Understanding Personality Theory: Exploring the Mind and Behavior

1. Personality • An individual’s unique and relatively consistent patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving • Personality Theories - Attempt to describe and explain how people are similar, how they are different, and why every individual is unique

2. Issues in Personality Theory • Free Will or Determinism: • Are we free to choose our own fate or victims of biological factors, unconscious forces or external stimuli? • Nature or Nurture: • Is our personality inherited or shaped by the environment? • Past, Present, or Future: • When does personality development occur? • Is personality influenced by past or present experiences or by future goals? • Uniqueness or Universality: • Is each personality of each person unique or are there personality patterns that can apply to many people? • Equilibrium or Growth: • Are we primarily tension-reducing, pleasure-seeking animals or does the need for growth motivate us? • Optimism or Pessimism: • Are human beings essentially good or evil?

3. Personality Perspectives • Psychoanalytic—importance of unconscious processes and childhood experiences • Humanistic—importance of self and fulfillment of potential • Social cognitive—importance of beliefs about self • Trait—description and measurement of personality differences

4. Psychoanalytic Theory Personality According to Sigmund Freud

5. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) • Founder of psychoanalysis • Proposed the first complete theory of personality • A person’s thoughts and behaviors emerge from tension generated by unconscious motives and unresolved childhood conflicts. • Theory reflected the Victorian era of male dominance & sexual repression. Learn more about Freud at: www.freud.org.uk www.lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/freud

6. Psychoanalysis as a Therapy • A therapeutic technique that attempts to provide insight into one’s thoughts and actions • Does so by exposing and interpreting the underlying unconscious motives and conflicts

7. Freud’s View of the Mind

8. Freud’s Concept of the Mind • Most of the mind is hidden • 3 parts to the mind • 3 Parts to Personality

9. Unconscious Mind • A region of the mind that includes unacceptable anxiety causing thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories • Not aware of these thoughts, wishes, etc… but they exert great influence over our conscious thoughts & behavior.

10. Free Association • Freudian technique of exploring the unconscious mind by having the person relax and say whatever comes to mind no matter how trivial or embarrassing • Hypnosis – Relaxing a person into a highly suggestive state to uncover unconscious memories or conflicts Freud’s Couch

11. Unconscious Mind Reveals Itself • DREAMS - “The royal road to the unconsciousness” • Behind the surface image (manifest content) lies the true hidden meaning (latent content). • FREUDIAN SLIP: • “Slips of the tongue” where unconscious desires sneak out in our speaking.

12. Preconscious Mind • A region of the mind holding information that is not conscious but is easily retrievable into conscious awareness • Temporarily holds thoughts and memories not in one’s current awareness but can easily be retrieved (childhood memories, phone number)

13. Conscious Mind • All the thoughts, feelings, and sensations that you are aware of at this particular moment represent the conscious level

14. FREUD’S ICEBERG MODEL OF THE MIND

15. Freud’s Personality Structure:The Id, Ego, & Superego

16. Psychoanalytic Divisions of the Mind • Id—instinctual drives present at birth • does not distinguish between reality and fantasy • operates according to the pleasure principle • Ego—develops out of the id in infancy • understands reality and logic • mediator between id and superego • Superego • internalization of society’s & parental moral standards • One’s conscience; focuses on what the person “should” do • Develops around ages 5-6. • Partially unconscious • Can be harshly punitive using feelings of guilt

17. Freud’s Concept of the “Id” • The part of personality that consists of unconscious energy from basic aggressive and sexual drives • Operates on the “pleasure principle” - the id demands immediate gratification • Is present from birth

18. Id: The Pleasure Principle • Pleasure principle—drive toward immediate gratification, most fundamental human motive • Sources of energy • Eros—life instinct, perpetuates life • Libido—sexual energy or motivation • Thanatos—death instinct, aggression, self-destructive actions

19. Superego • The Shoulds & Should Nots of Society • Your Conscience • Moralistic, judgmental, Perfectionist dimension of personality

20. Freud’s Concept of the “Ego” • The part of personality that mediates the demands of the id without going against the restraints of the superego • Rational, organized, logical, mediator to demands of reality • Reality principle—ability to postpone gratification in accordance with demands of reality/society • Can repress desires that cannot be met in an acceptable manner

21. The Personality Id: “I want” Superego: “I should” Ego: “I will”

22. How Do These Characters Demonstrate the 3 Parts of Freud’s Personality Theory?

23. Rational, planful, mediating dimension of personality Information in your immediate awareness Conscious Ego Superego Preconscious Information which can easily be made conscious Moralistic, judgmental, perfectionist dimension of personality Unconscious Id Thoughts, feelings, urges, and other information that is difficult to bring to conscious awareness Irrational, illogical, impulsive dimension of personality Psychoanalytic Approach Conscious Ego Superego

24. Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

25. Psychosexual Stages In Freudian theory, the childhood stages of development during which the id’s pleasure seeking energies are focused on different parts of the body The stages include: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital A person can become “fixated” or stuck at a stage and as an adult attempt to achieve pleasure as in ways that are equivalent to how it was achieved in these stages

26. Oral Stage (birth – 18 mo.) Mouth is associated with sexual pleasure Pleasure comes from chewing, biting, and sucking. Weaning a child can lead to fixation if not handled correctly Fixation can lead to oral activities in adulthood (smoking, chewing on nails)

27. Freud’s Stages of Development

28. Anal Stage (1 – 3 years) Gratification comes from bowel and bladders functions. Toilet training can lead to fixation if not handled correctly Fixation can lead to anal retentive or expulsive behaviors in adulthood

29. Freud’s Stages of Development

30. Phallic Stage (3 – 6 years) Focus of pleasure shifts to the genitals Sexual attraction for opposite sex parent Boys cope with incestuous feelings toward their mother and rival feelings toward their dad (Oedipus Complex). For girls it is called the Electra Complex. • Child identifies with and tries to mimic the same sex parent to learn gender identity.

31. Oedipus Complex Castration Anxiety results in boys who feel their father will punish them by castrating them. Resolve this through Identification – imitating and internalizing one’s father’s values, attitudes and mannerisms. (Formation of gender identity & superego) The fact that only the father can have sexual relations with the mother becomes internalized in the boy as taboo against incest in the boy’s superego. • Boys feel hostility and jealousy towards their fathers but knows their father is more powerful. This leads to…

32. Electra Complex Girls also have incestuous feelings for their dad and compete with their mother. Penis Envy – Little girl suffer from deprivation and loss and blames her mother for “sending her into the world insufficiently equipped” causing her to resent her mother In an attempt to take her mother’s place she eventually indentifies with her mother Fixation can lead to excessive masculinity in males and the need for attention or domination in females

33. Freud’s Stages of Development

34. Latency Stage (5 – puberty) Sexuality is repressed (Latent means “hidden”) due to intense anxiety caused by Oedipus complex Children participate in hobbies, school, and same-sex friendships that strengthen their sexual identity

35. Freud’s Stages of Development

36. Genital Stage (puberty on) Incestuous sexual feelings re-emerge but being prohibited by the superego are redirected toward others who resemble the person’s opposite sex parent. Healthy adults find pleasure in love and work, fixated adults have their energy tied up in earlier stages

37. Freud’s Stages of Development

38. Defense Mechanisms Unconscious Self-Deceptions or Illusions

39. Defense Mechanisms Unconscious mental processes Used by the Ego Reduce anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality You are never aware your mind is doing a defense mechanism. If you were aware, they wouldn’t reduce anxiety!

40. Repression Pushes anxiety-producing thoughts, feelings, and memories into the unconscious mind Unconscious forgetting The basis for all other defense mechanisms

42. Denial Rejecting the truth of a painful reality.

44. Regression Going back to a safer, simpler way of being. Assuming childlike behaviors when facing stress or trauma

46. Reaction Formation Replacing an unacceptable wish with its opposite Behaving in ways that are exactly opposite of how we truly feel.

48. Projection Attributing something that we don’t like about ourselves to someone else. Blame other people or things for our own failings

50. Displacement Shifts an unacceptable impulse toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person “Taking out” an emotion on a safe or more accessible target than the actual source of the emotion.