Freud's Id, Ego and Superego

• Personality refers to the relatively enduring characteristics that differentiate individuals and lead to consistent and predictable behavior across situations and over time
• Personality is defined as enduring patterns of behavior and thought across time and different situations

Four Major Perspectives on Personality

• Psychoanalytic perspective focuses on unconscious motivations
• Trait perspective emphasizes specific dimensions of personality
• Humanistic perspective highlights the inner capacity for growth
• Social-Cognitive perspective considers the influence of the environment

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

• Freud graduated from the University of Vienna in 1873, and then medical school
• Freud specialized in nervous disorders where some patients' disorders had no apparent physical cause

Key Tenets of Freud's Theory

• Much of behavior is caused by unconscious parts of personality
• Freud's 3 levels of awareness/consciousness include:
  • The conscious mind
  • The preconscious mind
  • The unconscious mind
• Psychoanalysis compares the mind to an iceberg, with most of it hidden
• Conscious Awareness: small part above surface (Preconscious)
• Unconscious is below the surface containing thoughts, feelings, wishes, memories
• Repression banishes unacceptable thoughts and passions to the unconscious, manifesting in dreams and slips
• Conscious mind encompasses things that are actively being focused on
• Preconscious mind includes things that are not currently aware of but could be
• Unconscious mind consists of elements that are not aware of

Freud's Theory of Personality

• Personality is composed of the id, the ego, and the superego
• Id: unorganized, inborn part of personality that reduces tensions relating to hunger, sex, aggression, other primitive impulses
• Ego: restrains instinctual energy to maintain safety and help the person be a member of society
• Superego: rights and wrongs of society and the conscience and the ego-ideal

Freud and Personality Structure

• Id: energy constantly striving to satisfy basic drives
• Ego: seeks to gratify the Id in realistic ways
• Super Ego: voice of conscience that focuses on how one ought to behave
• The id uses the most primitive of thinking processes
• The id operates completely at an unconscious level
• No direct contact with reality
• The id operates on the Pleasure Principle
• Id seeks pleasure and avoids pain, expressing "I want what I want NOW!"
• Eros is the life instinct that motivates people to focus on pleasure-seeking tendencies
• Thanatos is the death instinct that motivates people to use aggressive urges to destroy
• Energy for the Id’s instincts comes from the libido, the energy storehouse
• Ego consists of a conscious faculty for perceiving and dealing intelligently with reality
• Ego acts as a mediator between the id and the superego
• The ego is partly conscious and the ego deals with the demands of reality and the ego makes rational decisions
• The rational part of personality maintains contact with reality
• The ego is the executive of the personality that controls higher mental processes like reasoning and problem-solving, and uses the ego to help satisfy the urges of the ID

Superego

• It is the moral part of personality
• Internalized rules of parents and society
• It consists of 2 parts:
  • Conscience with notions of right and wrong
  • Ego Ideal of how we ideally like to be
• Superego constrains us from gratifying every impulse because they are immoral, not because of getting caught
• Superego stands partly conscious and partly unconscious
• Feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are the result of the interaction of the id, the superego, and the ego
• The id, the ego, and the superego are continually in conflict which leads to anxiety
• People would be overwhelmed if the ego did not effectively handle the resulting anxiety
• Ego tries to control anxiety, or reduce anxiety, through the use of ego defense mechanisms
• Defense mechanisms reduce/redirect anxiety by distorting reality

Ego Defense Mechanisms

• A psychological tendency that the ego uses to help prevent people from becoming overwhelmed by any conflict (and resulting anxiety) among the id, the ego, and the superego
• They operate at an unconscious level
• People are not aware of them during the time they are actually used

Common Defense Mechanisms

• Repression: pushing unacceptable and anxiety-producing thoughts into the unconscious; involves intentional forgetting but not consciously done
  • A rape victim cannot recall the details of the attack
• Regression: acting in ways characteristic of earlier life stages/earlier stage of personality
  • Ex: a young adult, anxious on a trip to his parents' home, sits in the corner reading comic books, as he often did in grade school
• Reaction formation: replacing an anxiety-producing feeling with its exact opposite, going overboard
  • Ex: a man who is anxious about his interest in gay men begins dating women several times a week
• Rationalization: creating false but believable excuses to justify inappropriate behavior
  • Ex: a student cheats on an exam, explaining that cheating is legitimate on an unfair examination
• Denial: claiming and believing that something which is actually true is false
  • Ex: a person disbelieves that she is age, asserting that "I am not getting older“
• Displacement: redirecting emotional feelings (e.g., anger) to a substitute target
  • Ex: a husband, angry at the way his boss treated him, screams at his children
• Projection: attributing one's own unacceptable feelings or beliefs to others
  • Ex: an employee at a store, tempted to steal merchandise, suspects that other employees are stealing
• Sublimation: substitute socially acceptable behavior for unacceptable impulses
  • Ex: playing video games instead of getting in a fight

Freud's Stages of Personality Development

• Personality develops through stages associated with major biological functions
• People pass through systematic stages of psychosexual development as they age
• There is a conflict between pleasure and reality at each level
• The resolution of this conflict determines personality
• Fixation can occur at any stage
  • Needs are under-gratified or over-gratified, people become fixated at a particular stage
• Each stage also involves an erogenous zone
  • Parts of the body that involve sexual pleasure
• Personality forms during the first few years of life and stems from unresolved conflicts of early childhood
• Strong conflict can fixate an individual particularly at Stages 1,2 or 3

Psychosexual Stages:

• Oral (0-18 mos): centered on the mouth
• Anal (18-36 mos): focus on bowel/bladder elimination
• Phallic (3-6 yrs): focus on genitals/"Oedipus Complex"
• Latency (6-puberty): sexuality is dormant
• Genital (puberty on): sexual feelings toward others
• Oral stage, the state is the first period, occurring within the first year of life
• Anal stage comes next, lasting from age 1 to age 3
• Phallic stage follows, with interest focusing on the genitals
• Latency period lasts until puberty and the genital stage is a period of mature sexuality

(1) Oral Stage of Development

• Time period: birth to 18 months
• Erogenous zone is through the mouth
  • Gratification through sucking and swallowing
• Oral fixation has two possible outcomes
• Oral receptive personality are
  • Preoccupied with eating/drinking
  • Reduce tension through oral activity like eating, drinking, smoking, and biting nails
  • Passive and needy; sensitive to rejection
• Oral aggressive personality is one who is
  • Hostile and verbally abusive to others

(2) Anal Stage of Development

• Time period: 1 1/2 to 3 years of age
• Erogenous zone is the anus
• Conflict surrounds toilet training
• Anal fixation has two possible outcomes
  • Anal retentive personality are stingy, compulsive orderliness, stubborn, perfectionistic
  • Anal expulsive personality suffers a lack of self-control, has a messy disposition, and is careless

(3) Phallic Stage of Development

• Time period: 3 to 6 years
• Erogenous zone is the genitals: self-stimulation of the genitals produces pleasure
• At age 5 or 6
  • Boys experience the Oedipal conflict
  • Girls experience the Electra conflict
  • Learn to identify with the same gender parent by acting like that that parent
• Child is sexually attracted to the other sex parent and wishes to replace the same sex parent
• Oedipus complex (little boys) is the castration anxiety and has the following key points
• Son believes father knows about his desire for mom
• Fears dad will castrate him
• Represses his desire and defensively identifies with dad
• Electra complex (little girls) is the following key points
• Daughter is initially attached to mom
• Shift occurs when she lacks a penis
• Desire dad for means to obtain a penis (child) -Represses her desire for dad
• Incorporates values of her mother
• Accepts her inherent "inferiority" in society
• Latency period: Little boys and girls socialize only with members of their own gender. Children do this to minimize the awareness of "sexuality."
• 5th stage of psychosexual development and the following important points
  • Develop secondary sexual characteristics (e.g., pubic hair)
  • Physical sexual characteristics "re-awakens" sexual urges
  • Unable to repress sexual desires, impulses, and urges
  • Begin searching for a marital mate, with whom they can share sex and intimacy
• Freud's theories are based on recollections and interpretations of patients' free associations, dreams and slips o' the tongue, does not predict behavior or traits

4 Types of Personality Theories:

• Psychodynamic approaches
• Humanistic approaches
• Trait approaches
• Social Cognitive approaches

(1) Psychodynamic Personality Theories:

• Source of information about personality: from expert analyst from people in therapy
• Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings: unconscious internal conflict is associated with childhood experiences, unconscious conflicts between pleasure-seeking impulses and social restraints
• Outlook on humans: negative
• Comprehensiveness of theory: very comprehensive
• Neo-Freudians place less emphasis on sex

Psychodynamic Theorists:

• Carl Jung contributed:
  • Collective Unconscious.
  • Balance between introversion and extroversion
• Alfred Adler
  • Striving for superiority = motivation to master environment
  • Notion of inferiority complex
• Karen Horney suggested personality is cultural rather than biological

(2) Humanistic Personality Theories:

• Source of information about personality is from self-reports from the general population and people in therapy
• Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings includes: self concepts, self-actualizing tendencies, conscious feelings about oneself (based on one's previous experiences)
• Outlook on humans is positive
• Comprehensiveness of theory: fairly comprehensive

The Humanistic Perspective

• Maslow's Self-Actualizing Person
• Roger's Person-Centered Perspective
• "Healthy" rather than "Sick" Individual as greater than the sum of test scores
• Rejected Freud's pessimistic view of personality, and behaviorist view of personality
• More optimistic/positive about human nature
• Humans:
  • are free and basically good
  • are inner-directed
  • Everyone has the potential for healthy growth
  • Health growth involves self-actualization: "Be all you can be."
  • Given the right environmental conditions we can reach our full potential
• Self-Concept: central feature of personality (+ or -)
• Believe people are basically good with actualizing tendencies
• Given the right environmental conditions, develop full potential
• Genuineness, Acceptance, Empathy are key traits

Humanistic Personality Theories:

• Self-concept: image/perception of ourselves (Real Self versus Ideal Self)
• Need for positive regard/approval from others
• Conditions of worth or conditional positive regard
  • The conditions under which other people will approve of us and the need to change our behavior to obtain approval
  • What is needed is unconditional positive regard
• Maslow's Hierarchy of human motives states to satisfy lower needs before one satisfies higher needs
• Self-actualization is the culmination of a lifetime of inner-directed growth and improvement by:
  • Challenging ourselves to the fullest
• Characteristics of the self-actualized person include being creative, open to new experiences, committed, trusting and caring of others yet not dependent, and courage

(3) Trait Personality Theories:

• Source of information about personality is from observation of behavior and questionnaire responses from the general population as well from people in therapy
• Cause of behavior, thoughts, and feelings is from stable internal characteristics/genetic basic
• Outlook on humans is neutral and their comprehensiveness of theory is not very comprehensive
• Trait approaches identify basic and relatively enduring dimensions along which people differ from one another, known as traits

A number of theorists sought answers of

• How many trait dimensions are there?
• How to measure dimensions?
• Origins of traits?
• Most important personality traits are those that reflect our values
• Allport suggested traits were from cardinal, central and secondary traits

Trait Personality Theories (cont):

Hans Eysenck:

• Introversion versus extroversion (quiet versus sociable)
• Neuroticism versus emotional stability (moody versus calm)
• Cattell’s Trait Theory
  • 3 types are Dynamic Ability and Temperament
• Source Traits are important underlying/Surface Traits less important to personality
• Recently personality theorists been converging to 5 dimensions:
  • Extroversion versus Neuroticism: (calm secure self-satisfied versus anxious insecure and self- pitying)
  • Versus introversion
  • Openness is imaginative -Agreeableness kind and trusting
  • Conscientiousness

Trait Theories of Personality:

• Characteristics or typical ways of acting
  • Explain why individuals behave in certain ways

To assess traits, the aim is to simplify behavior patterns, through:

• Characteristics with consistency across situations, over time
• Distinctiveness by unique personality
• Explanation of behavior
• Addressing how many traits there are with no consensus

Personality inventories include:

• MMPI most widely used and assesses psychological disorders
• Behavior is not consistent across time/situation arguing against"personality"(Walter Mischel)
• Behavior is influenced more by the situation than any internal "trait"
• Both internal traits and the situation are responsible

(4) Social-Cognitive (Learning) Approaches to Personality Theories

• Source of information Obtained from experiments, observations of behavior, and questionnaire responses
• Cause of behavior influenced between people and environmental situations, colored by perceptions of control
• Outlook is neither+ or -
• Learned through conditioning and observation
• Affect behavior through thinking through environment
• Bandura: learning in personality, how does the environment shape? Classical/operant conditioning
• The individual and the environment influence
• External Locus of Control: Fate and powers destiny: People must feel controls with their own destiny, but luck plays role

How do we measure personality?

• assessment involves techniques for gathering information about a person to predict behavior.
• Goal of personality assessment: reliable, valid measures of individual differences that will permit the accurate