Psychology 1000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Psychodynamics, Personal Unconscious, Maladjusted
10 Dec 2019
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Chapter 14: Personality
What is personality?
Personality exists on the observation that people behave somewhat consistently over time and
across different situations
- Personality traits that characterize how we respond to things that go on in our lives
- Consistency becomes greater as we enter into adulthood, personality traits among adults
remain constant
- Even in adulthood, we have a capacity to make meaningful personality changes
Personality: Distinctive and relatively enduring ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that
characterize a person’s responses to life situations
Three characteristics that reflect personality
1. Seen as components of identity that distinguish that person from other people
2. Behaviours are viewed as being caused by internal rather than environmental factors
3. Persons behaviours seem to fit together in meaningful fashions, suggesting there is an
inner personality that guides and directs behavior
In short: Components of identity, perceived internal cause, perceived organization and structure
Study of personality guided by: psychodynamic, humanistic, biological, cognitive, socio-cultural
perspectives
- Provide different conceptions of what it is and how it functions
Theory: Scientifically used to the extent that it
1. Provides a comprehensive framework within which known facts can be incorporated
2. Allows us to predict future events with some precision
3. Stimulates the discovery of new knowledge
Theories:
The Psychodynamic Perspective:
Psychodynamic theorists look for causes of behaviour from inner forces that conflict with one
another and different unconscious determinants of behaviour.
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
- Charcot was treating patients who suffered from conversion hysteria: physical symptoms
such as paralysis and blindness appeared suddenly and with no apparent physical cause
o Freud convinced Charcot that their symptoms were related to painful memories
and feelings that have been repressed (pushed out of awareness)
o When his patients were able to re-experience these traumatic memories, which
were often sexual or aggressive, their physical symptoms often disappeared or
improved
▪ These observations convinced Freud that an unconscious part of the mind
greatly influences behaviour
▪ Experimented with various techniques including hypnoses and free
association (saying whatever comes to mind no matter how embarrassing)
and dream analysis: Interpretation of Dreams: Freud’s published book
1990
- Over time, psychoanalysis became a theory of personality, an approach to studying the
mind, and a method for treating psychological disorders
- Freud considered personality to be an energy, somewhat like the steam engines of his day
Psychic Energy and Mental Events
- Instinctive drives generate psychic energy
o Generated by instinctual drives, this energy powers the mind and constantly
presses for either direct or indirect release
o Ex. 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
o Conscious: Mental events we are presently aware of
o Preconscious: memories, thoughts, feelings, and images that we are unaware of in
the moment but that can be called into conscious awareness
▪ Memories of your 16th birthday reside in preconscious, if that birthday is
mentioned it will trigger you to think about it and It will move from your
preconscious to your conscious mind
o Freud believed that preconscious and conscious are dwarfed in size and
importance by the unconscious mind, a dynamic realm of wishes, feelings, and
impulses that lies beyond our awareness
▪ Only when impulses from the unconscious are discharged some way, such
as in dreams, slips of tongue, or some disguised behaviour, does the
conscious reveal itself
The Structure of Personality
- Freud divides personality into 3 different but interacting structures: Id, ego, superego
o Id: exists within the unconscious mind - instincts
▪ Innermost core of personality, only structure present at birth, source of all
psychic energy
▪ No direct contact with reality and functions in an irrational manner
▪ Operates according to the pleasure principle: it seeks immediate
gratification or release, regardless of rational consideration and
environmental reality
▪ Id cannot directly satisfy itself by obtaining what it needs because it has
no contact with outer world, therefore a new structure develops that has
direct contact with reality
o Ego: functions at conscious level
▪ operates according to reality principle: tests reality to decide when and
under what conditions the id can safely discharge its impulses and satisfy
its needs
o Superego: acts as moral arm of personality
▪ Developed by age 4 or 5, repository for the values and ideals of society
▪ Ideals are internalized by child through identification with his or her
parents: training about what is right and what is wrong
▪ Self-control takes over from external controls of awards and punishments
▪ Like ego, superego strives to control instincts of the id, particularly with
sexual and aggressive impulses that are condemned by society
• Ego tries to delay gratification until conditions are safe and
appropriate
• Superego tries to block gratification permanently in quest for
perfection
▪ For superego, moralistic goals take precedence over realistic ones,
regardless of cost to individual, superego may cause someone to
experience intense guilt sexual activity even within marriage because it is
internalized that sex is dirty
o With the development of the superego, the ego is in the eye of a “psychic storm”,
it must achieve a compromise between demands of id and constraints of superego,
and reality. This balance act has given ego the title of “executive of the
personality”
Conflict, Anxiety, and Defence
- Dynamics of personality involve a struggle between id trying to discharge instincts and
the opposing forced generated by ego and superego. When ego confronts impulses that
threaten to get out of control, it results in anxiety
o Like physical pain, anxiety serves as a danger signal and motivates the ego to deal
with the problem at hand
o Anxiety can be reduced with coping behaviours
o Defense mechanisms: deny or distort reality
▪ Permit the release of impulses from the id in disguised forms that will not
conflict with the limits imposed by external world or with the prohibition
of superego
- Defense Mechanisms
1. Repression: An active defensive process through which anxiety arousing impulses or
memories are pushed into the unconscious mind. Ex. A person who is sexually
abused in childhood develops amnesia for the event
2. Denial: A person refuses to acknowledge anxiety arousing aspects of enviro. Denial
may involve emotions connected with event, or event. Ex. A man who is told he has
cancer refuses to consider the possibility that he will not recover
3. Displacement: An acceptable or dangerous impulse is repressed, and then directed at
a safer substitute target. Ex. A man who is harassed by his boss experiences no anger
at work, and then goes home and abuses his wife and kids
4. Intellectualization: Emotion connected with upsetting event is repressed, and the
situation is dealt with as an intellectually interesting event. Ex. A person who has
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