Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Unconscious Mind, Psychosexual Development, Psychodynamics
13 May 2018
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WHAT IS PERSONALITY?!
•The concept of personality also rests on the observation that people seem to behave
somewhat consistently over time and across different situations. !
•From this perceived consistency comes the notion of “personality traits” that
characterize individuals' customary ways of responding to their world. !
•Although only modest stability is found from childhood personality to adult
personality, consistency becomes greater as we enter adulthood !
•Personality the distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that
characterize a person's responses to life situations.!
•The thoughts, feelings, and actions that are seen as reflecting an individual's personality
typically have three characteristics. !
1. First, they are seen as components of identity that distinguish that person from
other people. !
2. Second, the behaviours are viewed as being caused primarily by internal rather than
environmental factors. !
3. Third, the person's behaviours seem to “fit together” in a meaningful fashion,
suggesting an inner personality that guides and directs behaviour!
THE PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE!
•Psychodynamic theorists look for the causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of inner
forces that often conflict with one another. !
•They also focus on unconscious determinants of behaviour.!
Freud's Psychoanalytic Theory
•Jean Charcot was treating patients who suffered from a disorder called conversion hysteria
in which physical symptoms such as paralysis and blindness appeared suddenly and with
no apparent physical cause. !
•Freud's experiences in treating these patients convinced him that their symptoms were
related to painful memories and feelings that seemed to have been repressed, or pushed
out of awareness. !
•When his patients were able to re-experience these traumatic memories and
unacceptable feelings, which were often sexual or aggressive in nature, their
physical symptoms often disappeared or improved markedly.!
•These observations convinced Freud that an unconscious part of the mind exerts
great influence on behaviour. He began to experiment with various techniques to
access the unconscious mind, including hypnosis, free association and dream
analysis. !
•Freud based his theory on careful clinical observation and constantly sought to
expand it. Over time, psychoanalysis became a theory of personality, an approach
to studying the mind, and a method for treating psychological disorders.!
Psychic Energy and Mental Events
•Freud considered personality to be an energy system!
•According to Freud, instinctual drives generate psychic energy, which powers the
mind and constantly presses for either direct or indirect release. !
•For example, a buildup of energy from sexual drives might be discharged
directly in the form of sexual activity or indirectly through such diverse
behaviours as sexual fantasies, farming, or painting.!
•Mental events may be conscious, preconscious, or unconscious. !
•The conscious mind consists of mental events that we are presently aware of. !
•The preconscious contains memories, thoughts, feelings, and images that we are
unaware of at the moment but that can be called into conscious awareness. !
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•unconscious mind, a dynamic realm of wishes, feelings, and impulses that lies
beyond our awareness.!
The Structure of Personality
•Freud divided personality into three separate but interacting structures: the id, the ego, and
the superego. !
•The id exists totally within the unconscious mind. !
•It is the innermost core of the personality, the only structure present at birth,
and the source of all psychic energy. !
•The id has no direct contact with reality and functions in a totally
irrational manner. !
•Operating according to the pleasure principle, it seeks immediate
gratification or release, regardless of rational considerations and
environmental realities.!
•The id has no contact with the outer world. !
•The ego functions primarily at a conscious level, and it operates according to the
reality principle. !
•It tests reality to decide when and under what conditions the id can safely
discharge its impulses and satisfy its needs.!
•The last personality structure to develop is the superego, the moral arm of the
personality. !
•According to Freud, the superego developed by the age of four or five, and
was the repository for the values and ideals of society. !
•These ideals are internalized by the child through identification with his or
her parents, and by explicit training about what is “right,” what is “wrong,”
and how the child “should” be. !
•With the development of the superego, self-control takes over from the
external controls of rewards and punishments. !
•Like the ego, the superego strives to control the instincts of the id,
particularly the sexual and aggressive impulses that are condemned by
society. !
•Whereas the ego tries to delay gratification until conditions are safe and
appropriate, the superego, in its quest for perfection, tries to block
gratification permanently. !
•For the superego, moralistic goals take precedence over realistic ones,
regardless of the potential cost to the individual. Thus, the superego might
cause a person to experience intense guilt over sexual activity even within
marriage because it has internalized the idea that sex is “dirty.”!
Conflict, Anxiety, and Defence
•The dynamics of personality involve a never-ending struggle between the id trying to
discharge its instinctive energies and the opposing forces generated by the ego and the
superego. !
• When the ego confronts impulses that threaten to get out of control or is faced with
dangers from the environment, anxiety results.!
•Like physical pain, anxiety serves as a danger signal and motivates the ego to deal
with the problem at hand.!
• when realistic strategies are ineffective in reducing anxiety, the ego may resort to defence
mechanisms that deny or distort reality. !
•Some of the defence mechanisms permit the release of impulses from the id in
disguised forms that will not conflict with the limits imposed by the external world or
with the prohibitions of the superego.!
•Psychoanalysts believe that repression is the primary means by which the ego “keeps the
lid on the id.” !
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•In repression, the ego uses some of its energy to prevent anxiety-arousing
memories, feelings, and impulses from entering consciousness. !
•Repressed thoughts and wishes remain in the unconscious, striving for
release, but they may be expressed indirectly, as in slips of the tongue or in
dreams. !
•They may even be channelled into socially desirable behaviours through the
defence mechanism of sublimation, completely masking the forbidden underlying
impulses. !
•For example, hostile impulses may find expression in tracking down
criminals or being a successful trial lawyer.!
Psychosexual Development
•Freud's clinical experiences convinced him that personality is powerfully moulded by
experiences in the first years of life. !
•He proposed that children pass through a series of psychosexual stages during which the
id's pleasure-seeking tendencies are focused on specific pleasure-sensitive areas of the
body called erogenous zones. !
•Potential deprivations or overindulgences can arise during any of these stages, resulting in
fixation, a state of arrested psychosexual development in which instincts are focused on a
particular psychic theme.!
Research on Psychoanalytic Theory
•Freud was committed to testing his ideas through case studies and clinical observations.
He believed that careful observations of everyday behaviour and clinical phenomena were
the best source of evidence. !
•David Wegner and colleagues have examined whether wishes suppressed during the day
appear in dreams!
• In a study involving more than 300 university students, participants were instructed to think
about two people they knew, and then they received instruction intended to suppress
thoughts about one of the targets. !
•Students dreamed more often of suppressed targets than the non-suppressed
targets, consistent with psychodynamic theory.!
Freud's Legacy: Neoanalytic and Object Relations
Approaches
•Neoanalysts were psychoanalysts who disagreed with certain aspects of Freud's thinking
and developed their own theories. !
•The neoanalysts believed that Freud did not give social and cultural factors a
sufficiently important role in the development and dynamics of personality. !
•The second major criticism was that Freud laid too much emphasis on the events of
childhood as determinants of adult personality. !
•Neoanalytic theorists agreed that childhood experiences are important, but some
neoanalysts, such as Erik Erikson, believed that personality development continues
throughout the lifespan as individuals confront challenges that are specific to
particular phases in their lives.!
•Alfred Adler (1870–1937) insisted that humans are inherently social beings who are
motivated by social interest, the desire to advance the welfare of others. !
•They care about others, cooperate with them, and place general social welfare
above selfish personal interests!
• In contrast, Freud seemed to view people as savage animals caged by the bars of
civilization. !
•Adler postulated a general motive of striving for superiority, which drives people to
compensate for real or imagined defects in themselves and to strive to be ever more
competent in life.!
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Document Summary
The concept of personality also rests on the observation that people seem to behave somewhat consistently over time and across di erent situations. The psychodynamic perspective: psychodynamic theorists look for the causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of inner forces that often con ict with one another. They also focus on unconscious determinants of behaviour. Jean charcot was treating patients who su ered from a disorder called conversion hysteria in which physical symptoms such as paralysis and blindness appeared suddenly and with no apparent physical cause. These observations convinced freud that an unconscious part of the mind exerts great in uence on behaviour. He began to experiment with various techniques to access the unconscious mind, including hypnosis, free association and dream analysis. Freud based his theory on careful clinical observation and constantly sought to expand it. Over time, psychoanalysis became a theory of personality, an approach to studying the mind, and a method for treating psychological disorders.
