Perspectives on Personality: Pearson International Edition
Discussed: Freud's theory of personality, Assumptions of Psychoanalytic theory, 3 parts of personality / level of consciousness, Psychoanalytic personality theory (ID, Ego, Superego - definitions, explanations, examples), Anxiety and Defence Mechanisms, Psychosexual development stages, Criticisms ...
Case 1 Learning Goals:
1. How does the conscious and unconscious mind relate to each other.
2. How does the conscious mind influence our behaviour?
3. What is the Freudian slip?
Case 2 Learning Goals:
1. How does Freud’s theory relate to impulse control?
2. How do impulses affect our behaviour?
Key Words: Catharsis
Case 3 Learning Goals:
1. What are the stages of Freud’s Theory of Fixation?
2. What are the different coping mechanisms to deal with stress according to Freud.
Case 4 Learning Goals:
1. Why do people tend to act differently to our spoken views?
Key Words: Reaction Formation, Denial, Freud
Freud’s Theory of Personality → Argues that human behaviour is the result of the
interactions among three component parts of the mind: Id, Ego, and Superego. States that
no behaviour is accidental; behaviour is formed during childhood.
Freud’s Two Classes Of Drives:
→ There are only two basic drives that serve to motivate all thoughts, emotions, and
behaviour. These two drives are: sex and aggression.
Psychoanalytic Theory → A method of investing and treating personality disorder and is
used in psychotherapy. The theory is the idea that things that happen to people during
childhood can contribute to the way the later function as adults.
→ Plumbing Metaphor:
- Thought of feelings as being fluids that were stored, and if they were pushed down in
one area of life, they would squirt out somewhere else.
- The first plumber solves the problem by not letting any water out of the pipes.
- The second plumber solves the problem by letting water out little by little of the pipes.
- The third plumber solves the problem by letting all the water out in one go.
Fundamental Assumptions of Psychoanalytic Theory:
1. The Basic Instincts
a. Includes sex and agression
b. Freud believed that everything humans do can be understood as
manifestations of the life and death instincts.
, c. Later termed libido ( life) and thanatos (death)
2. Unconscious Motivation
a. Individuals control their sexual and aggressive urges by placing them in the
unconscious.
b. These take on a life of their own and become the motivated unconscious.
3. Psychic Determinism
a. Nothing happens by chance or accident.
b. Everything we do, think, say, and feel is an expression of our mind.
4. Energy Model
a. Humans are viewed as energy systems.
b. Hydraulic model. Energy transformed but not destroyed.
3 Parts Of Personality / Levels Of Consciousness:
1. Conscious → Current Awareness
2. Preconscious → Not aware of material, but it’s retrievable (via ordinary retrieval)
3. Unconscious → Not aware of material but it’s not retrievable (via ordinary retrieval)
Consciousness: The individual’s current awareness of external and internal stimuli - that is,
of events in the environment and of body sensations, memories, and thoughts.
→ Involves:
1. Monitoring ourselves and our environment so that percepts, memories, and thoughts
are represented in awareness.
2. Controlling ourselves and our environment so that we are able to initiate and
terminate behavioural and cognitive activities. (Kihlstrom, 2007)
Preconscious: Memories that are accessible to consciousness. E.g. specific memories of
personal events, information one has accumulated over a lifetime, i.e. words.
Unconsciousness: The largest part of the mind. One of the earliest theories is the
psychoanalytic theory of Freud - the theory has also undergone a lot of criticism over the
years. → Freud believed that there is a portion of the mind, the unconscious, that contains
some memories, impulses and desires that are not accessible to the consciousness.
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