HPS121 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Oral Stage, Electra Complex, Erogenous Zone
HPS121 Week 4
Personality
Personality – the distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling and
acting that characterises a person’s responses to life situations.
Individuality and consistency give rise to the concept of personality.
3 perceived characteristics of behaviour are seen as reflecting an individual’s
personality:
1. Behavioural components of identity – distinguishes one person from another.
2. Perceived internal cause – behaviour is caused by internal factors.
3. Perceived organisation and structure – person’s behaviours seem to have
organisation and structure.
Freud’s Psychodynamic Perspective –
Free association – saying whatever comes to mind.
Psychoanalysis – a theory of personality, an approach to studying the mind and a
method for treating psychological disorders.
Psychoanalysts believe that the unconscious mind reveals itself in dreams, slips of
tongue or some disguised behaviour, where we express our true feelings.
The structure of personality – Freud divided personality into 3 separate but interacting
structure:
1. Id – the innermost core of the personality, the only structure present at birth and the
source of all psychic energy. It exists totally within the unconscious mind and has no
contact with reality. It operates according to the ‘pleasure principle,’ where it seeks
immediate gratification or release, regardless of rational considerations and
environmental realities.
2. Ego – has direct contact with reality and functions primarily at a conscious level. It
operates according to the ‘reality principle,’ testing reality to decide when and under
what conditions the Id can safely discharge its impulses and satisfy its needs. The Ego is
known as the ‘executive of the personality.’
3. Superego – the moral arm of the personality. It contains the traditional values and ideals
of family and society. Like the Ego, the Superego strives to control the instincts of the Id,
particularly the sexual and aggressive impulses that are condemned by society.
Defence mechanism – unconscious mental operations that deny or distort reality.
They are functions of the Ego. Types of defence mechanisms:
Defence Mechanism Description Example
Repression An active defensive process
pushes anxiety-arousing
A person who was sexually
abused in childhood
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Document Summary
Personality the distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling and acting that characterises a person"s responses to life situations. Individuality and consistency give rise to the concept of personality. Free association saying whatever comes to mind. Psychoanalysis a theory of personality, an approach to studying the mind and a method for treating psychological disorders. Psychoanalysts believe that the unconscious mind reveals itself in dreams, slips of tongue or some disguised behaviour, where we express our true feelings. The structure of personality freud divided personality into 3 separate but interacting structure: Id the innermost core of the personality, the only structure present at birth and the source of all psychic energy. It exists totally within the unconscious mind and has no contact with reality. It operates according to the pleasure principle," where it seeks immediate gratification or release, regardless of rational considerations and environmental realities: ego has direct contact with reality and functions primarily at a conscious level.
