CHAPTER 15
Personality
The Psychoanalytic Perspective
What is personality?
Personality – an individual’s characteristic
pattern of thinking, feeling and acting
THE PSYCHOANALYTIC
PERSPECTIVE
The Psychoanalytic perspective –
childhood sexuality and unconscious
motivations influence personality.
The Various Perspectives will be talked
about for last 3 chapters and are almost
guaranteed to be on the AP exam.
Sigmund Freud
 University of Vienna (1873)
 Opened a private practice
specializing in nervous
disorders
 1900 wrote The Interpretation
of Dreams
 Freud came to believe that our
personalities, behaviors and
behavior disorders are
determined by drives and
past psychological events.
 Freud developed the first
comprehensive theory of
personality
Freud and Psychoanalysis
 Arriving at psychoanalysis
 Some neurological disorders may
have psychological causes
 Attempted to use hypnosis and
dream analysis to reveal the
unconscious
 Began free-association (word
association)
 Relax and say whatever comes
to mind
 Chain of thought leads to the
unconscious
 Freud was surprised at how
many of his patients recalled
sexual abuse
• Ultimately concluded that
these memories reflected
unconscious childhood
The Unconscious
 Reservoir of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes and
feelings
 Information of which we are unaware
 Freud believed thoughts that are disturbing are
repressed, blocked from our consciousness. (Ex. Anger
with dad)
 These repressed thoughts affect various aspects of our
lives. Show itself as anxiety.
 Ex. Freudian slips – saying one thing but meaning another
 Current example of a probable Freudian slip is when President
Bush reportedly said in a speech he was giving to a group of
teachers “ I’d like to spank all the the teachers.” We guess that he
wanted to say “thank” all the teachers, but he didn't. OR calling a
girlfriend by an ex-girlfriend’s name. Most psychologists believe
these are caused by errors in cognition Youtube 8:30
 QUOTE in blue on side of page. Show video clip of error
Freud and Personality
Personality is a result of the conflict
between pleasure-seeking impulses and
our socially restrained world.
Personality is shaped during childhood
and by late adolescence has been nearly
completely formed.
What are the 3 pts. called? and Why
does Freud use an iceberg as an
analogy for the personality structure
The Id
Id– The unconscious portion of personality
that seeks pleasure and demands
immediate gratification
Babies are driven by the id.
Rapists, murderers have an overly developed
id. Some salesman, politicians, lawyers (and
other careers that often involve power, money
and/or human manipulation) have this.
The Superego
 Superego – the part of personality that focuses
on internalized ideals and how one ought to
behave
Partly in the conscious and partly in the unconscious
Strives for perfection, produces feelings of pride and
guilt
Developed around age 4 or 5
Overdeveloped superego – virtuous, yet guilt ridden
Underdeveloped superego – self-indulgent and
remorseless
Struggle between Id and Superego
 Q How is struggle between Id and Superego depicted in
movies? (Cartoon p.578)
 Freud’s cultural influences- 60’s generation free love,
advent of the pill, Feels right do it, make love not war.
Don’t let society’s rules, guidelines/parameters repress
you. Self indulgence. The ideas were good but taken too
far possibly led to too much selfishness that future
generations have been criticized for. Generational
conflict greatest between these generations. Q How
many of your parents said that they had some/lots of
conflicts with their parents about issues?) 50’s
generation and 60’s. The social differences these 2
generations had is related to the id/superego conflict
The Ego
Ego – the part of personality that mediates
between the id, superego and reality.
The personality “executive”
Partly in the conscious and partly in the
unconscious
Operates on the reality principle – how can one
realistically obtain pleasure?
Id, Superego, Ego and The Cat in the Hat
Narrator (Sally)
Cat
Fish
Mother
The Cat in the Hat and Personality
Narrator (Sally)- fluctuate id/superego.
Cat- id dominant moves toward balance by
the end
Fish- superego throughout
Mother- represents superego through the
moral ethical doctrines place on us by
caregivers.
Freud and the unconscious Video
Sigmund Freud: The Unconscious Mind
(Short Version) – YouTube (1st 4-5 mins.)
The Id, Ego, and Superego – YouTube
The Psychosexual Stages
Personality forms in the first few years of
life
Psychosexual stages – the id seeks
pleasure through erogenous zones
Oral (Birth – 1yr)
Anal (1yr – 3yrs.)
Phallic (3-6 yrs.)
Latency (6 – puberty)
Genital (puberty on)
Freud's Psychosexual Stages
Oral Stage
Children enjoy sucking, biting and chewing
because it gives them sexual pleasure.
Anal Stage
Children are sexually satisfied through
bowel and bladder elimination
Phallic Stage
 Sexual gratification through the genitalia
 Oedipus complex – a boy’s sexual desire towards his
mother and feelings of jealousy, hatred, and fear for the
rival father
 Electra complex – a girl’s desire for her father and
views the mother as the rival. Explained this stage that
can be seen in many child-parent relationships.
 Penis envy – a female’s envy for a penis/ an
unconscious desire to posses a penis
 Castration anxiety – a boy’s fear of castration if he
misbehaves (potential castration by the rival father)
 Identification – Eventually children repress any
threatening feelings and begin to identify with the rival
parent. They begin to incorporate the parent’s values
into their superego
Latency Stage
All sexual feelings are pushed out of the
conscious mind (repression). Societal
values place such a disgrace on such
feelings resulting in repression.
Genital Stage
Seek sexual pleasure through sexual
relationships with others
Fixation in one of the five stages…
 Fixation – Freud believed that in any of these
stages one could become fixated
Due to undergratifcation or overgratification
Ex. a person underfed as a child may become fixated in
the oral stage. (oral fixation) As an adult, this person
may overeat, obsessively chew gum, or smoke.
Ex. a child punished too much during toilet training may
become fixated in the anal stage. As an adult, this
person may be anal retentive (neat, compulsive, superorganized) or anal expulsive (messy, disorganized)
Ex. an adult fixated in the phallic stage may be
concerned with sexual inadequacies or display
excessive sexual aggression.
The ego protects our conscious mind
 We must control
our sexual and
aggressive impulses.
The ego protects the
conscious mind from
threatening thoughts.
Defense mechanisms – the ego’s
protective methods of reducing anxiety by
unconsciously distorting reality
Defense Mechanisms
 Repression – push thoughts out of conscious
awareness. This defense mechanism underlies all others
 Ex. Feeling indifferent about father (really you hate him).
 Ex. Biff is asked how it’s going with Muffy and says:
Who?
 Denial – not accepting the existence of threatening
impulses
 Ex. Refusing to believe you have a terminal illness or have
a drinking problem.
 Biff continues to wait at Muffy’s locker and plans
dates.
 Butler student did this exact things
Defense Mechanisms
 Displacement – Redirecting one’s feelings
toward a less threatening object or person
Ex Parent suddenly yells at you for doing nothing
wrong?
Biff throws his pet hamster against the wall.
Q Any Experiences with this?
 Sublimation – Channeling frustration toward a different
goal. Healthier reaction than displacement
 Exercising or coaching a team after being cut from college team.
 Biff devotes himself to writing 10 volumes of poetry
Defense Mechanisms (cont.)
 Reaction Formation – Acting opposite of your
unacceptable impulses
 Ex. Wayne likes a girl at school but she has a boyfriend. So
while Wayne is around this girl, he acts as if he dislikes her.
 Biff says, “I hate Muffy”
 Regression – Returning to an earlier, comforting form of
behavior
 Ex. A 6 year old begins to act childish, clinging to a parent
and crying when she has to go to school.
Most 1st older syblings go through this when a
younger sybling enters the house.
Ex. Midlife crisis ..buy a fast car
Biff begins sleeping with his favorite stuffed
animal fuzzy kitten.
Projection
 Projection – Attributing ones thoughts or
impulses to another person. Picture a film
projector in the unconscious mind projecting
onto others ones hidden thoughts, issues.
 Ex. Person complains that other people are such
gossipers.
 Ex. Studies have shown that many politicians,
religious people or people who fight against
pornography or homosexuality are in reality
fighting their own impulses they consider
immoral. HBO special on lawmakers
 Biff says “she still loves me”
Defense Mechanisms (cont.)
 Rationalization – Coming up with a beneficial result of
an undesirable occurrence
 Ex. I flunked out of school because the teachers don’t like me.
 Ex. I text and drive because I can drive equally as well texting or
not.
 Biff says Muffy wasn’t all that good of a girlfriend
 Intellectualization – Undertaking an academic,
unemotional study
 Ex. A woman’s family is murdered. She begins to study the
psychology of murderers and research various murder cases.
Defense Mechanisms
Defense Mechanisms In Movie Clips
Defense Mechanism
Activity in pairs
Measuring the Unconscious
Remember Freud believed the
unconscious could be measured through
free association and dreams.
Psychoanalysts believed that objective
tests (self-reports or true/false
questionnaires) did not reveal the
unconscious.
Measuring the Unconscious
Projective tests – a personality test that
provides ambiguous stimuli designed to
trigger projections of one’s inner dynamics
Give an ambiguous stimulus and then ask the
subject to tell a story about it.
Projective Tests
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) –
Developed by Henry Murray. A projective
test in which people express their inner
feelings through the stories they make up
about ambiguous scenes.
Projective Tests
 Rorschach Inkblot Test – developed in 1921
by Hermann Rorschach. This is the most widely
used projective test. Seeks to identify inner
feelings through interpretations if the blots.
Consists of 10 patterns (some in color others in black
and white).
Subject asked to tell what the inkblot might be and then
explain why
Scoring
 On what part of the blot does the subject focus?
 Do colors or details affect the subject’s response?
 The content of responses
 The popularity of responses
Rorschach Inkblot Test
Projective Tests
Complete a picture
Fill in the Missing Parts of incomplete
sentences.
Doodles
Projective Tests… can the way you draw
a pig predict your personality?
On a scrap sheet of paper….Draw A Pig
Projective Tests
 Those who support projective tests believe that
the tests can measure sexual and aggressive
impulses and other personality features that
people may try to hide.
 There is no obvious right answer to these tests
 Most agree that projective tests are not a good
measure of personality. They have no set
scoring procedure and cannot predict behavior
or discriminate between groups.