PSYC 2740 Chapter Notes - Chapter 10: Elizabeth Loftus, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud
26 Feb 2017
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February 25th, 16
Personality Psych
Chapter 10
Psychoanalytic Approaches: Contemporary Issues
The Neo-Analytic Movement
• Psychoanalysis today → best thought of as a theory containing ideas
variously inspired by Sigmund Freud but modified and advanced by others
• Westen → one of the most active proponents of contemporary
psychoanalysis:
o Contemporary psychoanalysts focus their attention on childhood
relationships and adult conflicts with others, such as difficulties
becoming intimate or readily becoming intimate with the wrong
kinds of persons
o Defines contemporary psychoanalysis as being based on the
following five postulates:
1. The unconscious still plays a large role in life, although it may
not be the influence that Freud held it was
2. Behaviour often reflects compromises in conflicts among
mental processes, such as emotions, motivations and thoughts
3. Childhood plays an important part in personality
development, particularly in terms of shaping adult
relationship styles
4. Mental representations of the self and relationships guide our
interactions with others
5. Personality development involves not just regulating sexual
and aggressive feelings but also moving from an immature,
socially dependent way of relating to others to a mature,
independent relationship style
• This neo-analytic viewpoint has better empirical support. in some cases, than
Freud’s original ideas
Repression and Contemporary Research on Memory
• Elizabeth Loftus:
o False memories: memories that have been implanted for events
that did NOT occur)
o )mportant to identify the processes that can lead to a false memory…
o Suggests that many variables contribute to the construction of false
memories:
▪ Popular press and media
▪ If subjects are questioned in a leading manner → can be led to
false memories
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
▪ Behaviour of some therapists:
• Hypnosis
o Technique used to get patients to recall freely
childhood experiences within the protection of a
relaxed, suggestion-induced, trancelike state
o BUT literature shows that hypnosis does not
improve memory
o May be associated with increased distortions in
memory
o Under hypnosis → people are often more
imaginative, more spontaneous, and more
emotional, and often report unusual bodily
sensations
• Loftus and colleagues → pointed to specific techniques
in psychotherapy that can contribute to the creation of
false memories:
o Hypnosis
o Suggestive interviewing
o Interpretation of symptoms as signs of past
trauma
o Pressure from an authority figure to recall
trauma
o Dream interpretation
▪ Such practices can be used to foster the
recollection of events that did not actually
happen
o Imagination inflation effect: occurs when a
memory is elaborated upon through imagination
→ leading the person to confuse the imagined
event with events that actually happened
▪ Having a person imagine something, even
its unusual, can lead them to have a false
confidence that it actually may have
happened
o Confirmation bias: tendency to look only for
evidence that confirms and to not look for
evidence that might disconfirm their belief
▪ Therapists can also suffer from this
▪ Ex. if therapist believes that childhood
trauma is the cause of most adult
problems → will most likely probe for
memories of childhood trauma
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Contemporary Views on the Unconscious
• Idea of a motivated unconscious is at the core of classical psychoanalytic
theory
• Most contemporary psychologists also believe in the unconscious →
although it is a different version of the unconscious than that found in
classical psychoanalytic theory
• Most psychologists believe that the unconscious can influence our behaviour
→ BUT not all agree with Freud that the unconscious can have its own
autonomous motivation
o Two differing views on the unconscious:
▪ Motivated Unconscious Freud’s view VS.
▪ Cognitive Unconscious
• Unconscious operated like consciousness
• Information can get into our memories without our ever
being aware of the information
• Subliminal perception phenomenon:
o Some information – such as the phrase Buy a
Coke is flashed on a screen so quickly that you
don’t recognize the actual words
o BUT if you were asked to judge whether a string
of letters is a word or not → you would judge
coke as a word faster than words unrelated to
coke or soft drinks in general
▪ SO… subliminal information primes
associated material in memory
▪ Priming: makes the associated material
more accessible to conscious awareness
than is material that is not primed
• Shows that info can get into the
mind and have some influence
without going through conscious
experience
• Subliminal perception research suggests that
unconscious information does not influence people’s
motivations
• Content of the unconscious mind assumed to operate
just like thoughts in consciousness
o Thoughts are unconscious because they are not
in conscious awareness → not because they have
been repressed or because they represent
unacceptable urges or wishes
• Contemporary psychology → unconscious is peaceful,
gentle, and much more rational than Freud’s version
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Repression and contemporary research on memory: elizabeth loftus, this neo-analytic viewpoint has better empirical support. in some cases, than. But not all agree with freud that the unconscious can have its own autonomous motivation: two differing views on the unconscious, motivated unconscious (cid:523)freud"s view(cid:524) vs, cognitive unconscious, unconscious operated like consciousness. Information can get into our memories without our ever being aware of the information: subliminal perception phenomenon, but if you were asked to judge whether a string, some information such as the phrase (cid:498)buy a. Identity: inner sense of who we are, of what makes us unique, and a sense of continuity over time and a feeling of wholeness. Erikson"s eight stages of development: freud claimed personalities were formed by around age 5, erikson disagreed and felt that important period of development occurred. Erikson"s last stage and achieve integrity: if a person is satisfied with life as a whole he/she can approach the ending of life with integrity.
