56.1 – Identify which of Freud’s ideas were accepted or rejected by his followers .

2. 56.1 – Identify which of Freud’s ideas were accepted or rejected by his followers. The Neo-Freudians • Neo-Freudians were followers of Freud who taught and delivered his theories and ideas. However, over time these neo-Freudians started to move away from some of Freud’s ideas to develop their own theories of personality.

3. 56.1 – Identify which of Freud’s ideas were accepted or rejected by his followers. The Neo-Freudians 1) Alfred Adler Adler believed that people have an innate desire to overcome inferiorities experienced in childhood. These inferiority complexes stem from our reliance on others (primarily parents) in caring for us when we’re young. This leads to a desire to strive for superiority throughout life by compensating for childhood inferiorities. People try to achieve superiority in unique ways that account for personality similarities and differences.

4. 56.1 – Identify which of Freud’s ideas were accepted or rejected by his followers. The Neo-Freudians 2) Karen Horney • Karen Horney, the first feminist personality researchers, attacked Freud’s claim that women have penis envy. She did not agree that penis envy could cause females to become jealous and develop feelings of inferiority toward males. Instead, Horney felt that social restraints were responsible for women’s feeling inferior to men. She added that men actually fell inferior to women because women have the ability to bear children, which she referred to a “womb envy”. Horney also believed that conflicts within social relationships could lead to anxiety that would affect personality. She thought these conflicts could cause anxiety that would disrupt the functioning of personality. She added that people respond to such anxiety by displaying defensive personality styles. She identified these styles as moving toward, moving against, and moving away from these anxieties. Individuals with a strong desire for control are described as moving against, while people who place importance on independence are described as moving away.

5. 56.1 – Identify which of Freud’s ideas were accepted or rejected by his followers. The Neo-Freudians 3) Carl Jung • Carl Jung disagreed with Freud primarily on the role of the libido. He believed that the libido was not just a driving sexual interest, but a life force that brings about human growth and conflict resolution. He also did not agree with the distinct personality stages, but thought each person should be viewed as either an introvert, someone who prefers privacy and ponders his or her own actions and thinking, or an extrovert, someone who received energy through being active and part of the outside social world. The variation of introversion and extraversion, in Jung’s viewpoint, leads to personality similarities and differences. Jung also believed in a collective unconscious, a collection of past experiences shared by all people that are inherited from ancestors and passed from generation to generation. Jung believed that the collective unconscious contains archetypes, which are generational symbols of perpetual themes and symbols. For example, snakes are an archetype of evil, appearing in literature and art across time and place. Past experiences and archetypes unconsciously influence present decisions and behavior.

6. 56.2 – Describe projective tests and how they are used, and discuss some criticisms of them. • Personality researchers will often use personality tests to gather information. These tests tend to be a better assessment tool that interviews, in which subjects often distort their answers in the presence of a researcher. In addition, interviews can be time-consuming and expensive. Personality tests are standardized, which improves validity, and are easy to administer and score, which save time. Personality tests are either objective or subjective.

7. 56.2 – Describe projective tests and how they are used, and discuss some criticisms of them. 1) Objective Test • Format: multiple-choice, true-false • Advantage: Questions can be machine scored; saves time and money; ensures reliability. A score for each test can be interpreted by the test-giver, providing a label that people can understand. • Disadvantage: People can fake responses to answer in a way that is influenced by how they think they should answer. Some people may rush through the questions without considering each alternative. People may not understand the questions, or may feel the answers don’t describe them. There may be cultural bias is questions and answers are universal and not culturally specific. • Example: NEO-PI: measures the big-five personality traits; MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory): the most widely used personality test, 500 true-false questions, originally designed to measure mental health and detect psychological problems.

8. 56.2 – Describe projective tests and how they are used, and discuss some criticisms of them. 2) Projective Test • Format: Unstructured stimuli that are subjectively scored, based on personal interpretation. • Advantage: The psychodynamic approach uses projective personality tests because vague stimuli tend to reveal contents of the unconscious. Researchers believe that the ambiguity of vague stimuli make it hard for a person to hide true responses because the individual does not know what the researcher is asking. • Disadvantage: Researcher’s subjective interpretation may not describe the individual taking the test. Tests are not reliable because an individual taking the test may interpret pictures or images differently from one viewing to the next. • Example: Thematic Apperception Test (TAT): developed by Henry Murray and Christina Morgan, uses picture scenes to measure a person’s need for achievement. Rorschach Ink-Blot Test: developed by Hermann Rorschach, instructs a person to respond to what he or she sees in various inkblots.

9. 56.3 – Describe the modern view of the unconscious. Modern Research on the Unconscious • Current research confirms the importance of the unconscious (parallel processing). • Research also suggests that we do tend to project our beliefs and behaviors onto others through the false consensus effect – the tendency to overestimate the extent to which others share our beliefs and behaviors.