Theories of Personality: Freud's Stages

Theories of Personality

• Personality constitutes unique patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that define an individual
• Psychologists employ various theories to explain personality development and influence

Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud)

• Freud posited that personality is shaped by unconscious desires and childhood experiences

Key Concepts

• The psyche consists of :
  • Id: Seeks pleasure and gratification of instinctual desires
  • Ego: Acts as a realistic decision-maker
  • Superego: Embodies the moral conscience
• Psychosexual Stages: Five stages (Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, Genital); unresolved stages potentially lead to personality issues

Psychosexual Stages

• Oral Stage (0-1 year)
  • Focus is on the mouth
  • Key Characteristics: Infant's pleasure centers around oral activities like sucking, chewing, and biting
  • Example: Babies derive pleasure from breastfeeding and explore the world by putting objects in their mouths
  • Unresolved issues may result in oral fixations like smoking or overeating
• Anal Stage (1-3 years)
  • Focus is on the anus
  • Key Characteristics: Pleasure comes from controlling bodily functions, especially toilet training
  • Example: Satisfaction or frustration during toilet training might lead to anal-retentive (organized, stubborn) or anal-expulsive (messy, rebellious) behaviors later in life
• Phallic Stage (3-6 years)
  • Focus is on the genitals
  • Key Characteristics: Introduction of the Oedipus complex (boys) and Electra complex (girls)
  • Children become aware of their bodies
  • Develop attachments to the opposite-sex parent, with feelings of jealousy or rivalry toward the same-sex parent
  • Example: Boys may prefer mother and compete with father (castration anxiety); girls desire father and compete with mother
  • Unresolved conflicts manifest as guilt, anxiety, or relationship difficulties in adulthood
• Latency Stage (6 to puberty)
  • Focus is on dormant sexual feelings
  • Key Characteristics: Sexual feelings are dormant
  • Children focus on social and intellectual skills, same-sex friendships
  • Gender roles are more distinct at this stage
  • Example: Children form strong friendships with same-sex peers and engage in hobbies or schoolwork
  • Sexual tensions are less pronounced during this peaceful period
• Genital Stage (puberty onward)
  • Focus is on the genitals with mature sexual interests
  • Key Characteristics: Mature sexual interests emerge
  • Adolescents seek emotional and physical relationships, balance love and work for healthy sexual identity
  • Example: Teenagers form romantic relationships, seeking intimacy and mature identity
  • Earlier conflicts impact the ability to form healthy relationships
  • Successful navigation results in healthy intimate relationships and sexual maturity

Defense Mechanisms

• Ways the mind protects itself from anxiety (e.g., repression, denial, displacement)
• Unconscious psychological responses
• Provide protection from anxiety, threats to self-esteem, and unwanted thoughts

Defense Mechanisms - Term and Definition

• Displacement:
  • Taking feelings out on others
  • Taking anger out on spouse instead of the boss
• Denial:
  • Denying something exists
  • Being a victim of a violent crime, yet denying the incident occurred

Repression

• Unconsciously keeping unpleasant information from your conscious mind
• Being abused as a child but not remembering the abuse

Suppression

• Consciously keeping unpleasant information from your conscious mind
• Choosing to push out of mind, being abused as a child

Sublimation

• Converting unacceptable impulses into more acceptable outlets.
• Going for a walk to avoid fighting with your spouse, when upset.

Projection

• Assigning your own unacceptable feelings or qualities to others
• A parent projecting unfulfilled ambitions onto their child, despite feeling attracted to someone else

Intellectualization

• Reasoning is used to block confrontation with an unconscious conflict and its stress
• Thinking is used to avoid feeling
• Emotionally removing oneself from a stressful event

Rationalization

• Justifying an unacceptable feeling or behavior with logic
• Explaining why attending a less competitive school makes you happy, if you are rejected from a top college.

Regression

• Reverting to earlier behaviors
• Hugging a teddy bear when you are stressed
• An overwhelmed child may revert to bedwetting or thumb-sucking

Reaction Formation

• Replacing an unwanted impulse with its opposite
• Acting happy about breakup

Strengths of the Defense Mechanism Concept

• Helps Explain Coping and Behavior
• Recognized in Modern Psychology
• Supports Emotional Regulation
• Useful in Therapy and Personal Growth
• Broad Application

Limitations of the Defense Mechanism Concept

• Lack of Scientific Measurement
• Overemphasis on the Unconscious Mind
• Vague and Overlapping Definitions
• Can Encourage Avoidance Rather Than Resolution
• Culturally and Historically Biased

Psychosocial Theory (Erik Erikson)

• Erikson expanded on Freud's ideas
• Proposed that personality develops through social interactions and life challenges in eight stages

Key Stages

• Trust vs. Mistrust (0-1 year) (Infancy)
  • Learning to trust caregivers
  • Babies learn to trust or mistrust the world based on how their needs are met
  • Example: Regular feeding and comfort leads a baby to trust caregivers
• Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (1-3 years) (Early Childhood)
  • Developing independence and confidence
  • Children begin developing independence and confidence or feel doubt about their abilities
  • Ex: A toddler learning to dress feels proud (autonomy), but constant criticism may cause shame and doubt
• Initiative vs. Guilt (3-6 years) (Preschool Age)
  • Learning to take initiative and make decisions
  • Children take initiative in activities
  • Too much restriction may cause guilt
  • Ex: A child pretending to be a teacher develops confidence. Scolding leads to guilt
• Industry vs. Inferiority (6-12 years) (School Age)
  • Building skills and feeling competent
  • Children develop competence through learning
  • Ex: Praise results in being confident, but being told you’re inadequate could causes someone to feel inferior and not good enough
• Identity vs. Role Confusion (12-18 years) (Adolescence)
  • Developing a personal identity
  • Teenagers explore their identity in society
  • Ex: Confidence comes from developing an identity, but it can lead to not being sure and confused
• Intimacy vs. Isolation (18-40 years) (Young Adulthood)
  • Forming deep relationships
  • Those that have close relationships can experience intimacy, while deep connections may lead to feeling isolated
• Generativity vs. Stagnation (40-65 years) (Middle Adulthood)
  • Contributing to society and helping others
  • Ex: Mentoring others, such as raising kids can lead to generosity, but it may lead to someone feel like they haven’t made a difference
• Integrity vs. Despair (65+ years) (Old Age)
• You either reflect on life with satisfaction or regret
• Ex: Achievement creates integrity, but it can lead to feeling despair
• People reflect on their lives and either feel a sense of fulfillment or regret

Stage & Basic Conflict

• Infancy
• Basic Conflict: Trust vs. mistrust
• Virtue: Hope
• Early Childhood
• Basic Conflict: Autonomy vs. shame/doubt
• Virtue: Will
• Play age
• Basic Conflict: Initiative vs. guilt
• Virtue: Purpose
• School age
• Basic Conflict: Industry vs. inferiority
• Virtue: Competence
• Adolescence
• Basic Conflict: Identity vs. confusion
• Virtue: Fidelity
• Early adulthood
• Basic Conflict: Intimacy vs. isolation
• Virtue: Love
• Middle age
• Basic Conflict: Generativity vs. stagnation
• Virtue: Care
• Old age
• Basic Conflict: Integrity vs. despair
• Virtue: Wisdom

Behavioral Theory

• Personality is shaped by environment and experiences rather than internal traits

Key Concepts

• Operant Conditioning
  • Learning through rewards and punishments (Skinner)
• Classical Conditioning
  • Associating two stimuli (Pavlov’s dog experiment)
• Reinforcement & Punishment
  • Encouraging or discouraging behaviors

Definition of Personality and The Different Factors in Understanding Personality

• The word “personality" stems from persona
  • Refers to theatrical mask worn by performers to play roles or disguise their identities
• Personality describes unique patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that distinguish a person from others
  • Product of biology and environment, and remains fairly consistent throughout life
• Examples of personality
  • "She is generous, caring, and a bit of a perfectionist," or "They are loyal and protective of their friends"

Traits and patterns of thought and emotion play important roles, and so do these fundamental characteristics of personality

• Consistency
• Recognizable order and regularity to behaviors
• People generally act in the same way or in similar ways in a variety of situations
• Both psychological and physiological
• Personality is a psychological construct
• Influenced by biological processes and needs
• Affects behaviors and actions
• Personality influences how we move and respond in our environment and causes us to act in certain ways
• Multiple expressions
• Personality is displayed in behavior
• Displayed in our thoughts, feelings, close relationships, and other social interactions

How Personality Develops

• Theories describe personality
• Others focus more on how personality develops

Personality Types

• Type theories include limited personality types related to biological influences
• Type A: Perfectionist, impatient, competitive, work-obsessed, achievement-oriented, aggressive, stressed
• Type B: Low stress, even-tempered, flexible, creative, adaptable to change, patient, tendency to procrastinate
• Type C: Highly conscientious, perfectionist, struggles to reveal emotions (positive and negative)
• Type D: Worrying, sad, irritable, pessimistic, negative self-talk, avoidance of social situations, lack of self-confidence, fear of rejection, appears gloomy, hopeless

There are other theories around Myers-Briggs

• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator identifies a personality
  • Based on four continuums: introversion-extraversion, sensing-intuition, thinking-feeling, and judging-perceiving
• ISTJ: Introverted, sensing, thinking, and judging
  • People with this personality type are logical and organized and judgmental
• INFP: Introverted, intuitive, feeling, and perceiving.
  • They tend to be idealists and sensitive to their feelings
• ESTJ: Extroverted, sensing, thinking, and judging
  • They tend to be assertive and concerned with following the rules
• ENFJ: Extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging
  • Known as "givers" for being warm and loyal and may be overprotective

Personality Tests

• Besides the MBTI, there are:
• Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
• HEXACO Personality Inventory Caddell's 16PF
• Personality Questionnaire
• Enneagram Typology

Trait theories

• Tend to view personality as genetically based and include
• Agreeable: Cares about others, feels empathy, enjoys helping others
• Conscientiousness: High levels of thoughtfulness, good impulse control, goal-directed behaviors
• Eager-to-please: Accommodating, passive, and conforming
• Extraversion: Excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional expressiveness
• Introversion: Quiet, reserved
• Neuroticism: Experiences stress and dramatic shifts in mood, feels anxious, worries about different things, gets upset easily, struggles to bounce back after stressful events
• Openness: Very creative, open to trying new things, focuses on tackling new challenges

Psychodynamic Theories

• Influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud
• Emphasize the influence of the unconscious mind on personality
• Include Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual stage theory and Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development

Behavioral Theories

• Suggests that personality is a result of interaction between the individual and the environment
• Theorists study observable and measurable

Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology

• Jung focused on the mind, archetypes, individuation, and the collective
• Unconscious as components of personality development and human experience

The Structure of the Psyche

• A. The Conscious Mind

  • The Ego: where our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions come from
  • A musician performing on stage is fully aware of their surroundings

• B. The Personal Unconscious

  • Contains the memories and experiences unique to each individual
  • Influences the unaware behavior and personality of who you are, and what you do
  • Someone who was bullied may begin feeling anxious and avoiding people, even without knowing why

• C. The Collective Unconscious

  • Inherited psychological structures shared by everyone
  • Explains why people across cultures share thoughts, emotions, and behaviors
    • Many people naturally fear dark places, or even things like snakes

Main Archetypes

• A. The Self – Your True Identity
  • Is a version of you, including conscious and hidden parts
• Life’s goal is to balance all these parts

Archetypes

• The Wise Old Man / Woman
• Symbolizes wisdom, guidance, and mentorship.
• The Trickster
• Represents chaos, deception, and breaking rules
• The Lover
  • Seeks intimacy and connection, fearing loneliness or rejection
• The Creator
  • Strives to create enduring value, fearing mediocrity
• The Jester
• Embraces joy and humor, fearing boredom or boring others
• The Sage
• Driven by a quest for truth, fearing being misled or ignorant
• The Magician
• Aims to make dreams come true, fearing unintended neg consequnces
• The Ruler
• Desires control and prosperity, fearing chaos or being overthrown
• Strategy involves exercising power and leadership, though may struggle with authoritarianism

Individuation

• Process of integrating different aspects of the psyche into a balanced whole
  • Requires confronting the Shadow, integrating the Anima/Animus, and embracing the Self
  • Reorientation and Reeducation
    • Encouraging behavior change and social interest

Psychological Types (Introversion Vs Extraversion)

• Jung introduced the concepts of introverts and extroverts
  • Extroverts thrive in social settings, focus outwards on people
  • Introverts focus inward on thoughts & tend to prefer solitude

Jung’s Four Psychological Functions

• Rational types are thinking and feeling functions

Key Techniques in Adlerian Therapy

• Aims to help clients understand their lifestyle, identify mistaken beliefs, and develop social interest. 1. Early Recollections Analysis. 2. Lifestyle assessment. 3. Build encouragement and motivation. 4. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones. 5. Apply new ways through role play. 6. Analyze impact from family 7 is to build trust Adler identified three types of maladaptive behavior

1. Maniplation
2. Escape
3. Excessive relaince/Validation