Key terms:
- Psychodynamic approach: perspective that describes different dynamics (forces + most unconscious)
that operate on Monday + direct human behaviour + experience
- The unconscious: part of mind that we unaware of + directs much of our behaviour
- Id: entirely unconscious + made up of selfish aggressive instincts that demand immediate gratification
- Ego: reality check that balances conflicting demands of id + superego
- Superego: moralistic part of our personality which represents ideal self (how we ought to be)
- Defence mechanisms: unconscious strategies that ego uses to manage conflict between id + superego
- Psychosexual stages: five developmental stages that all children pass through + at each stage there is
different conflict outcome of which determines future development
- Valid: when a theory/study measures/explains a behaviour accurately
- Reliable: when a study measures a behaviour consistently
, The role of the unconscious:
- Sigmund Freud: part of our mind that we know about + aware of -> merely ‘tip of the iceberg’ =
conscious mind
- Most of our mind made up of unconscious -> vast storehouse of biological drives + instincts that has
significant influence on our behaviour + personality
- Unconscious contains threatening + disturbing memories that have been repressed/locked away +
forgotten -> can be accessed during dreams/through ‘slips of the tongue’ referred to as parapraxes by
Freud e.g. calling female teacher ‘mum’ instead of ‘miss’
- Preconscious is bubbling under surface of our conscious mind + contains thoughts + memories which
are not currently in conscious awareness but we can access if desired
The structure of personality:
- Freud: personality is a tripartite composed of three parts:
- Id: primitive part of our personality + operates on pleasure principle -> id gets what it wants +
it’s a seething mass of unconscious drives + instincts + only id is present at birth (Freud: babies
= bundles of id) + throughout life id is entirely selfish + demands instant gratification of its
needs
- Ego: works on reality principle + is mediator between other two parts of personality + develops
around age of two years + its role is to reduce conflict between demands of id + superego ->
manages this by employing number of defence mechanisms
- Superego: formed at end of phallic stage around age of 5 + it’s our internalised sense of right +
wrong + based on morality principle it represents moral standards of child’s same-gender
parent + punishes ego for wrongdoing (through guilt)
Psychosexual stages:
- Freud: child development occurred in 5 stages + each stage apart from latency -> marked by different
conflict that child must resolve in order to progress successfully to next stage
- Any psychosexual conflict unresolved = fixation -> child becomes stuck + carries certain behaviours +
conflicts associated with that stage to adult life
Stage Description Consequence of unresolved
conflict
Oral (0-1 years) Focus of pleasure is the mouth, Oral fixation -> smoking, biting
mother’s breast can be the object nails, sarcastic, critical
of desire
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