Personality Theory

1. Personality Theory Chapter 5: The Neo-Freudians: Alfred Adler

2. The Trouble with Psychoanalysis. . . • Some very critical objections: • Freud’s insistence on the significance of the sexual motive • Freud’s failure to see the importance of family and culture in personality development • A biological emphasis: human behaviour to be understood in physical terms

3. A second set of objections • The role of the ego • Freud: all ego activity derives from the id • Psychoanalytic rebels (the neo-Freudians) insist on an autonomous ego • Two consequences • emphasis on the relations of ego to society • diminished importance of the unconscious

4. A third set of objections • The neo-Freudians are critical of the pessimism of psychoanalysis. • Man’s nature is not necessarily evil. • Human growth and cooperative living are possible.

5. The Neo-Freudian trailblazer, Alfred Adler • Born in 1870 in Vienna, the 2nd of 6 children • Adler had many obstacles to conquer: • A sickly child who suffered from rickets • A poor student in school, especially in math • He gained eventual success and admission to medicine at the University of Vienna

6. Married a Russian emigré, Raissa Epstein, who was a dedicated socialist • Graduated in 1895 • Adler specialized in ophthalmology, then general medicine, before turning to psychiatry

7. After graduation, Adler came to Freud’s attention and was invited to join the fledgling Wednesday Society • A few years later, though elected to the presidency of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, he and Freud are at loggerheads. • Refusal to accept Freudian fundamentals • Resigned and formed his own society • Served in World War I

8. Psychiatric practice, founding child guidance clinics, development of theory • Immigrated to the United States in 1934 • A prolific writer and lecturer • Individual Psychology becomes widely known. • Death in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1937

9. Emphases in Individual Psychology • A practical theory for the understanding of human problems • The importance of courage and common sense • A psychology of the conscious ego • Recognizes self-deceit • A person-society theory: the relation of individual to society is central

10. A feeling of inferiority is characteristic of all humans. • An innate striving for superiority • Each person develops a unique approach to living and striving, the style of life. • Behaviour stems from past causes and is directed toward future goals.

11. The family is a social group. • The importance of: • Parent behaviour and childrearing • The child’s situation in the family • The order of birth • Expressions of personality: dreams, earliest memories, symptoms

12. Major Concepts of Individual Psychology • Organ inferiority and compensation • The body’s innate compensation for organ inferiority • A model for the psychological concept of inferiority and compensation to overcome it • The principle of a feeling of inferiority, the fundamental motive in personality

13. Overcoming inferiority: the striving for superiority • The idea of masculine protest • Striving to overcome inferiority is channeled by: • The body, activity level, intelligence • Childhood experience: what we learn in the family

14. The style of life: each person’s unique form of striving • Develops early • Difficult to change

15. Fictional Finalism • Humans construct their own realities –‘fictions’– by which they live. • Some are realistic, some not. • Belief in an afterlife guides a person’s existence. • So does belief in male dominance. • Women may be oppressed by it. • It makes males insufferable.

16. Social Interest • Adler, a socialist as well as psychiatrist, worked for human betterment. • Social interest is ‘the true and inevitable compensation’ for inferiority. • It is an inborn human attribute. • It can be fostered or thwarted by experiences in childhood.

17. The Creative Self • This is Adler’s formulation of the ego. • It’s the source of the style of life, creating it.

18. Three Variables of Personality Development • The family constellation • The roles occupied by members of the family • The relationship between parents and children is important • Damage done by: • Pampering • Neglect or rejection

19. The situation into which each child is born • Birth order and the special situations of: • The oldest child • Middle children • The youngest child • Only children

20. Expressions of Personality • We may see the style of life expressed in: • Dreams • in which we struggle with problems in life we don’t know how to solve • Earliest memories • which reflect the time when personality was being formed • Neurotic symptoms • Which reveal a mistaken style of life or show misguided purposes.

21. Research • The research of Adler and those who followed him (‘Adlerians’) was clinical • Remember the problems of the clinical method • Psychologists began to study Adlerian hypotheses in the 1920s. Prominent among them was birth order. • Early studies were not well done and were inconclusive.

22. In the late 1950s, social psychologist Stanley Schachter studied the psychology of affiliation experimentally. • Experimental participants made anxious by the prospect of a frightening experimental procedure must wait a few minutes – either alone or with others. • High anxiety makes them want to be with others. • Critical to Adler’s hypothesis: • It is firstborns who want to be with others.

23. Firstborns have learned from early experience with parents to be dependent on others for emotional support. • Laterborns are largely indifferent to being with others. • Other birth-order findings • Firstborns make poorer fighter pilots. • Firstborns are more likely to seek psychotherapy and remain longer. • Laterborns are more independent and rebellious.

24. Many birth-order findings don’t replicate. • Why? • Needed: better dependent measures like Schachter’s • Judith Harris: birth-order effects are seen within the family but not in behaviour outside. She proposes context-specific learning.

25. Birth-order effects on intelligence have been well studied with conflicting results. • Promising research: Zajonc’s confluence model • Laterborn children show an IQ advantage early in development, but later on, the advantage goes to firstborn children. • Why? • Laterborns benefit from from intellectual stimulation and exposure to firstborn model. • Later, firstborns benefit from tutoring laterborn children.

26. Adler in Perspective • To us, Adler’s outstanding contribution was his insightful analysis of family and childrearing. • He taught later generations of psychiatrists and psychologists about a conscious ego, and about purposive striving.

27. Some Contrasts Between Adler and Freud

28. Take-Home Messages • Troubles with psychoanalysis • Sexuality • Role of the ego • Pessimism • Alfred Adler: personal history • A sickly child, dedicated psychiatrist, insightful theorist

29. Theoretical emphases: • A practical theory of the ego • Striving to overcome inferiority • An individual style of life • The social psychology of the family • How personality is expressed

30. Theoretical concepts: • Organ inferiority and compensation • Feelings of inferiority • The style of life • Fictional finalism • Social interest • The creative self

31. 3 variables of personality development: • Family constellation • Parent-child relations • The disasters of pampering and rejection • The child’s situation in the family • It’s where you’re born in the family that counts • birth order • Expressions of personality • Dreams, earliest memories, symptoms

32. Research, good and bad • The good: • Schachter’s studies of affiliation when afraid • Are firstborns more conservative? Laterborns more rebellious? • Judith Rich Harris on context-specific learning • The bad: • Intelligence? • How about Zajonc?

33. Adler in perspective • The role of the family in personality development • A conscious ego and the importance of ego functions • The goal-directedness of behaviour • Adler versus Freud