Unit 11 Notes – Personality (Chapter 14)
Freud Bio
- Born 1856 – 100 miles north of Vienna
- His father was a wool merchant (age 42 at Freud’s birth)
- His half brothers were old enough to be his father
- At age 4 family moves to Vienna
- Always treated “special” by his mother
- Began recording his dreams as a child
- 1873 began medical school (age 17)
- As an intern specialized in “nerve disorders”
- At age 25 began a Victorian romance (with Martha Vrunaze)
- 1885 began working with the use of hypnosis
- 1886 began first medical practice
- Father died when Freud was 40 and he began intensive self-analysis (dream interpretation, free
association, etc)
- During this period he investigated his won feelings of infantile sexual fantasies and generalized
this to all people (Oedipus complex)
- 1900 published Interpretation of Dreams
o Actually finished in 1899 but wanted it dated 1900 to indicate the importance of a new
century
- 1909 Lectures in America at Clark University
- 1910s traumatized by WWI – 3 of his sons served in this
o expanded the pleasure principle to include a drive for aggression and destruction
- Other than his wife – became more attached to his youngest daughter (who he analyzed intensely)
violating a rule of therapy
- 1930s rise of Hitler validated (he believed) his ideas about the power of the id and the unconscious
The Psychoanalytic perspective
- Understanding this can be accomplished by understanding the life of Freud, its founder
- During the early part of his medical career, Freud noticed that many physical disorders appeared to
have no biological basis. He then began to explore how these illnesses might have a basis in
psychological problems.
Freud believed that there are 3 levels of consciousness
The unconscious – thoughts, wishes and feelings of which we are largely unaware
The preconscious (sub) – the area from which we can retrieve these at will
Conscious level – full awareness without any effort (active engagement)
Repression – the idea that we block certain memories, events out of our consciousness. To Freud, these
had the most significance and meaning. It was at this level where he believed most of our physical and
psychological problems began. If it was an event of little consequence, we would not need to suppress it.
If it has a certain significance or is traumatic in some way, it may need to be repressed. Since these events
are the most significant to impacting our lives, they were the ones with which Freud was the most
concerned.
Freud believed that there were several ways to uncover these unconscious feelings. Through hypnosis,
dream interpretation and free association allowing a patient to say whatever comes to mind (no limits) – the
idea that by doing this the client would eventually uncover this unconscious self and by doing so would be
able to discover how these impact his personality. When these are not uncovered trough free association,
they will manifest themselves by Freudian slips.
By interpreting dream he believed that he could uncover these same unconscious thoughts. (He was most
interested in the latent level representing the symbolic meaning behind these dreams as opposed to the
manifest level (surface level/plot) of a dream.
Freud’s ideas were based largely on the premise that unresolved conflicts in early childhood lead to
personality problems in the adult years – obviously his theory is based on a negative premise – that much of
our psychological energy is spent trying to deal with these unresolved conflicts.
Three components of our make-up are doing battle during this conflict:
The ID: which seeks to satisfy and gratify basic drives. This operates as the pleasure principle. If
unconstrained by the ego it seeks immediate gratification. The EGO seeks to allow for gratification of the
ID, but in a realistic fashion. The SUPEREGO does battle with the ID after the conscience develops (in
early childhood). This occurs as the child begins to instill the values of authority figures and those of
society. (The EGO in effect acts as a mediator between the ID and the SUPEREGO by allowing the
impulses of the ID to be gratified by the SUPEREGO so that these impulses are satisfied, but in a way that
does not threaten the demands of the SUPEREGO.
Freud believed that personality forms early and that a child passes through a series of stage of psychosexual
development.
Oral Stage:
infancy – sucking, biting, chewing. Pleasure is derived through the mouth.
Anal Stage:
18 months-3years – gratification by bladder elimination
Phallic Stage:
3-6 years – Pleasure zone shift to the genitals. Freud believed that young males at this
stage develop a romantic attachment to their mothers and a hatred for their fathers, who they view as a
rival.
This feeling is called the Oedipus Complex. Some psychoanalysts (not Freud) feel the opposite
occurs in young girls (the Electra Complex). These are resolved by a “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” attitude
which results in a same-sex identification process. Explains, according to Freud, how homosexuality
occurs – when this id. process does not take place.
Latency Period: sexuality is dormant and both sexes participate in activities primarily with their own sex.
Genital Stage:
during this stage (usually beginning at puberty, youths establish a sexual interest towards
others).
Fixation occurs when someone becomes locked in the pleasure-seeking characteristics of a particular stage.
An adult who is orally fixated may engage in sarcastic verbal behavior or may become a chain smoker or a
compulsive eater.
Freud believed that the EGO was very weak and as a result had to protect itself from anxieties and the
demands placed on it.
As a result, the human being uses defense mechanisms to reduce of channel the anxiety onto
something/someone else.
Defense mechanisms:
- Repression: pushing negative or stressful feelings into the unconscious
- Regression: retreating to an earlier stage of development
- Reaction formation: reactions which are opposite of the true feelings inside, possibly because of
fear of those emotions. The ego unconsciously makes acceptable impulses look like their
opposites.
- Projection: attributing feelings towards others which we may have ourselves. “He doesn’t like
me” may really mean “I don’t like him”
- Rationalization: logical, rational explanations for our own weaknesses or failures.
- Displacement: diverting our feelings towards a source that did not cause feelings.
- Sublimation: transferring unacceptable impulses into socially desirable activities.
Neo-Freudians – agreed with Freud on issues related to the importance of childhood development, but
believed that he overstated the roles of sex and aggression in shaping behavior. They put more emphasis
on social development.
1) Carl Jung – a Neo-Freudian who believed that not only our individual unconscious, but also
our collective unconscious is critical for understanding human behavior
2) Erik Erikson – studied under Ann Freud – believed, like Freud, that parent-child relationships
were critical to human development, but key issues are social, not sexual
3) Alfred Adler – did believe childhood was important but social not sexual influence – we
struggle to overcome accidents and illnesses; proposed the “inferiority complex” behavior
driven by conquering feelings of inferiority triggered by superior
4) Karen Horney – did believe childhood was important but social not sexual influence – we
have anxiety over childhood sense of helplessness creates a drive for love and security.
Tests to uncover the unconscious – projective tests
- Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) – people project their feelings about ambiguous pictures
- Rorschach Inkblot test – same principle using inkblots instead of pictures
Criticisms of Freud
1) He is outdated
2) He did not treat psychology as a science
3) It does not allow for personality change and development after childhood
4) His ideas on dreams are not representative of what we not know. Some of them may be attempts
to process information or sort out our thoughts
5) His ideas about the unconscious and repression have been reinterpreted as explanations of
information processing and memory problems
Contributions of Freud
1) He pioneered studies into human behavior and made it more prominent
2) He raised challenging questions about the role of childhood, experiences and sexual tensions in
personality development
3) His controversial ideas have influences art, literature and philosophy
The Trait Perspective
(family tree?)
Attempts to define personality by describing traits rather than explaining them.
Simplistic examples
Type As and Type Bs
Body types (Endomorphs-plump, mesomorphs-muscular, ectomorphs-thin, small boned)
Objective, modern tests
- Myers-Briggs (classifies according to Carl Jung’s personality types)
- Factor Analysis – a statistical analysis used to identify a cluster of basic personality traits
The trait perspective and these tests are limited by the fact that they are attempting to summarize thousands
of human traits into a limited block of descriptions or categories.
The “big 5” personality factors: emotional stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness,
conscientiousness
Personality inventories are attempts to measure several traits at once (extroversion, passivity, dominance,
independence).
The best known of these is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) – used to measure
personality traits among those with psychological disorders.
- questions such as: nothing in the newspaper interests me except the comics – depressed people
often answer yes to this question
What do we know about trait behaviors? In general, basic traits have a longitudinal basis (someone tested
in late childhood will test relatively the same in adulthood.
Specific behaviors are less predictable for the long term (ex. People who are generally honest may be more
likely to cheat on a tax return – someone else does not and more money may be at stake. It is difficult to
measure traits such as sociability, for example, because someone may be comfortable in one situation and
not as much in another.
The Humanistic Perspective
This theory was based on studies of health people and thus is more positive in its approach. The emphasis
in this theory is with the potential of humans for growth and development. This is built on the notion of
“free will” – man has choices and can choose his destiny.
Maslow – Self-actualization
Carl Rogers – Unconditional positive regard – people (clients) are acceptable for who they are with no
strings attached. In therapy, he advocates the allowance for a patient to freely express their feelings and to
expose their prior experiences and accept these regardless of what they say. According to Rogers, the 3
conditions necessary to promote growth are: genuineness, acceptance and empathy.
Rogers acts on the notion that if we improve someone’s self-concept, they will view the world in a more
positive fashion. If their self-concept is low, they will view not only themselves, but everyone else, in a
negative manner. Rogers evaluated individual perceptions of self-concept by asking people what their ideal
image of themselves was and contrasted this with their actual image. If they were nearly the same, he
determined that they had a positive sense of self.
Rogers ideas differ from those of most other pop psychologists (including Freud) who believe that
everyone has serious conflicts and flaws which much be dealt with on a regular basis.
Criticisms of Humanism
1) Too self-serving. Ignores the perspective of others
2) It is naïve – does not recognize the reality of human condition
3) It is not scientific – it does not allow for a specific evaluation of behaviors.
The Cognitive Perspective
(Bandura) – observational learning
- Our personalities come from learned behaviors which we acquire either by learning, observation
or modeling
- Our sense of personal control (whether we control our environment or allow it to control us is the
issue)
- External locus of control – events beyond our control determine our fate (chance meetings with
important people, being at the wrong place at the wrong time)
- Internal locus of control – we control our own fate. In most studies, those who operate with a
sense of an internal locus of control tend to be more successful
Those who operate with the external locus of control and who experience repeated negative events may
develop an attitude of learned helplessness (a sense of passive resignation that often leads to depression and
hopelessness). – In group situations (prisons, schools, etc) people perform best when given some control
over their environments (people with little control tend to become disinterested, detached and eventually
depressed)
A criticism of this perspective is that it focuses too much on events and situations and not enough on the
individual and their feelings and emotions. A positive is that it encourages people to take responsibility for
their own lives and to direct their behaviors accordingly.