonproductive ways of
working, reasoning, and
especially loving. Fromm
recognized 3 major
personality disorders:
1. Necrophilia, or the
love of death and the
hatred of all
humanity
2. Malignant
narcissism, or a
belief that
everything belonging
to one’s self is of
great value and
anything belonging
to others is
worthless and
incestuous symbiosis
or an extreme
dependence on
one’s mother or
mother surrogate.
Birth Order, early recollections,
dreams, Genogram
Public Therapy: to create an
understanding that problems of the
child are problems of the
society/community
Word association test, dream
analysis, active imagination,
transformation
(psychotherapy)
Jung used word association
tests, dreams, and active
imagination during the
process of psychotherapy, and
all these methods contributed
to his theory of personality.
Play therapy (Psychotherapy) –
to reduce the depressive anxiety
and persecutory fears and to
mitigate the harshness of
internalized objects.
Utilized some technique of
Freud, successful when
patients can assume
responsibility for their
psychological development
*Aim is to have patients give
up their idealized self-image,
relinquish their neurotic
search for glory and change
self-hatred to an acceptance
of the real self.
Concerned with
interpersonal aspects of
therapeutic encounter.
The goals of Fromm’s
psychotherapy was to
work toward satisfaction
of basic human needs of
relatedness,
transcendence,
rootedness, a sense of
identity and a frame of
Adler applied the principles of
individual psychology to family
constellation, early recollections,
dreams and psychotherapy.
Anthropological studies.
Psychohistory.
Erikson relied mostly on
anthropology,
psychohistory, and play
construction to explain
and describe human
personality.
most patients had been sexually
seduced as children.
Late 1890’s – adopted the free
association, dream interpretation
and transference. Later he worked
to recover repressed memories.
Dream analysis: Freud
differentiated the manifest
content (conscious description)
from the latent content
(unconscious meaning). Nearly all
dreams were wish fulfillment,
although it is usually unconscious
and can be known through dream
interpretation.
Freudian slips: he believed they are
not chance accidents but reveal a
person’s true but unconscious
intentions.
Family Constellation – people's
perception of how they fit in to their
family is related to their style of life.
he claimes that firstborns are likely to
have strong feelings or power and
superiority, to be overprotective, and
to have more than their share of
anxiety. Second-born children are
likely to have strong social interest,
provided they do not get trapped
trying to overcome their older sibling.
youngest children are likely to be
pampered and to lack independence,
whereas only children have some of
the characteristics of both the oldest
and the youngest child.
Early Recollections – a more reliable
method of determining style of life is
to ask people for their earliest
recollections. Adler believed that
early memories are templates on
which people project their current
style of life. These recollections need
not be accurate accounts of early
events; they have psychological
importance because they reflect a
person’s current view of the world.
Dreams – Adler believed that dreams
can provide clues to solving future
problems. However, dreams are
disguised to deceive the dreamer and
usually must be interpreted by
another person.
Psychotherapy – The goal of Adlerian
Therapy is to create a relationship
between therapist and patient that
fosters social interest. To ensure that
the patient’s social interest will
eventually generalize to other
relationships, the therapist adopts
both a maternal and a paternal role.
Concept of
Humanity





Determinism
Pessimism
Causality
Unconscious biological
influences
Both on uniqueness and
similarities




Free choice
Optimism
Teleology
Moderate unconscious
influence

Social factors

Uniqueness
Adler saw people as forward moving,
social animals who are motivated by
goals they set (both consciously and
unconsciously) for the future. People
Word association test – June
used this early in his career to
uncover complexes
embedded in the personal
unconscious. The technique
requires a patient to utter the
first word that comes to mind
after the examiner reads a
stimulus word. Unusual
responses indicate a complex.
Dream Analysis: he believed
that dreams may have both a
cause and a purpose and thus
can be useful in explaining
past events and in making
decisions about the future.
“Big dreams” and “typical
dreams”, both of which come
from the collective
unconscious, have meanings
that lie beyond the
experiences of a single
individual.
Active imagination: He also
used active imagination to
arrive at collective images.
This technique requires the
patient to concentrate on a
single image until that image
begins to appear in a different
form. Eventually, the patient
should see figures that
represent archetypes and
pother collective unconscious
images.
Psychotherapy: The goal of
Jungian therapy is to help
neurotic patients become
healthy and to movie healthy
people in the direction of selfrealization. Jung was eclectic
in his choice of therapeutic
techniques and treated old
people differently than the
young.



Partly conscious
Partly unconscious
Both causality and
teleology

Biological

Similarities
Jung saw people as extremely
complex beings who are a
product of both conscious and
unconscious personal
experiences. However,
people are also motivated by
* used some of Freud’s
therapeutic techniques,
namely: dream analysis and
free association.
The goal of Horney’s
psychotherapy was to help
patients grow toward selfrealization, give up their
idealized self-image,
relinquish their neurotic
search for glory, and change
self-hatred to self-acceptance.
Horney believed that
successful therapy is built on
self-analysis and selfunderstanding.






Determinism
Can be optimistic &
pessimistic
Causality
Unconscious
determinants
Social factors
Similarities

orientation. The therapist
tries to accomplish this
through shared
communication in which
the therapist is simply a
human being rather than a
scientist.
Fromm’s Methods of
Investigation:
Fromm’s Personality
theory rests on data he
gathered from a variety of
sources, including
psychotherapy, cultural
anthropology, and
psychohistory.
Play Construction:
Erikson’s technique of
play construction
became controversial
when he found that 1012 year old boys used
toys to construct
elongated objects and
to produce themes of
rising and falling. In
contrast, girls arranged
toys in low and peaceful
scenes. Erikson
concluded that
anatomical differences
between the sexes play a
role in personality
development.
Fromm believes that
humans were “freaks of
the universe” because
they lacked strong animal
instincts while possessing
the ability to reason.
Erikson saw humans as
basically social animals
who have limited free
choice and who are
motivated by past
experiences, which may
be either conscious or
unconscious.
are ultimately responsible for their
own unique style of life.




Basic Tenets


Growth and
Development
Nature of
Maladjustment
1.
Agression
Anxiety
Psycho sexual stages
Provinces of the mind:
ego id superego
Structures of personality
Defence mechanism
Infantile Period
a. Oral Phase- primarily
motivated to receive
pleasure through the
mouth
i. Early oral
ii. Oral-sadistic
b. Anal Phase
i. Early anal
ii. Late anal
*** Anal Character: - if
parents are too punitive.
iii. Anally expulsive
iv. Anally retentive
c. Phalic Phase
i. Male Oedipus
complex – castration
complex = castration
anxiety breaks up
the Oedipus complex
and results in a wellformed male
superego.
ii. Female Oedipus
Complex – (precedes
the female oedipus)
castration complex =
penis envy. Only a
gradual shattering of
the female Oedipus
complex and a
weaker, more
flexible female sup
2. Latency – sexual instinct is
partially suppressed.
3. Genital
4. Maturity
Fixation on a particular stage




Sibling rivalry
Family constellation
Superiority and inferiority
complexes
Gemeinschaftgetful
inherited remnants that
spring from the collective
experiences of their early
ancestors.

Levels of Psyche

Dynamics of
personality

Complexes

Archetypes









Phantasies
Objects
Positions
Psychic defence
mechanism
Internalizations
Normal autism
Self psychology
Separation anxiety
Attachment styles





Basic hostility
Basic anxiety
Neurotic needs
Neurotic trends
Intrapsychic
conflicts






** parental influences on early
childhood affects gender, growth and
development:
1. Bossy type
2. Getting type
3. Avoiding type
4. Socially useful type
Sun’s journey to through the
sky:
1. Childhood (early
morning sun)
a. Anarchic phase
b. Monoarhic phase
c. Dualistic phase
2. Youth (morning sun) **
Conservative Principle
3. Middle life (early
morning sun)
4. Old Age (evening sun)

Self realization

Process of coming
to ‘selfhood’

Psychological
rebirth or
individuation
Positions
a) Paranoid-Schizoid
b) Depressive
c) Psychic defense
mechanisms
a. Introjections
b. Projection
c. Splitting
d. Projective
identification
d) Internalizations
a. Ego
b. Superego
c. Oedipus complex
i. Male
ii. Female
The impact of culture brings
forth the development or
growth of personality.
Underdeveloped social interest. Sets
goals too high. Live in their own
private world. Inflexible style of life
Failure to achieve self
realizations
Undeveloped interpersonal
relationship with the mother
Blocked self-realization and
developing the idealized self
(tyranny of the should)
Human needs
Burden of
freedom
Mechanism of
escape
Productive and
non productive
orientation
Syndrome of
decay
Syndrome of
growth




Ego
Epi genetic
principle
Psychosocial
stages

Early childhood experiences
and relationships mood
personality development but
are not responsible for a
certain personality.
Failures to work, think,
and especially to love
productively. Unable to
develop syndrome of
growth
Too little strength on
each stage will produce
core psychopathology
for later stage.
Causes of
Psychopathology
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Goals
Making the unconscious, conscious
HUMANISTIC
Motivational
Factors/Focus of
Theory
Structures and
Concepts
Infantile esexuality
Fixations
Regressions
Cathexis and anticathexis
Anxiety
Neuroticisms
Abraham Maslow
Holistic Dynamic
Maladjusted Style of Life:
1. Pampered style of life
2. Neglected style of life
3. Exaggerated physical
deficiencies
Safeguarding techniques:
1. Aggression
a. Depreciation
b. Accusation
c. Self-accusation
2. Excuses
a. Yes-but
b. If only
3. Withdrawal
a. Moving
backwards
b. Hesitation
c. Constructing
obstacles
Masculine Protest
Develop social interest
Carl Rogers
Person Centered

People are motivated by needs 
Humans have the capacity to
that can be arranged in a
change and grow-provided that
hierarchy
certain necessary and sufficient
conditions are present.

Studied healthy personalities
and described characteristics of 
Self-concept is the most
the self actuating personality
important feature of personality
Maslow’s holistic-dynamic theory
holds that people are continually
Although Carl Rogers is best known
motivated by one or more needs,
as the founder of client-centered
and that, under the proper
therapy, he also developed an
circumstances, they can reach a
important theory of personality that
level of psychological health called
underscores his approach to therapy.
self-actualization.
Maslow’s View of Motivation
Rests on 5 basic assumptions
1. The whole organism is
motivated at any one time;
Person-Centered Theory – Person
centered theory of personality to
meet his own demands for a
structural model that could explain
A healthy individual has
achieved internal balanceunconscious, conscious,
archetypes, and individuation.
Intrapsychic Conflicts
1. Idealized self-image
a. Neurotic search for
glory
i. N. For protection
ii. Neurotic ambition
iii. Drive towards
vindictive triumph
b. Neurotic claims
c. Neurotic pride
2. Self-hatred
Also, they must have
conquered their shadow and
must have related to their
animus/anima.
Achieving self realizations
Rollo May
Existential
May viewed people as
complex beings, capable of
both tremendous good and
immense evil.
Develop consistent patterns of
interpersonal relationships
DISPOSITIONAL
Gordon Allport
Psychology of Individual
Motivational Factors/Focus of
theory
Saw people as thinking,
proactive, purposeful beings
who are generally aware of
what they are doing and why.
Allport believed that
psychologically healthy
humans are motivated by
present, mostly conscious
drives and that they not only
seek to reduce tensions, but
to establish new ones. He
also believed people were
capable of proactive
behaviour, which suggests
that they can consciously
behave in new and creative
ways that foster their growth
and change. He called his
study of the individual
morphogenic science and
contrasted it with traditional
nomothetic methods.
Structures and concepts
Allport defined personality as
“the dynamic organization
within the individual of those
psychophysical systems that
Existential psychology began
in Europe shortly after WW II
and spread to the United
States, where May played a
large part in popularizing it.
Seren Kierkgaard, the danish
philosopher and theologian, is
usually considered to be the
founder of modern
existentialism. Like later
existentialists, he emphasized
a balance between freedom
and responsibility. People
acquire freedom of action by
expanding their selfawareness and by assuming
responsibility for their actions.
However, this acquisition of
freedom and responsibility is
achieved at the expense of
anxiety and dread.
What is existentialism?
The first tenet of
existentialism is that existence
takes precedence over
Focus on the development of
self realization through self
analysis
To work toward
satisfaction of the basic
human needs.
Costa and McCrae
Trait and Factor
Personality is largely the
product of genetics and
not the environment
Develop a unified sense
of self
Hans Eysenck
Biologically Based Factor
– trait and factor theory

Personality can be
transmitted through
heredity

Believed genetics
factors more
important than
environmental
Raymond Cattel and
Hans Eysenck have each
used factor analysis to
identify traits (that is
relatively permanent
dispositions of people).
Very high on biological
influences and low on
social factors. Average
on conscious vs
2.
3.
4.
5.
Motivation is complex, and
unconscious motives often
underlie the behaviour
People are continually
motivated by one need or
another
People in different cultures
are all motivated by the same
basic needs
Needs can be arranged on a
hierarchy
Hierarchy of Needs: Maslow held
that lower needs have prep often
you over higher level needs; that
is, they must be satisfied before
higher needs become motivators.
Maslow’s hierarchy includes:
1. Physiological needs – oxygen,
food, water
2. Safety needs – physical
security, stability,
dependency
3. Love and belongingness – the
desire for friendship, the
wish for a mate and children,
and the need to belong
4. Esteem needs: follow from
the satisfaction of love
needs, which include selfconfidence, and the
recognition that one has a
positive reputation.
5. Self-actualization needs –
satisfied only by the
psychologically healthiest
people. This is only activated
by embracing B-values: truth,
beauty, oneness and justice.
Unlike other needs that
automatically are activated when
lower needs are met, selfactualization needs do not
inevitably follow the satisfaction of
esteem needs. Only by embracing
such B-Wales such as truths,
beauty, onesness, and justice, can
people achieve self-actualization.
The five needs on Maslow’s
hierarchy are conative needs.
Other needs include aesthetic
needs, cognitive needs, and
neurotic needs.
Aesthetic needs include a desire
for beauty and order, and some
people have much stronger
aesthetic needs than do others.
and predict outcomes of clientcentered therapy. However, the
theory has implications far beyond
the therapeutic setting.
2 basic assumptions: Client centred
therapy rests on 2 basic assumptions.
1. The formative tendency: which
states all matter both organic
and inorganic, tends to evolve
from simpler to more complex
forms, and
2. An actualizing tendency: which
suggests that all living things,
including humans tend to move
toward completion or
fulfillment of potentials.
However, in order for people (or
plants, or animals) to become selfactualized, certain identifiable
conditions must be present: For a
person – this includes a relationship
with another person who is genuine,
or congruent and who demonstrates
complete acceptance and empathy
for that person.
The self and self-actualization:
A sense of self or personal identity
begins to emerge during infancy, and,
once established, it allows a person
to strive towards self-actualization,
which is a subsystem of the
actualization tendency and refers to
the tendency to actualize the self as
perceived in awareness. The self has
2 subsystems:
1. The self-concept, which
includes all those aspects of
one’s identity that are
perceived in awareness, and
2. The ideal self, or our view of
our self as we would like to be
or aspire to be. Once formed,
the self concept tends to resist
change, and gaps between it
and the ideal self-result in
incongruence and various levels
of psychopathology.
Awareness:
People are aware of both their selfconcept and their ideal self, although
awareness need not be accurate or at
a high level. Rogers saw people as
having experiences on 3 levels of
awareness:
1. Those that are symbolized
below the threshold of
awareness and are either
essence, meaning that
process and growth are more
important than product and
stagnation. Second
existentialists oppose the
artificial split between subject
and object. Third they stress
people’s search for meaning
in their lives. Fourth, they
insist that each of us is
responsible for who we are
and what we will become.
Fifth, most take an anti
theoretical position, believing
that theorists tend to
objectify people.
According to existentialists, a
basic unity exists between
people and their
environments, a unity
expressed by the term Dasein,
or being-in-the-world. Three
simultaneous modes of the
world characterize us in our
Dasein: Umwelt, or the
environment around us;
Mitwelt, or our world with
other people; and Eigenwelt,
or our relationship with our
self. People are both aware of
themselves as living beings
and also aware of the
possibility of nonbeing or
nothingness. Death is the
most obvious form of
nonbeing, which can also be
experienced as retreat from
life’s experiences.
Case of Philip: May helped
illustrate his notion of
existentialism with the case of
Philip, a successful architect in
his mid-50’s. Despite his
apparent success, Philip
experienced severe anxiety
when his relationship with
Nicole (a writer in her mid40’s) took a puzzling turn.
Uncertain of his future and
suffering from low selfesteem, Philip went into
therapy with May. Eventually
Philip was able to understand
his difficulties with women
were related to his early
experiences with a mother
who was unpredictable and
an older sister who suffered
determine his characteristic
behaviour and thought”.
Structure of personality:
According to Allport, the basic
units of personality are
personal dispositions and the
proprium.
Personal Disposition: Allport
distinguished between
common traits, which are
peculiar to the individual. He
recognized three overlapping
levels of personal
dispositions, the most general
of which are cardinal
dispositions, that are so
obvious and dominating that
they cannot be hidden from
other people. Not everyone
has a cardinal disposition, but
all people have 5 to 10 central
dispositions, or characteristics
around which their lives
revolve. In addition, everyone
has a great number of
secondary dispositions, which
are less reliable and less
conspicuous than central
traits. Allport further divided
personal dispositions into:
1. Motivational
dispositions which are
strong enough to
initiate action
2. Stylistic dispositions
which refer to the
manner in which an
individual behaves and
which guide rather than
imitate action.
Proprium:
The proprium refers to all
those behaviours and
characteristics that people
regard as warm and central in
their lives. Allport preferred
the term proprium over self
or ego because the latter
terms could imply an object
or thing within a person that
controls behaviour, whereas
proprium suggests the core of
one’s personhood.
Motivation:
Allport insisted that an
adequate theory of
motivation must consider the
notion that motives change as
unconscious and high on
uniqueness of
individuals.
Basics of Factor Analysis:
Factor analysis is a
mathematical procedure
for reducing a large
number of scores to a
few more general
variables. Correlations
of the original, specific
scores with the factors
are called factor loading.
Traits generated through
factor analysis may
either be unipolar
(scaled from 0 to a large
number) or bipolar
(having two opposing
poles such as
introversion and
extroversion). For
factors to have
psychological meaning,
the analyst must rotate
the axes on which the
scores are plotted.
Eysenck used an
orthogonal rotation
whereas Cattell used an
oblique rotation.
Compared to Cattell,
Eysenck:
1. Was more likely
to theorize before
collecting and
factor analyzing
data;
2. Extracted fewer
factors;
3. Used a wider
variety of
approaches to
gathering data.
Measuring Personality:
Eysenck believed that
genetic factors were far
more important than
environmental ones in
shaping personality and
that personal traits could
be measured by
standardized personality
inventories.
Criteria for identifying
factors:
When people fail to meet their
aesthetic needs, they become sick.
Cognitive needs: include the Desire
to know, to understand and to be
curious. Knowledge is a
prerequisite for the 5 combative
needs. Also, people who are
denied knowledge and are kept in
ignorance become sick, paranoid
and depressed.
Neurotic Needs: with each of the 3
dimensions of needs, physical or
psychological illness results when
the needs are not satisfied.
Neurotic needs, however, lead to
pathology regardless of whether or
not they are satisfied or not.
Neurotic needs include such
motives as: a desire to dominate,
to inflict pain, or to subject oneself
to the will of another person.
Neurotic needs are nonproductive
and do not foster health.
General discussion of needs:
Maslow believed that most people
satisfy lower needs to a greater
extent than they do higher level
needs, and that the more fully the
next highest need is likely to
emerge. In certain rare cases, the
order of needs might be reversed,
For example, a starving mother
may be motivated by love needs to
give up food in order to feed her
starving children. However, if we
understood the unconscious
motivation behind many apparent
reversals, we would see that they
are not genuine reversals at all.
Thus Maslow insisted that much of
our surface behaviour is actually
motivated by more basic and often
unconscious needs. Maslow also
believed that some expressive
behaviours are unmotivated, even
though all behaviours have a
cause, expressive behaviour has
no aim or goal but is merely a
person’s mode of expression. In
comparison, coping behaviours
(which are motivated) deal with a
person’s attempt to cope with the
environment. The conative needs
ordinarily call forth coping
behaviours. Deprivation of any of
the needs leads to pathology of
ignored or denied, that is
subceived, or not allowed into
the self-concept.
2. Those that are distorted or
reshaped to fit into an existing
self-concept
3. Those that are consistent with
the self concept and thus are
accurately symbolized and
freely admitted to the selfstructure. Any experience not
consistent with the selfconcept-even positive
experiences- will be distorted
or denied.
Needs:
The 2 basic human needs are
maintenance and enhancement, but
people also need positive regard and
self-regard. Maintenance needs
include those for food, air, and safety,
but they also include our tendency to
resist change and to maintain our
self-concept as it is. Enhancement
needs include needs to grow and to
realize one’s full human potential. As
awareness of self emerges, an infant
begins to receive positive regard from
another person-that is to be loved
and accepted. People naturally value
those experiences that satisfy their
needs for positive regards, but ,
unfortunately, this value sometimes
become more powerful than the
reward they receive for meeting their
organismic needs. This sets up the
condition of incongruence, which is
experienced when basic organismic
needs are denied or distorted in
favour of needs to be loved or
accepted. As a result of experiences
with positive regard, people develop
the need for self-regard, which they
acquire only after they perceive that
someone else cares for them and
values them. Once established,
however, self-regard becomes
autonomous and no longer
dependent on another’s continuous
positive evaluation.
Conditions of worth:
Most people are not unconditionally
accepted. Instead, they receive
conditions of worth; that is, they feel
that they are loved and accepted only
when and if they meet the conditions
set by others.
Psychological Stagnation:
mental disorders. However,
he began to recover only after
he accepted that his ‘need’ to
take care of unpredictable
Nicole was merely a part of
his personal history with
unstable women.
Anxiety:
People experience anxiety
when they become aware
that their existence or
something identified with it
might be destroyed. The
acquisition of freedom
inevitably leads to anxiety,
which can either be
pleasurable and constructive
or painful and destructive.
Normal Anxiety: growth
produces normal anxiety,
defined as that which is
proportionate to the threat,
does not involve repression,
and can be handled on a
conscious level.
Neurotic anxiety: is a reaction
that is disproportionate to the
threat and that leads to
repression and defensive
behaviours. It is felt
whenever one’s values are
transformed into dogma.
Neurotic anxiety blocks
growth and productive action.
Guilt: guilt arises whenever
people deny their
potentialities, fail to
accurately perceive the needs
of others, or remain blind to
their dependence on the
natural world. Both anxiety
and guilt are ontological; that
is they refer to the nature of
being and not to feelings
arising from specific
situations.
Intentionality:
The structure that gives
meaning to experience and
allows people to make
decisions about the future is
called intentionality. May
believed that intentionality
permits people to overcome
the dichotomy between
subject and object, because it
enables them to see that their
people mature and also that
people are motivated by
present drives and wants.
Reactive and Proactive
theories of Motivation:
To Allport, people not only
react to their environment,
but they also shape their
environment and cause it to
react to them. His proactive
approach emphasized the
idea that people often seek
additional tension and they
purposefully act on their
environment in a way that
fosters growth toward
psychological health.
Functional Autonomy:
Allport’ some most distinctive
and controversial concept is
his theory of functional
autonomy. It holds that some
(but not all) human motives
are functionally independent
from the original motive
responsible for a particular
behaviour. Allport recognized
two levels of functional
autonomy:
1. Perseverative functional
autonomy – which is
the tendency of certain
basic behaviours (such
as addictive behaviours)
to continue on the
absence of
reinforcement.
2. Propriety functional
autonomy – which
refers to self-sustaining
motives (such as
interests) that are
related to the proprium.
Conscious and unconscious
Motivation – Although Allport
emphasized conscious
motivation more than any
other personality theorist, he
did not completely overlook
the possible influence of
unconscious behaviours.
Most people, however, are
aware of what they are doing
and why they are doing it.
The psychologically healthy
personality – Allport believed
that people are motivated by
Eysenck insisted that
personality factors must
be:
1. Be based on
strong
psychometric
evidence
2. Must possess
heritability and fit
an acceptable
genetic model
3. Make sense
theoretically
4. Possess social
relevance.
Hierarchy of measures:
Eysenck recognized a
four-level hierarchy of
behaviour organization:
1. Specific acts or
cognitions
2. Habitual acts or
cognitions
3. Traits or personal
dispositions
4. Types or
superfactors
some sort. For example, people’s
inability to reach self-actualization
results in meta pathology, defined
as an absence of values, a lack of
fulfillment, and a loss of meaning
of life. Maslow suggested that
instinctoid needs are innately
determined even though they can
be modified by learning. Maslow
also believed that higher level
needs (love, esteem, selfactualization) are later on the
evolutionary scale than lower level
needs and that they produce more
genuine happiness and more peak
experiences.
Self-Actualization:
Maslow believed that a very small
percentage of people reach an
ultimate level of psychological
health called self-actualization.
Values of Self-Actualization:
Maslow held that self-actualizers
are meta motivated by such Bvalues as truth, goodness, beauty,
justice, and simplicity.
Criteria for Self-actualization: 4
criteria must be met before a
person achieves self-actualization.
1. Absence of psychopathology
2. Satisfaction of each of the 4
lower level needs
3. Acceptance of the B-values
4. Full realization of one’s
potential for growth.
Characteristics of Self-actualizing
people:
Maslow listed 15 qualities that
characterize self-actualizing
people, although not all selfactualizers possess each of the
characteristics to the same extent.
These characteristics are:
1. More efficient perception of
reality, meaning that selfactuators often have an
uncanny ability to detect
phoniness in others
2. Acceptance of self, others,
and nature
3. Spontaneity, simplicity, and
naturalness, meaning that
self-actualizers have no need
to appear complex and or
sophisticated
4. Problem-entered which is
ability to view age-old
problems from a solid
philosophical position.
When the organismic self and the
self-concept are at variance with one
another, a person may experience
incongruence, which includes
vulnerability, threat, defensiveness,
and even disorganization. The
greater the incongruence between
self-concept and the organismic
experience, the more vulnerable that
person becomes. Anxiety exists
whenever the person the person
becomes dimly aware of the
discrepancy between organismic
experience and self-concept, whereas
threat is experienced when’re the
person becomes more clearly aware
of this incongruence. To prevent
incongruence, people react with
defensiveness, typically in the forms
of distortion and denial. With
distortion, people refuse to allow the
experience into awareness. When
people’s defences fail to operate
properly, their behaviour comes
disorganized or psychotic. With the
disorganization, people sometimes
behave consistently with their
organismic experience and
sometimes in accordance with their
shattered self-concept.
intentions are a function of
both themselves and their
environment.
Care, Love, and Will: care is an
active process that suggests
things matter. Love means to
care, to delight in the
presence of another person,
and to affirm that person’s
value as much as their own.
Care is also an important
ingredient in will, defined as a
conscious commitment to
action.
Union of Love and Will: May
believed that our modern
society has lost sight of the
true nature of love and will,
equating love with sex and
will with will power. He
further held that
psychologically healthy people
are able to combine love and
will because both imply care,
choice, action, and
responsibility.
Forms of Love: May identified
4 kinds of love in western
tradition: sex, Eros, philia and
agape. May believed that
Americans no longer view sex
as a natural biological
function, but have become
preoccupied with it to the
point of trivialization. Eros is
a psychological desire that
seeks an enduring union with
a loved one. It may include
sex, but it is built on care and
tenderness. Philia, an
intimate non sexual friendship
between 2 people, takes time
to develop and does not
depend on the actions of the
other person. Agape is an
altruistic or spiritual love that
carries with it the risk of
playing God. Agape is
undeserved and
unconditional.
Freedom and Destiny:
psychologically healthy
individuals are comfortable
with freedom, able to assume
responsibility for their choices
and willing to face their
destiny.
both the need to adjust their
environment and to grow
toward psychological health,
that is, people are both
reactive and proactive.
Nevertheless, psychologically
healthy persons are more
likely to engage in proactive
behaviours. Allport listed 6
criteria for psychological
health:
1. An extension of the
sense of self
2. Warm relationships
with others
3. Emotional security or
self-acceptance
4. A realistic view of the
world
5. Insight and humour
6. A unifying philosophy of
life
The study of the individual:
Allport felt strongly that
psychology should develop
and use research methods
that study the individual
rather then groups.
Morphogenic Science –
Traditional psychology relies
on nomothetic science, which
seeks general laws from a
study of groups of people, but
Allport used idiographic or
morphogenic procedures that
study the single case. Unlike
many psychologists, Allport
was willing to accept selfreports or face value.
5.
The need for privacy, or a
detachment that allows selfactualizing people to be
alone without being lonely.
6. Autonomy, meaning that
they no longer are
dependent on other people
for their self-esteem
7. Continued freshness of
appreciation and the ability
to view everyday things with
a fresh vision and
appreciation
8. Frequent reports of peak
experiences, or those
mystical experiences that
give a person a feeling of
transcendence and feelings
of awe, wonder, ecstasy,
reverence, and humility
9. Gemeinschaftsgeful, that is
social interest or a deep
feeling of oneness with all
humanity
10. Profound interpersonal
relations, but with no
desperate need to have a
multitude of friends
11. The democratic character
structure, or the ability to
disregard superficial
differences between people
12. Discrimination between
means and ends, meaning
that self-actualizing people
have a clear sense of right
and wrong, and they
experience little conflict
about basic values
13. A philosophical sense of
humour that is spontaneous,
unplanned, and intrinsic to
the situation.
14. Creativeness with a keen
perception of truth, beauty
and reality
15. Resistance to enculturation,
or the ability to set personal
standards and to resist the
mold set by culture
Love, sex, and self-actualization:
Maslow compared D-love
(deficiency love) to B-love (love
for being or essence of another
person). Self-actualizing people
are capable of B-love because
they can love without expecting
something in return. B-love is
mutually felt and shared and not
Freedom Defined: freedom
comes from an understanding
of our destiny. We are free
when we recognize that death
is a possibility at any moment
and when we are willing to
experience changes, even in
the face of not knowing what
those changes will bring.
Forms of Freedom: May
recognized 2 forms of
freedom:
1. Freedom of doing, or
freedom of action,
which he called
existential freedom
2. Freedom of being, or an
inner freedom, which he
called essential
freedom.
Destiny defined:
May defined destiny as ‘the
design of the universe
speaking through the design
of each one of us’. In other
words, our destiny includes
the limitations of our
environment and our personal
qualities, including our
mortality, gender, and genetic
predispositions. Freedom and
destiny construe a paradox,
because freedom gains vitality
from destiny, and destiny
gains significance from
freedom.
Philips destiny: after some
time in therapy, Philip was
able to stop blaming his
mother for not doing what he
thought she should have
done. The objective facts of
his childhood had not
changed, but Philip’s
subjective perceptions had.
As he came to terms with his
destiny, Philip began to be
able to express his anger, to
feel less trapped in his
relationship with Nicole, and
to become aware of his
possibilities. In other words he
gained his freedom of being.
The power of Myth:
According to May, the people
of contemporary western
civilization have an urgent
need for myths. Because they
based on deficiencies within
lovers.
Therapy Used
Clients must be freed of their
dependence on others so that their
natural impulse to grow can
become active.
The hierarchy of needs concept has
obvious ramifications for
psychotherapy. Most people who
seek psychotherapy do so because
they have not adequately satisfied
their love and belongingness
needs. This suggests that much of
therapy should involve a
productive human relationship and
that the job of the therapist is to
help clients satisfy love and
belongingness needs.
Counselling (congruence, empathy
and unconditional positive regard).
For client- entered psychotherapy to
be effective a vulnerable client must
have contact of some duration with a
Counsellor who is congruent, and
who demonstrates unconditional
positive regard, and who listens with
empathy.
The client must in turn perceive the
congruence, regard, and empathy of
the therapist. Is these conditions are
present, than the process of therapy
will take place and certain
unpredictable outcomes will result.
For client centred psychotherapy to
be effective, certain conditions are
necessary: A vulnerable client must
have contact of some duration with a
Counsellor who is congruent, and
who demonstrates unconditional
positive regard and listens with
empathy to a client. The client must
in turn perceive the congruence,
unconditional positive regard, and
empathy of the therapist. If these
conditions are present, then the
process of therapy will take place and
certain predictable outcomes will
result.
Conditions:
Therapist congruence can be
explained also as – a therapist whose
organismic experiences are matched
by an awareness and by the ability
and willingness to openly express
these feelings. Congruence is more
basic than the other 2 conditions
because it is a relatively stable
characteristic of the therapist,
whereas the other 2 conditions are
limited to a specific therapeutic
relationship.
have lost many of their
traditional myths, they turn to
religious cults, drugs, and
other popular culture to fill
the vacuum. The Oedipus
myth has had a powerful
effect on out culture because
it deals with such common
existential crises as birth,
separation from parents,
sexual union with one parent
and hostility with the other,
independence in one’s search
for identity, and finally, death.
Psychopathology – May saw
empathy and emptiness-not
anxiety and guilt-as the chief
existential disorders of our
time. People have become
alienated from the natural
world (Umwelt), from other
people (Mitwelt) and from
themselves (Eigenwelt).
Psychopathology is a lack of
connectedness and an
inability to fulfill one’s
destiny.
Psychotherapy – The goal of
May’s psychotherapy was not
to cure patients of any specific
disorder, but to make them
more fully human. May said
that the purpose of
psychotherapy is to set people
free, to allow them to makes
choices, and to assume
responsibility for those
choices.
Therapy used
Morphogenic Science – study
of ideographic information or
that which is related to
individual case.
-Postulates for basic
tendencies
-Postulate for
characteristic adaptations.
Association with
personality and diseases.
Though it does not prove
that psychological
factors causes the
disease. They just
interact.
Unconditional positive regard exists
when the therapist accepts the client
without conditions or qualifications.
Empathic listening is the therapist’s
ability to sense the feelings of a client
and also to communicate these
perceptions so that the client knows
that another person has entered into
his or her world of feelings without
prejudice, projection, or evaluation.
7 stages of therapeutic change Rogers saw the process of
therapeutic change as taking place in
7 stages:
1. Clients are unwilling to
communicate anything about
themselves
2. They discuss only external
events and other people
3. They begin to talk about
themselves, but still as an
object
4. They discuss strong emotions
that they have felt in the past
5. They begin to express present
feelings
6. They freely allow into
awareness those experiences
that were previously denied or
distorted
7. They experience irreversible
change and growth.
Outcomes:
When client centred therapy is
successful, clients become more
congruent, less defensive, more open
to experience and more realistic. The
gap between the heir ideal self and
their true self narrows, and, as a
consequence, clients experience less
physiological and psychological
tension. Finally client’s interpersonal
relationships improve as they are
more accepting of self and others.
Person of tomorrow:
Rogers was vitally interested in the
psychologically healthy person, called
the ‘fully functioning person’ or ‘the
person of tomorrow’. Rogers listed 7
characteristics of the person of
tomorrow:
1. Is able to adjust to change
2. Is open to experience
3. Is able to live fully in the
moment
4. Is able to have harmonious
relations with others
5.
Concept of
Humanity
Basic Tenets
Maslow believed that people are
structured in such a way that their
needs are exactly what they want
most, hungry people desire food,
frightened people look for safety,
etc. Although he was generally
optimistic and hopeful, Maslow
saw that people are capable of
great evil and destruction. He
believed that as a species, humans
are becoming more and more fully
human and motivated by higher
level needs.
B values, instinctoid needs,
heirarchy of needs
Is more integrated with no
artificial boundaries between
conscious and unconscious
processes
6. Has a basic trust of human
nature
7. Enjoys a greater richness in life.
The factors have implications both
for the individual and for society.
Humans have the capacity to change
and grow-provided that certain
necessary and sufficient conditions
are present.
Self actualizing tendency, self
concept, ideal self, the person of
tomorrow
The self and self-actualization – a
sense of self identity begins to
emerge during infancy and once
established, allows a person to strive
toward self-actualization, which is a
subsystem of the actualization
tendency and freezers to the
tendency to actualizing the self as
perceived in awareness.
The self has 2 subsystems:
1. The self-concept: includes
all those aspects of one’s
identity that are perceived
in awareness
2. The ideal self: our view of
our self as we would like to
be or aspire to be. Once
formed, the self-concept
tends to resist change, and
gaps between it and the
ideal self result in
incongruence and various
levels of psychopathology.
Awareness: people are both aware of
their self-concept and their ideal self,
although awareness need not be
accurate at a high level.
3 levels of awareness:
1. Those that are symbolized
below the threshold of
awareness and are either
ignored or denied, that is,
May viewed people as
complex beings, capable of
both tremendous good and
immense evil. People have
become alienated from the
world, from other people, and
most of all. From themselves.
Concept of humanity
Allport saw people as
thinking, proactive,
purposeful beings who are
generally aware of what they
are doing and why.
Guilt, intentionality, destiny
and freedom
Basic Tenets
Structures of personality
(personal dispositionscardinal, central and
secondary traits) Motivational
and stylistic disposition and
proprium, Functional
autonomy.
Cattell and Eysenck
believe that human
personality is largely the
product of genetics and
not the environment.
Big 5, units of big 5 (basic
tendencies, character
adaptations, self concept)
peripheral components
(biological bases, objective
biography and external
influences, basic
postulates (individuality,
origin, development and
structure)
Dimensions of
Personality:
Eysenck’ a methods of
measuring personality
limited the number of
personality types to a
relatively small number.
Although many traits
exist, Eysenck identified
only 3 major types.
What are the major
personality factors?
Eysenck’ a theory
revolves around three
general bi-polar types:
Extra
version/introversion;
Neuroticism/stability;
And,
psychoticism/superego
function. All 3 have a
strong genetic
component. Extraverts
are characterized by
sociability,
impulsiveness, jocularity,
liveliness, optimism, and
quick-wittedness,
whereas introverts are
quiet, passive,
unsociable, careful,
reserved, thoughtful,
pessimistic, peaceful,
sober, and controlled.
Eysenck, however,
believes that the
subceived, or not allowed
into the self-concept;
2. Those that are distorted or
reshaped to fit into an
existing self-concept; and
3. Those that are consistent
with the self-concept and
thus are accurately
symbolized and freely
admitted to the selfstructure. Any experience
not consistent with the selfconcept, even positive
experiences, will be
distorted or denied.
Needs: 2 basic needs: maintenance
AND enhancement. People also need
positive regard and self-regard.
Maintenance: food, air, safety, also
include our tendency to resist change
and to maintain our self-concept as it
is.
Enhancement: needs required to
grow and to realize one’s full human
potential.
An awareness of self begins in infants
when they begin to receive positive
regard from another person that is to
be loved and accepted. People value
these experiences that satisfy their
needs for positive regard, but
unfortunately it sometimes become
more powerful than the reward that
they receive for meeting their organic
needs. This is what sets up
incongruence, which is experienced
when basic organismic needs are
denied or distorted in favour of needs
to be loved or accepted. As a result
of experiences met with positive
regard people develop the need for
self-regard which they acquire only
after they perceive that someone else
cares for them and values them.
Once established it becomes
autonomous and no longer
dependant on another’s continuous +
evaluation.
Conditions of worth: people feel they
are loved or valued only when and if
they meet the conditions set by
others.
Psychological Stagnation: when self
and self-concept are at a variance the
result is incongruence, which includes
principal differences
between extraverts and
introverts is one of
cortical arousal level.
Neurotic traits include
anxiety, hysteria, and
obsessive compulsive
disorders. Both normal
and abnormal individuals
may score high on the
neuroticism scale of the
Eysenck’s personality
inventories. People who
score high on the
Psychoticism scalers
egocentric, cold,
nonconforming,
aggressive, impulsive,
hostile, suspicious, and
antisocial. Men tend to
score higher than
women on psychoticism.
Measuring superfactors:
Eysenck and his
colleagues developed 4
personality inventories
to measure superfactors,
or types. The 2 most
frequently used by
current researchers are
the Eysenck Personality
Inventory (which
measures only E and N)
and the Eysenck
Personality
Questionnaire (which
also measures P)
Biological basis of
personality:
Eysenck believed that P,
E, and N, all have a
powerful biological
component, and he cited
as evidence the
existence of these three
types in a wide variety of
nations and languages.
Personality and
Behaviour:
Eysenck argued that
different combinations
of P, E, and N, relate to a
large number of
behaviours and
processes, such as
academic performance,
creativity, and antisocial
vulnerability, threat and
defensiveness, even disorganization.
The greater the incongruence, the
more vulnerable the person
becomes. Anxiety if there when the
person becomes aware of the
discrepancy in experience and selfconcept. Threat happens when the
person becomes aware of the
discrepancy in incongruence. To
prevent incongruence people react
with defensiveness, typically in the
forms of distortion and denial.
Distortion: people misinterpret an
experience as it fits into their self
concept
Denial: people refuse to allow the
experience into awareness
When defences fail to operate
properly, behaviour becomes
disorganized and psychotic. With
disorganization, people sometimes
behave consistently with their
organismic experience and
sometimes in accordance with their
shattered self-concept.
7n stages in the process of
therapeutic change:
1. Clients are unwilling to
communicate anything about
themselves
2. They discuss only external
events and other people
3. They begin to talk about
themselves, but still as an
object
4. They discuss storing emotions
that they have felt
5. They begin to express emotions
6. They freely allow into
awareness, those experiences
that are previously denied or
distorted.
7. They experience irreversible
change and growth.
Person of Tomorrow – “fully
functioning person”
1. Is able to adjust to change
2. Is open to experience
3. Is able to live fully in the
moment
4. Is able to have harmonious
relations with others
5. Is more integrated with no
artificial boundaries between
conscious and unconscious
processes
behaviour. He cautioned
that psychologists can
be misled if they do not
consider the various
combinations of
personality dimensions.
Personality and disease:
For many years, Eysenck
researched the
relationship between
personality factors and
disease. He teamed with
others to study the
connection between
characteristics and both
cancer and
cardiovascular disease
and found that people
who reacted to
frustration with anger
and emotional arousal
were much more likely
to die from
cardiovascular disease.
6.
Nature of
Maladjustment
Goals
BEHAVIOURAL /
SOCIALCOGNITIVE/
LEARNING
THEORIES
Motivational
Factors/Focus of
theory
Frustration of needs, inability to
advance in the hierarchy
Enhanced B-Values
Has a basic trust of human
nature
7. Enjoys a greater richness in life.
These have implications for the
person and society.
Incongruence between self-concept
and ideal self
Congruence between self-concept
and ideal self
When client entered therapy is
successful, clients become more
congruent, less defensive, more open
to experience and more realistic. The
gap between their ideal self and true
self narrows and, as a consequence,
clients experience less physiological
and psychological tension. Finally,
clients interpersonal relationships
improve because they are more
accepting of self and others.
BF Skinner
Behavioural Analysis/Operant
Conditioning

Personality is shaped by
reinforcement

Personality arises from
person’s history of behaviour
reinforcement and
punishment.

Focuses on observable
behaviour

He was also a determinist
and an environmentalist.

Rejected the notion of free
will and emphasized the
primacy of environmental
influences on behaviour.
Unlike any theory discussed to this
point, the radical behaviourism of
B.F.Skinner avoids speculations
about hypothetical constructs and
concentrates almost exclusively
on observable behaviour. Besides
being a radical behaviourist,
Skinner was also a determinist and
an environmentalist, that is he
rejected the notion of free will,
and he emphasized the primacy of
environmental influences on
behaviour.
Lack of connectedness and an
inability to fulfill ones destiny
We are responsible for who
we are and what we will
become
Nature of Maladjustment
Goals
Alberta Bandura
Social Cognitive
Rotter and Mischel
Cognitive Social Learning
George Kelly
Psychology of Personal
Constructs
Humans are proactive, we have
the capacity to choose a
behaviour

Personality arises from watching
others; thinking and reasoning
are important to learning.

Humans have some limited ability
to control their lives.

Bandura believed:
o Recognizes that chance
encounters and fortuitous
events often shape one’s
behaviour
o Places more emphasis on
observational learning
o Stresses the importance of
cognitive factors in learning
o Suggests that human
activity is a function of
behaviour and person
variables, as well as the
environment, and;
o Believes that reinforcement
is mediated by cognition
Bandura’s social cognitive theory
takes an agentic perspective,
meaning that humans have some
limited ability to control their lives. In
contrast to Skinner, Bandura:
1. Recognizes that chance
encounters and fortuitous
events often shape one’s
behaviour
Both Rotter and Mischel
believe that cognitive factors,
more than immediate
reinforcements, determine
how people will react to
environmental forces. Both
theorists suggest that our
expectations of future events
are major determinants of
performance.
Cognitive factors more than
immediate reinforcements,
determine how people will
react to environmental forces.
Our expectation of events are
a major determinant of
performance.
Rotter: Rotter’s interactionist
position holds that human
behaviour is based largely on
the interaction of people with
their meaningful
environments. Personality
can change at any time, it has
basic unity that preserves it
from changing as a result of
minor experiences. His
empirical law of effect
assumes that people choose a
course of action that advances
them toward an anticipated
goal.
Kelly saw people as anticipating
the future and living their lives
in accordance with those
anticipations. His concept of
elaborative choice suggests that
people increase their range of
future choices by the present
choices they freely make.

A meta theory – people
anticipate events by the
meaning or interpretations that
they place on those events.
Philosophical position: people
construe events according to
their personal constructs rather
than reality.
People generally attempt to
solve everyday problems in
much the same fashion as
scientists. Observation, ask
questions, formulate hypothesis,
inhaler conclusions, and predict
future events.
Kelly’s theory of personal
constructs can be seen as a
meta theory, or a theory about
theories. It holds that people
anticipate events by the
meanings and interpretations
that they place on those events.
Unable to achieve functional
autonomy
Develop functional autonomy.
Inherited unproductive
traits
Group people according to
the dimensions of the big
5
Inherited unproductive
traits
Finding the biological
basis of personality
2.
3.
4.
5.
Structures and
Concepts
Human behaviour is subject to
laws of science, and psychologists
should not attribute inner
motivations to it.
Conditioning:
Classical – a neutral stimulus is
paired with an unconditional
stimulus until it is capable of
bringing about a previously
unconditioned response, which is
then called a conditioned
response.
Operant Conditioning:
reinforcement is used to increase
the probability that a given
behaviour will recur.
3 factors in Operant Cond.
The antecedent –
environment the
behaviour takes place
The behaviour or
response
The consequence that
follows the response

Stimulus generalization –
people responding similarily
to different stimuli.

Reinforcer – anything in the
environment that
strengthens a behaviour

Positive reinforcement – any
stimulus that when added to
a situation increases the
probability that a given
behaviour will occur.

Both positive and negative
reinforcers strengthen the
behaviour.
Places more emphasis on
observational learning
Stresses the importance of
cognitive factors in learning
Suggests that human activity is
a function of behaviour and
person variables, as well as the
environment
Believes that reinforcement is
mediated by cognition.
Human Agency: the essence of
humanness, humans are defined by
their ability to organize, regulate, and
enact behaviours that they believe
will produce desirable consequences.
4 core features of human agency:
1. Intentionality – proactive
commitment to actions that
may bring about desired
outcomes;
2. Foresight – the ability to set
goals;
3. Self-reactiveness – which
includes people monitoring
their progress towards fulfilling
their choices
4. Self - reflectiveness – which
allows people to think about
and evaluate their motives,
values, and life goals.
Reciprocal determinism – human
functioning is moulded by reciprocal
interaction of:
1. Behaviour
2. Person variables: including
cognitions; and
3. Environmental events –
reciprocal determinism
Differential contributions – these
three factors do not make equal
contributions to behaviour, it
depends on which factor os strongest
at any given moment.
Chance encounters and fortuitous
events – enter the reciprocal
determinism paradigm after which
they influence behaviour much the
same as planned events.
Kelly called these interpretations
personal constructs. His
philosophical position, called
constructive alternativism,
assumes that alternative
interpretations are always
available to people.
Constructive alternativism –
Kelly believed that all
interpretations of the world are
subject to revision or
replacement, an assumption he
called constructive
alternativism. He further states
that, because people can
construe their world from
different angles, observations
that are valid at one time may
be false at a later time.
Predicting specific behaviours:
human behaviour is most
accurately predicted by an
understanding of 4 variables:
1. behaviour potential.
2. Expectancy,
3. reinforcement value,
4. the psychological
situation.
Behaviour potential: the
possibility that a particular
response will occur at a given
time and place in relation to
likely reinforcement.
Expectancy: peoples
expectancy in any given
situation is their confidence
that a particular
reinforcement will follow a
specific behaviour in a specific
situation or situations. They
can be either general or
specific and the overall
likelihood of success is a
function of both generalized
and specific expectancies.
Reinforcement value: a
persons performance for any
particular reinforcement over
other reinforcements if all are
equally likely to occur.
-internal reinforcement – the
individuals perception of an
event
- external reinforcement –
societies evaluation of an
event.
Personal Contructs:
Kelley believed that people look
at their world through templates
that they create and then
attempt to fit over the realities
of the world. He called these
templates or transparent
patterns personal constructs,
which he believed shape
behaviour.
Basic Postulate:
Kelly expressed this theory in
one basic postulate and 11
supporting corollaries. The basic
postulate assumes that
behaviour is shaped by the way
people anticipate the future.
Supporting corollaries:
1. Construction Corollary. We
anticipate future events
according to our
interpretations of recurrent
themes.
2. Individuality
Corollary. People have
different experiences and
therefore construe events in
different ways.
3. Organization Corollary. We
organize our personal
contructs in a hierarchical
system, with some constructs
in a superordinate position
and others subordinate to
them. This organization
allows us to minimize
incompatible contructs.

Effects of punishment are
more predictable than those
of reward.

Conditioned reinforcers –
reinforcers that are not by
nature, satisfying, but that
can become so when
associated with a primary
reinforcer such as food.
Ratio: - amount of response

Fixed ratio – the organism is
reinforced intermittently
according to the number of
responses it makes

Variable ratio – the organism
is reinforced after an average
of a predetermined number
of responses.

Fixed interval – the organism
is reinforced after the lapse
of a designated period of
time

Variable interval – the
organism is reinforced after
the lapse of varied periods of
time.
The human organism is shaped by
three forces:
1. Natural selection –
behaviours that were
beneficial to the human
species
2. Cultural evolution – those
societies that evolved certain
cultural practices tended to
survive.
3. The individuals history of
reinforcement.
Drives and Inner states:
Skinner accepted that these exist
but they don’t shape behaviour.
To skinner drives meant: the
effects of deprivation and
satiation and are related to the
probability of certain behaviours
but not the causes of them.
Emotions can be accounted for by
contingencies of survival and
reinforcement, but do not cause
behaviours. Also purpose and
intentions, not causes of
behaviour but sensations within
the skin.
Creativity: the result of random or
accidental behaviours that happen
to be rewarded.
Dreams were covert and symbolic
forms of behaviour that are subject
to the same contingencies of
Self-system – gives some consistency
to personality – allowing people to
observe and symbolize their own
behaviour and evaluate it on the
basis of anticipated future
consequences.
Self-efficacy – how people behave in
a particular situation depends in part
on their self-efficacy, that is, their
beliefs that they can or cannot
exercise those behaviours necessary
to bring about a desired
consequence. Efficacy expectations
differ from outcome expectations,
which refer to people’s prediction of
the likely consequences of their
behaviour. Self-efficacy combines
with environmental variables,
previous behaviours, and other
personal variables to predict
behaviour. It is acquired, or
enhanced, or decreased by any one
or combination of four sources:
1. Mastery experiences or
performance
2. Social modelling, or observing
someone of equal ability
succeed or fail at a task
3. Social persuasion, or listening
to a trusted person’s
encouraging words.
4. Physical and emotional states,
such as anxiety or fear, which
usually lowers self-efficacy.
High self-efficacy and a
responsive environment are
the best predictors of
successful outcomes.
Proxy Agency:
Bandura has recognized the influence
of proxy agency through which
people exercise some partial control
over everyday living. Successful living
in the 21st century requires people to
seek proxies to supply their food,
deliver information, provide
transportation, etc. Without the use
of proxies, modern people would be
forced to spend most of their time
securing the necessities of survival.
Collective efficacy: level of
confidence that people have that
their combined efforts will produce
social change. First, some parts of
the world can leave people with a
sense of helplessness; second,
complex technology can decrease
people’s perceptions of control over
The value of an event is a
function of one’s expectation
that a particular
reinforcement will lead to
future reinforcements.
4. Dichotomy Corollary. All
personal constructs are
dichotomous, that is, we
construe events in an
either/or manner.
5. Choice Corollary. We choose
Psychological situation: part
the alternative in a
of the external and internal
dichotomized construct that
world to which a person is
we see as extending our
responding. Behaviour is a
range of future choices.
function of the interaction of
6. Range Corollary. Constructs
people with their meaningful
are limited to a particular
environment.
range of convenience, that is,
they are not relevant to all
Basic prediction formula:
situations.
hypothetically, in any specific 7. Experience Corollary. We
situation behaviour can be
continually revise our
predicted by the basic
personal constructs as the
prediction formula, which
result of experience.
states that the potential for a 8. Modulation Corollary. Not all
behaviour to occur in a
new experiences lead to a
particular situation in relation
revision of personal
to a given reinforcement is a
constructs. To the extent that
function of people’s
constructs are permeable
expectancy that the behaviour
they are subject to change
will be followed by that
through experience.
reinforcement in that
Concrete or impermeable
situation.
constructs resist modification
regardless of our experience.
Predicting general behaviours: 9. Fragmentation Corollary. Our
the basic prediction is too
behavior is sometimes
specific to give clues about
inconsistent because our
how a person will generally
construct system can readily
behave.
admit incompatible
Generalized Experiences:
elements.
To make more generalized
10. Commonality Corollary. To
predictions of behaviour, one
the extent that we have had
must know people’s
experiences similar to others,
generalized expectancies, or
our personal contructs tend
their expectations based on
to be similar to the
similar past experiences that a
construction systems of
given behaviour will be
those people.
reinforced. Generalized
11. Sociality Corollary. We are
expectancies include people’s
able to communicate with
needs-that is, behaviours that
others because we can
move them toward a goal.
construe their constructions.
We not only observe the
Needs: refer to functionally
behavior of others, but we
related categories of
also interpret what that
behaviours. Rotter listed 6
behavior means to them.
broad categories of needs,
with each need being related
Within the sociality corollary,
to behaviours that lead to the
Kelly introduced the concept of
same or similar
role, which refers to a pattern of
reinforcements:
behaviour that stems from
1. Recognition status – the
people’s understanding of the
need to excel, to
constructs of others. Each of us
achieve, and to have
has a core role and numerous
peripheral roles. A core role
reinforcement as any other
behaviour.
4 basic methods of social control:
1. Operant conditioning –
including positive and
clients negative
reinforcement
2. Describing contingencies
– or using language to
inform people of the
consequences of their
behaviour
3. Deprivation and satiation
– techniques that
increase the likelihood
that people will behave
in a certain way.
4. Physical restraint –
including the jailing of
criminals.
Denied the existence of free will,
recognized that people
manipulate variables within their
own environment and therefore
exercise a measure of self-control
which has several techniques:
physical restraint; physical aids,
such as tools; changing
environmental stimuli; arranging
the environment to allow escape
from aversive stimuli; drugs; and
doing something else.
Precursors to Skinner’s scientific
behaviourism. Modern learn bing
theory has roots in the work of
Thorndike and his experiments
with animals during the last part of
the 19th century. Thorndike’s law
of effect stated that responses
followed by a satisfied tend to be
learned, a concept that anticipated
Skinner’s use of positive
reinforcement to shape behaviour.
He was also influenced by John
Watson’s who argued that
psychology must deal with the
control and prediction of
behaviour and that behaviour-not
introspection, consciousness, or
the mind-is the basic data of
scientific psychology.
Scientific Behaviouralism – Skinner
believed that human behaviour,
like an other natural phenomena,
is subject to laws of science, and
that psychologists should not
attribute their inner motivations to
their environment; third, entrenched
bureaucracies discourage people
from attempting to bring about social
change ; and fourth, the size and
scope of world-wide problems
contribute to people’s sense of
powerlessness.
Self regulation – by using reflective
thought, humans can manipulate
their environments and produce
consequences of their actions, giving
them some ability to regulate their
behaviour. Bandura believes that
behaviour stems from a reciprocal
influence of external and internal
factors.
2 external factors contribute to selfregulation:

Standards of evaluation

External reinforcement
External factors affect self-regulation
by providing people with standards
for evaluating their own behaviour.
Internal requirements for self
regulation:

Self observation of
performance

Judging or evaluating
performance

Self-reactions including selfreinforcement or selfpunishment
Internalized self-sanctions prevent
people from violating their own
moral standards either through
selective activation or disengagement
of internal control.
Selective activation refers to the
notion that self-regulatory influences
are not automatic but operate only if
activated. It also means that people
react differently in different
situations, depending on their
evaluation of the situation.
Disengagement of internal control
means that people are capable of
separating themselves from the
negative consequences of their
behaviour. People in ambiguous
moral situations-who are uncertain
that their behaviour is consistent
with their own social and moral
standards of conduct may separate
their conduct from it’s injurious
consequences through 4 general
techniques of disengagement of
others recognize one’s
worth
2. Dominance – the need
to control the behaviour
of others, to be in
charge, or to gain power
over others
3. Independence – the
need to be free from the
domination of others
4. Protection-dependency
– the need to have
others take care of us
and to protect us from
harm
5. Love and affection –
needs to be warmly
accepted by others and
to be held in friendly
regard
6. Physical comfort –
includes those
behaviours aimed at
securing food, good
health, and physical
security
3 need components are:
1. Need potential – or the
possible occurrences of
a set of functionally
related behaviours
directed toward the
satisfaction of similar
goals
2. Freedom of movement:
a persons overall
expectation of being
reinforced for
performing those
behaviours that are
directed towards
satisfying some general
need
3. Need value: or the the
extent to which people
prefer one set of
reinforcements to
another.
Need components are
analogous to the more
specific concepts of behaviour
potential, expectancy and
reinforcement value.
General prediction formula –
the general prediction
formula states that need
potential is a function of
freedom of movement and
gives us a sense of identity
whereas peripheral roles are
less central to our self-concept.
it. Although, he rejected internal
states (thoughts, emotions,
desires, etc) as being outside the
realm of science, Skinner did not
deny their existence. He simply
insisted that they should not be
used to explain behaviour.
Psychologists should be concerned
with determining the conditions
under which human behaviour
occurs, as the purpose of science is
to predict and control.
Characteristics of Science:
1. It’s findings are cumulative
2. It rests on an attitude that
values empirical
observation
3. It searchers for order and
lawful relationships
Conditioning:
2 types of conditioning: classical
and operant.
Classical Conditioning: a neutral
(conditioned) stimulus is paired
with an unconditioned stimulus
until it is capable of bringing about
a previously unconditioned
response, now called a conditioned
response.
Operant Conditioning:
Reinforcement is used to increase
the probability that a given
behaviour will recur. 3 factors are
essential in operant conditioning:
1. The antecedent, or
environment in which the
behaviour takes place
2. The behaviour or response
3. The consequence that
follows the behaviour.
Psychologists and others use
shaping to mold complex human
behaviour. Different histories of
reinforcement result in operant
discrimination, meaning that
different organisms will respond
differently to the same
environmental contingencies.
People may also respond similarly
to different environmental stimuli,
a process Skinner called stimulus
generation. Anything within the
environment that strengthens a
behaviour is called a reinforcer.
Positive reinforcement is any
stimulus that when added to a
situation increases the probability
that a given behaviour will occur.
internal standards or selective
activation.
First: Redefining behaviour, or
justifying otherwise reprehensible
actions by cognitively restructuring
them. People can use redefinition of
behaviour to disengage themselves
from reprehensible conduct by:
1. Justifying otherwise culpable
behaviour on moral grounds
2. Making advantageous
comparisons between their
behaviour and the even more
reprehensible behaviour of
others
3. Using euphemistic labels to
change the moral tone of their
behaviour.
A second method of disengagement
from internal standards is to distort
or obscure the relationship between
behaviour and its injurious
consequences. People can do this by
minimizing, disregarding, or distorting
the consequences of their behaviour.
A third set of disengagement
procedures involves blaming the
victims. Finally people can disengage
their behaviour from it’s
consequences by displacing or
differing responsibility.
Learning – people learn through
observing others and by attending to
the consequences of their own
actions. Reinforcement aids learning
BUT people can learn in the absence
of reinforcement and even of a
response.
Observational learning – the heart of
observational learning is modeling,
which is more than simple imitation,
because it involves adding and
subtracting from observed behaviour.
At least 3 principles influence
modeling:
1. People are most likely to
model high status people
2. People who lack skill, power,
or status are most likely to
model
3. People tend to model
behaviour that they see as
being rewarding to the
model.
Bandura recognized 4 processes that
govern observational learning:
1. Attention or noticing what a
model does;
need value. Rotter’s two
most famous scales for
measuring generalized
expectancies are the internalexternal control scale and the
Interpersonal Trust Scale.
Internal and external control
scale OR locus of control
scale– attempts to measure
the degree to which people
perceive a casual relationship
between their own efforts
and environmental
consequences.
Interpersonal Trust Scale:
measures the extent to which
a person expects the word or
promise of another person to
be true.
Locus of Control
Internal: I control the
consequence of my behaviour

Better academic
achievement

Better interpersonal
relations

Greater efforts to learn

+ attitudes to exercise

Lower smoking

Lower hypertension and
heart attacks
External: The consequences of
my behaviours are outside of
my control.

More resigned to
conditions “as just the
way they are”

Lower efforts to deal
with health

Lower levels of psych
adjustment, except in
non responsive
environments, then =
greater sense of
satisfaction.
MISCHEL

Believes that cognitive
factors, such as
expectancies, subjective
perceptions, values,
goals, and personal
standards, are
important in shaping
personality.
Negative reinforcement is the
strengthening of behaviour
through the removal of an aversive
stimulus. Both positive and
negative reinforcement refinance
behaviour. Any event that
decreases a behaviour either by
presenting an aversive stimulus or
by removing a positive one is
called punishment. The effects of
punishment and reinforcement can
result from either natural
consequences or from human
imposition. Conditioned
reinforcers are those stimuli that
are not by nature satisfying (Eg:
money) , but that can become so
when they are associated with a
primary reinforcer, such as food.
Generalized reinforcers are
conditioned reinforcers that have
become associated with several
primary reinforcers.
Reinforcement can follow
behaviour on either a continuous
schedule or on an intermittent
schedule. There are 4 basic
intermittent schedules:
1. Fixed-ratio – on which the
organism is reinforced
intermittently according to
the number of responses it
makes
2. Variable-ratio – on which an
organism is reinforced after
an average of a predetermined number of
responses
3. Fixed interval – on which the
organism is reinforced for the
first response following a
designated period of time
4. Variable interval – on which
the organism is reinforced
after the lapse of varied
periods of time.
The tendency of a previously
acquired response to become
progressively weakened upon non
reinforcement is called extinction.
Such elimination or weakening of a
response is called classical
extinction, in a classical
conditioning model and operant
extinction when the response was
acquired through operant
conditioning.
2.
Representation or
symbolically representing
new response patterns in
memory;
3. Behaviour production, or
producing the behaviour that
one observes;
4. Motivation; that is, the
observer must be motivated
to perform the observed.
Behaviour.
Enactive learning – all behaviour is
followed by some consequence, but
whether the consequence reinforces
the behaviour depends on the
person’s cognitive evaluation of the
situation.
Dysfunctional behaviour – is learned
through the mutual interaction of the
person, (including cognitive and
neurophysiological processes)the
environment (including interpersonal
relations), and behavioural factors
(especially previous experiences with
reinforcement).
Depression – developed in those who
often:
-underestimate their successes and
over estimate failures
- set personal standards too high
- treat themselves badly for their
faults
Phobias – learned by:
-direct contact
-inappropriate generalization
-observational experiences – once
learned they are maintained by
negative reinforcement as the person
is reinforced for avoiding fear
producing situations.
Aggressive behaviours – when carried
to extremes, aggressive behaviours
can become dysfunctional. In a study
of children observing live and filmed
models being aggressive, Bandura
and his associates found that
aggression tends to foster more
aggression.


Questioned the
consistency of
personality.
Behaviour is also a
function of relatively
stable personal
dispositions and
cognitive-affective
processes interacting
with a particular
situation.
Background of the CognitiveAffective Personality System
Mischel originally believed
that human behaviour was
mostly a function of the
situation, but he has
recognized the importance of
relatively permanent
cognitive-affective units.
Consistency ParadoxThe consistency paradox
refers to the observation that
both lay people and
professionals tend to believe
that behaviour is consistent,
research suggests it is not.
Some traits are consistent but
there is relatively little
evidence they are consistent
from one situation to another.
Cognitive-Affective
Personality System –
Inconsistencies in behaviour
are not solely due to the
situation; recognizes that
inconsistent behaviours
reflect stable patterns of
variation within a person. If
A, then X; but if B, then Y.
People’s pattern of variability
is their behavioural signature
of personality, or their unique
and stable pattern of
behaving differently in
different situations.
Behaviour Prediction- if
personality is a stable system
that processes information
about the situation, then
individuals encountering
different situations should
The human organism: Skinner
believed that human behaviour is
shaped by 3 forces:
1. Natural selection
2. Cultural practices
3. Individuals history of
reinforcement as above.
Natural selection: as a species
behaviour is shaped by the
contingencies of survival, that os
those behaviours (sex and
aggression) that were beneficial to
the Hamm species to survive,
whereas those that did not tended
to drop out.
Cultural Evaluation: Those societies
that evolved certain cultural
practices (tool making and
language) tended to survive.
Currently the lives of nearly all
people are shaped, in part, by
modern tools and by their use of
language. However, humans do
not make cooperative decisions to
do what is best for their society,
but those societies whose
members behave in a cooperative
manner tend to survive.
Inner states: Skinner recognized
the existence of such inner stories
as drives and self-awareness, but
he rejected the notion that they
can explain behaviour. To Skinner
drives refer to the effects of
deprivation and satiation and thus
are related to the probability of
certain behaviours, but they are
not the causes of behaviour.
Skinner believed that emotions can
be accounted for by the
contingencies of survival and the
contingencies of reinforcement;
but like drives they do not cause
behaviour, although they are
sensations that exist within the
skin.
Complex Behaviour – Human
behaviour is subject to the same
principles of operant conditioning
as simple animal behaviour, but it
is much more complex and difficult
to predict or control. Skinner
explained that creativity as the
result of random or accidental
behaviours that happen to be
rewarded. Skinner believed that
most of our behaviour is
unconscious or automatic and that
behave differently as
situations vary.
Situation variables: all those
stimuli that people attend to
in a given situation.
Cognitive-Affective Units –
include all those
psychological, social, and
physiological aspects of
people that permit them to
interact with their
environments with some
stability in their behaviour.
5 Cognitive-Affective Units:
1. Encoding strategies:
individualized manner
of categorizing info
they receive from
external stimuli
2. Competencies and
self-regulatory
strategies: Intelligence
– responsible for the
apparent consistency
of other traits. People
use self-regulatory
strategies to control
their own behaviour
through selfformulated goals and
self-produced
consequences.
3. Expectancies and
beliefs: peoples
guesses about the
consequences of each
of the different
behavioural
possibilities.
4. People’s goals and
values – tend to
render behaviour
fairly consistent
5. Affective responses –
including emotions,
feelings, and the
affects of physiological
reactions.
6.
not thinking about certain
experiences is reinforcing. Skinner
viewed dreams as covert and
symbolic forms of behaviour that
are subject to the same
contingencies of reinforcement as
any other behaviour.
Control of human behaviour –
ultimately all of a persons
behaviour is controlled by the
environment. Societies exercise
control over their members
through laws, rules, and customs
that transcend any one persons
means of counter control. There
are 4 basic methods of social
control:
1. Operant conditioning,
including positive and
negative reinforcement and
punishment
2. Describing contingencies, or
using language to inform
people of the consequence of
their behaviours
3. Deprivation and satiation,
techniques that increase the
likelihood that people will
behave in a certain way
4. Physical restraint, including
the jailing of criminals.
Although Skinner denied the
existence of free will, he did
recognize that people
manipulate variables within
their own environment and
thus exercise some measure
of self-control, which has
several techniques:
a. Physical restraint
b. Physical aids: such as tools
c. Changing environmental
stimuli
d. Arranging the environment
to allow escape from
aversive stimuli
e. Drugs
f. Doing something else
The unhealthy personality:
Social Control and self-control
sometimes produce counteracting
strategies and inappropriate
behaviours.
Counteracting strategies: people
can counteract excessive social
control by:
1. Escaping from it
2. Revolting against it
3. Passively resisting it
Inappropriate behaviours:
Inappropriate behaviours follow
from self-defeating techniques of
counteracting social control or
from unsuccessful attempts at selfcontrol.
Therapy used
Education and learning
Skinner was not a psychotherapist,
and he even criticized
psychotherapy as being one of the
major obstacles to a scientific
study of human behaviour.
Nevertheless, others have used
operant conditioning principles to
shape behaviour in a therapeutic
setting. Behaviour therapists play
an active role in treatment
process, using behaviour
modification techniques and
pointing out the positive
consequences of some behaviour
and the aversive effects of others.
The goal of Social-Cognitive therapy is
self-regulation. Bandura noted 3
levels of treatment:
1. Induction of change
2. Generalization of change to
other appropriate situations,
and
3. Maintenance of newly acquired
functional behaviours.
Social cognitive therapists sometimes
use systematic desensitization, a
technique aimed at diminishing
phobias through relaxation.
Education and learning
Goal of therapy is self-regulation.
3 levels of treatment:
1. Induction of change
2. Generalization of change to
other appropriate
situations
3. Maintenance of newly
acquired functional
behaviours
Sometimes social cognitive therapists
use systematic desensitization, a
technique aimed at diminishing
phobias through relaxation.
Change the importance of the
client’s goals and,
Eliminate their unrealistically
low expectancies for success.
Locus of control and
Interpersonal scale
The goal of Rotter’s therapy is
to achieve harmony between
a client’s freedom of
movement and need value.
The therapist is actively
involved in trying to:
1. Change the importance
of the client’s goals
2. Eliminate their
unrealistically low
expectancies for
success.
Changing goals:
Maladaptive behaviours
follow from 3 categories of
inappropriate goals:
1. Conflict between goals
2. Destructive goals
3. Unrealistically lofty
goals
Eliminating Low expectancies:
In helping clients change low
expectancies of success,
Rotter uses a variety of
approaches, including
reinforcing positive
behaviours, ignoring
inappropriate behaviours,
giving advice, modeling
appropriate behaviours, and
pointing out the long-range
consequences of both positive
and negative behaviours.
Mischel’s Cognitive-Affective
Personality System.
Mischel believes that
cognitive factors, such as
expectancies, subjective
perceptions, values, goals,
and personal standards are
important in shaping
personality. Early on Mischel
seriously questioned the
Helping clients construe
alternative and healthy
constructs.
Kelly’s many years of clinical
experience enabled him to
evolve concepts of abnormal
development and
psychotherapy, and to develop a
Role Concept Repertory (REP)
test.
Abnormal Development – Kelly
saw normal people as analogous
to competent scientists who test
reasonable hypotheses,
objectively view the results and
willingly change their theories
when the data warrant it.
Similarly, unhealthy people are
like incompetent scientists who
test unreasonable hypotheses,
reject or distort legitimate
results, and refuse to amend
outdated theories. Kelly
identified 4 Common elements
in most human disturbances:
1. Threat: perception of
ones basic constructs
may be drastically
changed
2. Fear: requires an
incidental rather than a
comprehensive
restructuring of one’s
construct system
3. Anxiety: the recognition
that one cannot
adequately deal with a
new situation
4. Guilt: the sense of having
lost one’s core role
structure.
Psychotherapy: Kelly insisted
that clients should set their
goals for therapy and should be
active participants in the
therapeutic process. He
sometimes used a procedure
called fixed-role therapy in
consistency of personality.
More recently he and Yuchi
Shona have advanced the
notion that behaviour is also a
function of relatively stable
personal dispositions and
cognitive-affective processes
interacting with a particular
situation.
Mischel originally believed
that human behaviour was
mostly a function of the
situation, but presently has
recognized the importance of
relatively permanent
cognitive-affective units.
Nevertheless, Mischel;s
theory continues to recognize
the apparent inconsistency of
some behaviours.
Consistency Paradox – this
refers to the observation that,
although both lay-people and
professionals tend to believe
that behaviour is quite
consistent, research suggests
that it is not. Mischel
recognizes that, indeed, some
traits are consistent over
time, but he contends that
there is little evidence to
suggest that they are
consistent from one situation
to another.
Person-situation Interaction –
Mischel believes that
behaviour is best predicted
from an understanding of the
person, the situation, and the
interaction between the
person and the situation.
Thus, behaviour is not the
result of some global
personality trait, but by
people’s perceptions of
themselves in a particular
situation.
Cognitive-Affective
Personality System – Mischel
does not believe that
inconsistencies in behaviour
are due solely to the situation;
he recognizes that
inconsistent behaviours
reflect the stable patterns of
variation within a person, he
which clients act out a
predetermined role for several
weeks. By playing the art of a
psychologically healthy person,
clients may discover previously
hidden aspects of themselves.
The REP test: the purpose of the
REP test is to discover ways in
which clients construe
significant people in their lives.
Clients place names of people
they know on a repertory grid in
order to identify both
similarities and differences
among these people.
and Shoda see these stable
variations in behaviour in the
following frameworks: If A
then X; but if B then Y.
People’s pattern of variability
is their behavioural signature
of personality, or their unique
and stable pattern of
behaving differently in
different situations.
Behaviour Prediction:
Mischel’s basic theoretical
position for predicting and
explaining behaviour is as
follows: if personality is a
stable system that processes
information about the
situation, then individuals
encountering different
situations should behave
differently as situations vary.
Therefore, Mischel believes
that, even though people’s
behaviour may reflect some
stability over time, it tends to
vary as situations vary.
Situation Variables: include all
those stimuli that people
attend to in a given situation.
Cognitive-Affective Units:
These include all those
psychological, social, and
physiological aspects of
people that permit them to
interact with their
environment with some
stability in their behaviour.
Mischel identified 5 such
units:
1. Encoding strategies, or
peoples individualized
manner of categorizing
information they receive
from external stimuli.
2. Competencies and selfregulatory strategies.
One of the most
important of these
competencies is
intelligence, which
Mischel argues is
responsible for apparent
consistency of other
traits. In addition,
people use selfregulatory strategies to
control their own
behaviour through self-
Concept of
Humanity
Basic Tenets
Nature of
Maladjustment
Skinners’s concept of humanity
was a completely deterministic and
causal one that emphasized
unconscious behaviour and the
uniqueness of each person’s
history of reinforcement within a
mostly social environment. Unlike
many determinists, Skinner is quite
optimistic in his view of humanity.
Types of reinforcement

+ and – reinforcement
and punishment

Reinforcement schedule

Fixed ration

Fixed interval

Variable ratio

Variable interval
Sees Humans are relatively fluid and
flexible. People can store past
experiences and then use this
information to chart future actions.
Bad attitude being reinforce
Imitating a wrong model
Human agency, observational
learning, self-efficacy
formulated goals and
self-produced
consequences.
3. Expectancies and
beliefs, or people’s
guesses about the
consequences of each
different behavioural
possibilities.
4. People’s goals and
values, which tend to
render behaviour fairly
consistent.
5. Affective responses,
including emotions,
feelings, and affects that
accompany physiological
reactions.
Rotter and Mischel see people
as goal-directed, cognitive
animals whose perception of
the events are more crucial
than the events themselves.c
Basic prediction formula
(behaviour potential,
expectancy, reinforcement
value). Psychological
situation, general prediction
formula, consistency paradox,
person situation interaction,
cognitive-affective personality
system, behavioural signature
of personality.
Unrealistically high goals in
combination with low ability
to achieve them.
Any persistent behaviour that
fails to move a person closer
to a desired goal. It is usually
the result of unrealistically
high goals in combination with
low ability to achieve them.
Goals
Reinforce positive behaviour
Humans are not slaves of
reinforcement, man as an agent of
action
Three categories of
inappropriate goals:
Conflict between
goals
Destructive goals
Unrealistically lofty
goals
Change the importance of the
clients goals and,
Eliminate their unrealistically
low expectancies for success
Kelly saw people as anticipating
the future and living their lives
in accordance with those
anticipations. His concept of
elaborative choice suggests that
people increase their range of
future choices by the present
choices they freely make.
Philosophical Position,
Constructs, basic postulate and
corollary.
Unhealthy and unproductive
construct formation
Rotter defined Maladaptive
behaviour as any persistent
behaviour that fails to move a
person closer to a desired goal.
It is usually the result of
unrealistically high goals in
combination with low ability to
achieve them.
Helping clients construe
alternative and healthy
constructs.
Achieve harmony between a
clients freedom of movement
and need value. The therapist
is actively involved in trying
to:
Change the
importance of the
clients goals and
Eliminate their
unrealistically low
expectancies for
success by:
reinforcing positive
behaviours, ignoring
inappropriate
behaviours, giving
advice, modeling
appropriate
behaviours and
pointing out the
long-range
consequences of
both positive and
negative
behaviours.
Critiques:
Critique of Freud
In criticizing Freud, we must first ask two questions: (1) Did Freud understand women, gender, and sexuality? (2) Was Freud a scientist?
Did Freud Understand Women, Gender, and Sexuality?
A frequent criticism of Freud is that he did not understand women and that his theory of personality was strongly oriented toward men. There is a large measure of truth to this criticism, and Freud acknowledged that he lacked a complete understanding of the
female psyche.
Why didn’t Freud have a better understanding of the feminine psyche? One answer is that he was a product of his times, and society was dominated by men during those times. In 19th-century Austria, women were second-class citizens, with few rights or
privileges. They had little opportunity to enter a profession or to be a member of a professional organization—such as Freud’s Wednesday Psychological Society.
Thus, during the first quarter century of psychoanalysis, the movement was an all-men’s club. After World War I, women gradually became attracted to psychoanalysis and some of these women, such as Marie Bonaparte, Ruth Mack Brunswick, Helene Deutsch,
Melanie Klein, Lou Andreas-Salomé, and Anna Freud, were able to exercise some influence on Freud. However, they were never able to convince him that similarities between the genders outweighed differences.
Freud himself was a proper bourgeois Viennese gentleman whose sexual attitudes were fashioned during a time when women were expected to nurture their husbands, manage the household, Page 64 care for the children, and stay out of their husband’s
business or profession. Freud’s wife, Martha, was no exception to this rule (Gay, 1988).
Freud, as the oldest and most favored child, ruled over his sisters, advising them on books to read and lecturing to them about the world in general. An incident with a piano reveals further evidence of Freud’s favored position within his family. Freud’s sisters
enjoyed music and found pleasure in playing a piano. When music from their piano annoyed Freud, he complained to his parents that he couldn’t concentrate on his books. The parents immediately removed the piano from the house, leaving Freud to understand
that the wishes of five girls did not equal the preference of one boy.
Like many other men of his day, Freud regarded women as the “tender sex,” suitable for caring for the household and nurturing children but not equal to men in scientific and scholarly affairs. His love letters to his future wife Martha Bernays are filled with
references to her as “my little girl,” “my little woman,” or “my princess” (Freud, 1960). Freud undoubtedly would have been surprised to learn that 130 years later these terms of endearment are seen by many as disparaging to women.
Freud continually grappled with trying to understand women, and his views on femininity changed several times during his lifetime. As a young student, he exclaimed to a friend, “How wise our educators that they pester the beautiful sex so little with scientific
knowledge” (quoted in Gay, 1988, p. 522).
During the early years of his career, Freud viewed male and female psychosexual growth as mirror images of each other, with different but parallel lines of development. However, he later proposed the notion that little girls are failed boys and that adult women
are akin to castrated men. Freud originally proposed these ideas tentatively, but as time passed, he defended them adamantly and refused to compromise his views. When people criticized his notion of femininity, Freud responded by adopting an increasingly
more rigid stance. By the 1920s, he was insisting that psychological differences between men and women were due to anatomical differences and could not be explained by different socialization experiences (Freud, 1924/1961). Nevertheless, he always
recognized that he did not understand women as well as he did men. He called them the “dark continent for psychology” (Freud, 1926/1959b, p. 212). In his final statement on the matter, Freud (1933/1964) suggested that “if you want to know more about
femininity, enquire from your own experiences of life or turn to the poets” (p. 135). The depth (and unconscious nature?) of his sexism is revealed in this statement. “You” refers, of course, not to any person, but a man. Considering that Freud based nearly all his
theorizing on case studies of women, it’s astonishing that he never thought to ask them directly about their experiences.
Although some of Freud’s close associates inhabited the “dark continent” of womanhood, his most intimate friends were men. Moreover, women such as Marie Bonaparte, Lou Andreas-Salomé, and Minna Bernays (his sister-in-law), who did exert some influence
on Freud, were mostly cut from a similar pattern. Ernest Jones (1955) referred to them as intellectual women with a “masculine cast” (p. 421). These women were quite apart from Freud’s mother and wife, both of whom were proper Viennese wives and mothers
whose primary concerns were for their husbands and children. Freud’s female colleagues and disciples were selected for their intelligence, emotional strength, Page 65 and loyalty—the same qualities Freud found attractive in men. But none of these women
could substitute for an intimate male friend. In August of 1901, Freud (1985) wrote to his friend Wilhelm Fliess, “In my life, as you know, woman has never replaced the comrade, the friend” (p. 447).
Why was Freud unable to understand women? Given his upbringing during the middle of the 19th century, parental acceptance of his domination of his sisters, a tendency to exaggerate differences between women and men, and his belief that women inhabited
the “dark continent” of humanity, it seems unlikely that Freud possessed the necessary experiences to understand women. Toward the end of his life, he still had to ask, “What does a woman want?” (E. Jones, 1955, p. 421). The question itself reveals Freud’s
gender bias because it assumes that women all want the same things and that their wants are somehow different from those of men.
Feminist theorists like Judith Butler (1995) have critiqued the gender normativity (after the Oedipus complex is resolved, boys become masculine men and girls become feminine women) and heterosexism of Freud’s theorizing. In two of Freud’s works, “Mourning
and Melancholia” (1917) and The Ego and the Id (1923), he argued that part of the process of forming our character (our ego) is first the grieving, and then the substitution of lost love objects with other objects. That is, the boy must grieve the “loss” of his mother
as a love object, and substitute it with erotic love for a woman. Conversely, the girl must grieve the loss of her father and eventually substitute this with love for a male romantic partner.
In her essay “Melancholy Gender—Refused Identification” (1995), Butler takes Freud’s original ideas and turns them upside down, asking the question: “What does the ego do with lost same-sex attachment?” Obviously as young children we also form strong
attachments to our same-sex parent. She argues the superego will not easily allow the ego to form compensatory attachments to stand in for lost same-sex objects, however. Why not? Freud’s idea is that these lost objects are invested with libido. Society
disapproves of same-sex libidinal attachment, and so the ego is unable, or struggles, to produce appropriate and satisfying substitutes for lost same-sex objects that might help the id feel better. In this case, the id becomes trapped in “melancholia.” The id can
never fully resolve the grief.
If, in Freud’s gender normative/heterosexual theory, girls and boys must repress their desire for their opposite sex parent, in Butler’s refiguring, the psychic action is even harsher. Children must repudiate feelings of same-sex love. Indeed, she argues, cultural
prohibitions against homosexuality operate as a foundation for gender and heterosexuality. This is especially true for boys and men. Masculine heterosexual gender identity, she argues, is a kind of melancholy, reflecting the utter disavowal of their attraction to
other men, and the unfinished business of grieving the loss of their same-sex parent. In this way, Butler provides a fascinating critical engagement of Freudian theory to understand gender and sexuality.
Was Freud a Scientist?
A second area of criticism of Freud centers around his status as a scientist. Although he repeatedly insisted that he was primarily a scientist and that psychoanalysis was a science, Freud’s definition of science needs some explanation. When he called
psychoanalysis a science, he was attempting to separate it from a philosophy or an ideology. He was not claiming that
We have often heard it maintained that sciences should be built up on clear and sharply defined basic concepts. In actual fact no science, not even the most exact, begins with such definitions. The true beginning of scientific activity consists rather in describing
phenomena and then in proceeding to group, classify and correlate them. Even at the stage of description it is not possible to avoid applying certain abstract ideas to the material in hand, ideas derived from somewhere or other but certainly not from the new
observations alone. (p. 117)
Perhaps Freud himself left us with the best description of how he built his theories. In 1900, shortly after the publication of Interpretation of Dreams, he wrote to his friend Wilhelm Fliess, confessing that “I am actually not at all a man of science, not an observer,
not an experimenter, not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador—an adventurer . . . with all the curiosity, daring, and tenacity characteristic of a man of this sort” (Freud, 1985, p. 398).
Although Freud at times may have seen himself as a conquistador, he also believed that he was constructing a scientific theory. How well does that theory meet the six criteria for a useful theory that we identified in Chapter 1?
Despite serious difficulties in testing Freud’s assumptions, researchers have conducted studies that relate either directly or indirectly to psychoanalytic theory. Thus, we rate Freudian theory about average in its ability to generate research.
Second, a useful theory should be falsifiable. Because much of the research evidence consistent with Freud’s ideas can also be explained by other models, Freudian theory is nearly impossible Page 67 to falsify. A good example of the difficulty of falsifying
psychoanalysis is the story of the woman who dreamed that her mother-in-law was coming for a visit. The content of his dream could not be a wish fulfillment because the woman hated her mother-in-law and would not wish for a visit from her. Freud escaped
this conundrum by explaining that the woman had the dream merely to spite Freud and to prove to him that not all dreams are wish fulfillments. This kind of reasoning clearly gives Freudian theory a very low rating on its ability to generate falsifiable hypotheses.
A third criterion of any useful theory is its ability to organize knowledge into a meaningful framework. Unfortunately, the framework of Freud’s personality theory, with its emphasis on the unconscious, is so loose and flexible that seemingly inconsistent data can
coexist within its boundaries. Compared with other theories of personality, psychoanalysis ventures more answers to questions concerning why people behave as they do. But only some of these answers come from scientific investigations—most are simply
logical extensions of Freud’s basic assumptions. Thus, we rate psychoanalysis as having only moderate ability to organize knowledge.
Fourth, a useful theory should serve as a guide for the solution of practical problems. Because Freudian theory is unusually comprehensive, many psychoanalytically trained practitioners rely on it to find solutions to practical day-to-day problems. However,
psychoanalysis no longer dominates the field of psychotherapy, and most present-day therapists use other theoretical orientations in their practice. Thus, we give psychoanalysis a low rating as a guide to the practitioner.
The fifth criterion of a useful theory deals with internal consistency, including operationally defined terms. Psychoanalysis is an internally consistent theory, if one remembers that Freud wrote over a period of more than 40 years and gradually altered the
meaning of some concepts during that time. However, at any single point in time, the theory generally possessed internal consistency, although some specific terms were used with less than scientific rigor.
Does psychoanalysis possess a set of operationally defined terms? Here the theory definitely falls short. Such terms as id, ego, superego, conscious, preconscious, unconscious, oral stage, sadistic-anal stage, phallic stage, Oedipus complex, latent level of dreams,
and many others are not operationally defined; that is, they are not spelled out in terms of specific operations or behaviors. Researchers must originate their own particular definition of most psychoanalytic terms.
Sixth, psychoanalysis is not a simple or parsimonious theory, but considering its comprehensiveness and the complexity of human personality, it is not needlessly cumbersome.
Critique of Adler
Adler’s theory, like that of Freud, produced many concepts that do not easily lend themselves to either verification or falsification. For example, although research has consistently shown a relationship between early childhood recollections and a person’s present
style of life (Clark, 2002), these results do not verify Adler’s notion that present style of life shapes one’s early recollections. An alternate, causal explanation is also possible; that is, early experiences may cause present style of life. Thus, one of Adler’s most
important concepts—the assumption that present style of life determines early memories rather than vice versa—is difficult to either verify or falsify.
Another function of a useful theory is to generate research, and on this criterion we rate Adler’s theory above average. Much of the research suggested by individual psychology has investigated early recollections, social interest, and style of life. Arthur J. Clark
(2002), for example, cites evidence showing that early recollections relate to myriad personality factors, including dimensions of personality clinical disorders, vocational choice, explanatory style, and psychotherapy processes and outcomes. In addition, Adler’s
theory has encouraged researchers to construct several social interest scales, for example, the Social Interest Scale (Crandall, 1975, 1981), the Social Interest Index (Greever, Tseng, & Friedland, 1973), and the Sulliman Scale of Social Interest (Sulliman, 1973).
Research activity on these scales and on birth order, early recollections, and style of life gives Adlerian theory a moderate to high rating on its ability to generate research.
How well does Adlerian theory organize knowledge into a meaningful framework? In general, individual psychology is sufficiently broad to encompass possible explanations for much of what is known about human behavior and development. Even seemingly
self-defeating and inconsistent behaviors can be fit into the framework of striving for superiority. Adler’s practical view of life’s problems allows us to rate his theory high on its ability to make sense out of what we know about human behavior.
We also rate Adlerian theory high on its ability to guide action. The theory serves the psychotherapist, the teacher, and the parent with guidelines for the solution to practical problems in a variety of settings. Adlerian practitioners gather information through
reports on birth order, dreams, early recollections, childhood difficulties, and physical deficiencies. They then use this information to understand a person’s style of life and to apply those specific techniques that will both increase that person’s individual
responsibility and broaden his or her freedom of choice.
Is individual psychology internally consistent? Does it include a set of operationally defined terms? Although Adlerian theory is a model for self-consistency, it suffers from a lack of precise operational definitions. Terms such as goal of superiority and creative
power have no scientific definition. Nowhere in Adler’s works are they operationally defined, and the potential researcher will look in vain for precise definitions that lend themselves to rigorous study. The term creative power is an especially illusory one. Just what
is this magical force that takes the raw materials of heredity and environment and molds a unique personality? How does the creative power transform itself into specific actions or operations needed by the scientist to carry out an investigation? Unfortunately,
individual psychology is somewhat philosophical—even moralistic—and does not provide answers to these questions.
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The concept of creative power is a very appealing one. Probably most people prefer to believe that they are composed of something more than the interactions of heredity and environment. Many people intuitively feel that they have some agent (soul, ego, self,
creative power) within them that allows them to make choices and to create their style of life. As inviting as it is, however, the concept of creative power is simply a fiction and cannot be scientifically studied. Due to lack of operational definitions, therefore, we rate
individual psychology low on internal consistency.
The final criterion of a useful theory is simplicity, or parsimony. On this standard we rate individual psychology about average. Although Adler’s awkward and unorganized writings distract from the theory’s rating on parsimony, the work of Ansbacher and
Ansbacher (Adler, 1956, 1964) has made individual psychology more parsimonious.
Critique of Jung
Carl Jung’s writings continue to fascinate students of humanity. Despite its subjective and philosophical quality, Jungian psychology has attracted a wide audience of both professional and lay people. His study of religion and mythology may resonate
with some readers but repel others. Jung, however, regarded himself as a scientist and insisted that his scientific Page 139study of religion, mythology, folklore, and philosophical fantasies did not make him a mystic any more than Freud’s study of sex
made Freud a sexual pervert (Jung, 1975).
Nevertheless, analytical psychology, like any theory, must be evaluated against the six criteria of a useful theory established in Chapter 1. First, a useful theory must generate testable hypotheses and descriptive research, and second, it must have the
capacity for either verification or falsification. Unfortunately, Jung’s theory, like Freud’s, is nearly impossible to either verify or falsify. The collective unconscious, the core of Jung’s theory, remains a difficult concept to test empirically.
Much of the evidence for the concepts of archetype and the collective unconscious has come from Jung’s own inner experiences, which he admittedly found difficult to communicate to others, so that acceptance of these concepts rests more on faith
than on empirical evidence. Jung (1961) claimed that “archetypal statements are based upon instinctive preconditions and have nothing to do with reason; they are neither rationally grounded nor can they be banished by rational argument” (p. 353).
Such a statement may be acceptable to the artist or the theologian, but it is not likely to win adherents among scientific researchers faced with the problems of designing studies and formulating hypotheses.
On the other hand, that part of Jung’s theory concerned with classification and typology, that is, the functions and attitudes, can be studied and tested and has generated a moderate amount of research.Because the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has
yielded a great number of investigations, we give Jung’s theory a moderate rating on its ability to generate research.
Third, a useful theory should organize observations into a meaningful framework. Analytical psychology is unique because it adds a new dimension to personality theory, namely, the collective unconscious. Those aspects of human personality
dealing with the occult, the mysterious, and the parapsychological are not touched on by most other personality theories. Even though the collective unconscious is not the only possible explanation for these phenomena, and other concepts could be
postulated to account for them, Jung is the only modern personality theorist to make a serious attempt to include such a broad scope of human activity within a single theoretical framework. For these reasons, we have given Jung’s theory a moderate
rating on its ability to organize knowledge.
A fourth criterion of a useful theory is its practicality. Does the theory aid therapists, teachers, parents, or others in solving everyday problems? The theory of psychological types or attitudes and the MBTI are used by many clinicians, but the
usefulness of most analytical psychology is limited to those therapists who subscribe to basic Jungian tenets. The concept of a collective unconscious does not easily lend itself to empirical research, but it may have some usefulness in helping people
understand cultural myths and adjust to life’s traumas. Overall, however, we can give Jung’s theory only a low rating in practicality.
Is Jung’s theory of personality internally consistent? Does it possess a set of operationally defined terms? The first question receives a qualified affirmative answer; the second, a definite negative one. Jung generally used the same terms consistently,
but he often employed several terms to describe the same concept. The words regression and introverted are so closely related that they can be said to describe the same process. This is also true of progression and extraverted, and the list could be
expanded to include several other terms such as individuation and self-realization, which also are not clearly differentiated. Page 140Jung’s language is often arcane, and many of his terms are not adequately defined. As for operational definitions, Jung,
like other early personality theorists, did not define terms operationally. Therefore, we rate his theory as low on internal consistency.
The final criterion of a useful theory is parsimony. Jung’s psychology is not simple, but neither is human personality. However, because it is more cumbersome than necessary, we can give it only a low rating on parsimony. Jung’s proclivity for
searching for data from a variety of disciplines and his willingness to explore his own unconscious, even beneath the personal level, contribute to the great complexities and the broad scope of his theory. The law of parsimony states, “When two
theories are equally useful, the simpler one is preferred.” In fact, of course, no two are ever equal, but Jung’s theory, while adding a dimension to human personality not greatly dealt with by others, is probably more complex than necessary.