Video Lecture Psych 1X03
Personality
Personality 1
Personality has no physical existence; it is an idea, an abstract concept that we use because it seems to
express or capture something important about our experiences
o “Hypothetical constructs”
Approaches to Personality
The Type Approach
o Assumes that there are a small umber of distinct personality types
o Initially proposed by Hippocrates, Greth physithan
o Dominant in Western thinking until 16 and 17 centuries
o Human body was made of four “humors”
Blood
Phlegm
Yellow bile
Black bile
o Personality was determined based on the balance of these four humors
Eg/ Melancholic personality
Melan – black
Cholic – bile
Often sad and wistful
Psychodynamic Approach
Humanistic Approach
Trait Approach
Behaviorist Approach
Cognitive Approach
Psychodynamic Approach to Personality
Sigmund Freud
Personality is generated by internal psychic structures or processes
The characteristics of internal structures in your mind and the way they interact with each other,
determine how we feel and behave
Many of these structures are unconscious so we are often unaware of many important aspects of our
personality
Freud’s Tripartite Model
Three personality structures
o ID
o Ego
o Superego
The struggle among conscious and unconscious influences represented among these three levels is
the major motivating forces in humans
ID
o Source of basic instincts and your motivational energy (libido)
o Responsible for seeking out water, food, air and sex
o “Pleasure Principle” – to find and experience pleasure and avoid pain Video Lecture Psych 1X03
o Very selfish and impatient – wants to experience pleasure now and does not want to wait; it
wants it regardless of how the behavior would affect other people
o Unconscious
Superego
o Focused on upholding moral principles
o Goal is to ensure that you remain morally perfect; by obeying rules and respecting values
o Comes into the age of 5 or 6 – before this time, it is the parents job to teach rules and values
that a child should uphold by using rewards and punishment
o Self-control is established to for the super-ego through parental control
o Conscience stems from superego
o Primarily Unconscious
Ego
o Serves as a mediator between the Id and the Superego
o Aware of the outside reality, what is going on in the world outside of the individual
o Must find balance between the desires of the ID and the depends of the Superego –all which
ensuring that its realistically possible to do so
o Unconscious, preconscious, conscious
Iceberg analogy
o Id functions completely in the unconscious
o Superego functions predominantly in the unconscious, but Superego
a small portion of it falls into the preconscious (beneath the Ego
surface of awareness) and the conscious (of which we are
aware)
o Ego is equally split into each stage of consciousness: ID
unconscious preconscious and conscious
Defense Mechanisms
According to Freud, our behavior results from a rocky collaboration
between the id, ego and superego
The ego tried to satisfy id impulses in ways that are safe and are
consistent with the values of the superego – but sometimes it is not
possible
o If an id impulse is immoral – even thinking about gratifying it
causes the conscious ego to feel moral anxiety
o If an id impulse leads to punishment, just thinking about it
causes the conscious ego to feel neurotic anxiety
The conscious ego is protected against anxiety by defense mechanisms created by the unconscious
ego
Defense mechanisms keep the conscious ego from feeling anxious by keeping unacceptable id
impulses out of consciousness entirely, or by disguising id impulses so that the conscious ego does not
feel anxious about them if they reach consciousness
Repression
o Ego blocks id impulse from reaching consciousness
o Information can sometimes slip though
As Freudian Slips, or symbolically disguised as dream images
o Sometimes an id impulse is so strong that it cannot be kept out of consciousness – it enters the
conscious ego and is acted on new defense mechanisms are needed to make sure that the Video Lecture Psych 1X03
conscious ego does not understand the real nature of what it is thinking or what it has done so
that it will not feel anxious
Denial
o Conscious ego engages in an activity, but the unconscious ego prevent any memory of the
event
o Conscious ego has done something immoral – feels no anxiety because it had no memory of the
behavior
Denial vs. Repression
o Repression – impulse stats in the unconscious and never becomes conscious
o Denial – impulse starts in the conscious and is blocked out
Rationalization
o Unconscious ego justifies some conscious action
o Conscious ego has done something dangerous or immoral, so the unconscious ego floods
consciousness with plausible, non-threatening reasons for the behavior
o No anxiety because the conscious ego believes that it has engaged in the behavior for perfectly
harmless reasons
o Eg/ You are involved in a traffic accident and an argument turns into a physical altercation –
the aggression generated from the id conflicts with your superego, which believes that
violence is wrong; your ego might use
Projection
o Anxiety-producing thoughts are attributed to someone else
o Eg/ You dislike your co-worker and you feel guilty about it, so you may project your feelings on
him and convince yourself that it is really your co-worker who doesn’t like you
Defense of Reaction Formation
o Conscious ego is filled with opposite ideas and feelings
o Eg/ You like someone, but they do not feel the same way – you may deal with this by
outwardly feeling dislike and disapproval of this person
Displacement
o Forbidden impulses are redirected to acceptable targets
o Eg/ You may not like your supervisor and feel aggressive towards him – it would be
inappropriate to act on this aggression, so instead you end up arguing with your friend
Sublimation – sexual or aggressive impulses are displaced to objects or activities that
are socially acceptable
Our “higher” activities are due to sublimated libido
Sports, painting and sculpture, literature and science, which we think of as a
rational and emotion-free enterprise, is ultimately derived from sexual and
aggressive impulses (Freud)
Defense Mechanisms are attempts by one part of the mind (unconscious part of the ego) to fool
another part of the mind (conscious part of the ego)
Freud’s Personality Development
Psychodynamic approach assumes that personality is part genetic but also allows for experiences to
play a role in its development
Psychosexual stages are defined by the dominant erogenous zone
o 5 stages of development that covers birth to the final stage at puberty when the fundamental
features of our personality have been shaped and remain the same throughout our adult lives
Oral Stage – Birth to 1 year old
o Discovery of the mouth Video Lecture Psych 1X03
o Discovers the pleasures of sucking and swallowing, and later biting and chewing
Anal Stage – 1 year old to 3 years old
o Giving up feces through bowel movements
o Toilet training – no longer able to defecate at all times
o Pleasure of holding onto feces
Phallic Stage – 3 years old to 6 years old
o The pleasure of stimulating the phallic area
o Oedipus Complex
Boys go through the Oedipus complex during the phallic stage
Ego invests sexual libido to his mother – she has fed him and taken care of him; he
wants to possess mother for himself
The boys motive is sexual gratification – but he isn’t thinking about sexual intercourse
(foreign concept to him)
Primary goal is to have mother to himself against any competing interest
Dads time with mother takes time away from the boy – child wants to rid of Dad
Dad is big and strong – boy is afraid dad might retaliate
Boy observes that girls do not have penises – becomes convinced that dad will retaliate
against him by castrating him which leads to intense castration anxiety
Boy resolves dilemma by identifying with the father
Lets the boy enjoy mother vicariously through dad without putting himself in danger
Identification – the process of becoming psychologically like the father; fathers beliefs
and values form the superego
o Electra Complex
Girl wants mother all to herself
Girl makes startling discovery that some people have penises and she does not
Convinces that she once had a penis and that mother had something to do with the loss
Girl experiences a strong desire to regain a penis – envy leads her to direct her sexual
desires towards dad
Wants to get rid of mom, the penis thief and obstacle to the girls exclusive possession of
dad
Realizes that mother is too big and strong to eliminate –resolves her dilemma by
identifying with mom
Girls superego is formed from mothers believes and values
o Because of the intense anxiety that the Oedipus and Electra complex generates in the child,
most memories of the child’s sexual and aggressive impulses towards mom and dad are
blocked from consciousness through repression
o The sexual and aggressive libido that was attached to mom and dad but had to be withdrawn
as the price of resolving the Oedipus and Electra complex returns to the id
o Most of this libido will be redirected to other objects to objects that resemble mom or dad in
some other way – either in appearance or personality, or in their role in the child’s life through
displacement
Latency Stage – 6 years old to the end of puberty
o A period of relative sexual quiescence
o Libido appears to be channeled into behaviors which are not yet overtly sexual
Genital Stage - Puberty
o The surge of hormones produces a new wave of libido
o The specific direction our sexual interests and urges take depends on where libido was
directed as we passed through he stages of childhood sexuality and what we did with the libido Video Lecture Psych 1X03
that was withdrawn from mom and dad during the resolution of the Oedipus or Electra
complex
Fixation
o Libido is attached to a specific erogenous zone at each stage
o Some excess libido can be left behind at a specific stage
o Eg/ If we fixated at the oral stage – our adulthood will be more heavily oral than usual
Excess libido directed toward eating, smoking or nail-biting
o Eg/ If we fixated at the anal stage
Anal Expulsive – as children, fixated on pleasure from giving up feces – as adults
become messy and disorganized, experiencing pleasure from giving things to others
Anal Retentive – as children, fixated on pleasure from holding onto feces – as adults
become overly neat and orderly, but stingy, stubborn and rigid
After Freud
Anna Freud
o Freud’s youngest daughter
o Expanded on Freud’s work by developing the role of the Ego in more detail
o Endorsed the view that the Ego has a larger role than originally posed by Freud, and that is has
energy of its own
Defense mechanisms – partially developed by Anna, called them Ego defenses
o Application of Freud’s work to children outside of typical settings (such as children in war or in
parentless homes)
Developed a system of diagnosis that allowed therapists to distinguish betwe
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