Charcot I Learned to Look at the Same Things Again and Again Until They Themselves Began to Speak

Chapter 12. Personality

12.2 The Origins of Personality

Learning Objectives

  1. Describe the strengths and limitations of the psychodynamic approach to explaining personality.
  2. Summarize the accomplishments of the neo-Freudians.
  3. Place the major contributions of the humanistic approach to understanding personality.

Although measures such as the Big Five and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) are able to effectively assess personality, they practice not say much nigh where personality comes from. In this department we volition consider ii major theories of the origin of personality: psychodynamic and humanistic approaches.

Psychodynamic Theories of Personality: The Role of the Unconscious

One of the most important psychological approaches to understanding personality is based on the theorizing of the Austrian doc and psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who founded what today is known as the psychodynamic arroyo,an arroyo to understanding homo behaviour that focuses on the office of unconscious thoughts, feelings, and memories. Many people know near Freud because his work has had a huge impact on our everyday thinking virtually psychology, and the psychodynamic arroyo is one of the most important approaches to psychological therapy (Roudinesco, 2003; Taylor, 2009). Freud is probably the all-time known of all psychologists, in function because of his impressive observation and analyses of personality (there are 24 volumes of his writings). As is true of all theories, many of Freud's ingenious ideas have turned out to exist at least partially incorrect, and yet other aspects of his theories are however influencing psychology.

Freud was influenced by the piece of work of the French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), who had been interviewing patients (almost all women) who were experiencing what was at the time known as hysteria. Although it is no longer used to describe a psychological disorder, hysteria at the time referred to a set of personality and physical symptoms that included chronic pain, fainting, seizures, and paralysis.

Charcot could observe no biological reason for the symptoms. For example, some women experienced a loss of feeling in their hands and all the same non in their arms, and this seemed impossible given that the nerves in the arms are the same as those in the hands. Charcot was experimenting with the use of hypnosis, and he and Freud establish that under hypnosis many of the hysterical patients reported having experienced a traumatic sexual experience, such as sexual corruption, as children (Dolnick, 1998).

Freud and Charcot besides found that during hypnosis the remembering of the trauma was often accompanied by an outpouring of emotion, known as catharsis, and that following the catharsis the patient'south symptoms were often reduced in severity. These observations led Freud and Charcot to conclude that these disorders were caused by psychological rather than physiological factors.

Freud used the observations that he and Charcot had made to develop his theory regarding the sources of personality and behaviour, and his insights are cardinal to the fundamental themes of psychology. In terms of gratuitous volition, Freud did not believe that we were able to control our own behaviours. Rather, he believed that all behaviours are predetermined by motivations that lie exterior our awareness, in the unconscious. These forces show themselves in our dreams, in neurotic symptoms such as obsessions, while we are nether hypnosis, and in Freudian "slips of the tongue" in which people reveal their unconscious desires in language. Freud argued that we rarely empathize why nosotros practise what we do, although we can make upward explanations for our behaviours after the fact. For Freud the mind was similar an iceberg, with the many motivations of the unconscious being much larger, but besides out of sight, in comparison to the consciousness of which nosotros are aware (Figure 12.vii, "Mind as Iceberg").

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Effigy 12.7 Listen as Iceberg. In Sigmund Freud's conceptualization of personality, the near important motivations are unconscious, just every bit the major function of an iceberg is under water.

Id, Ego, and Superego

Freud proposed that the mind is divided into three components: id, ego, and superego, and that the interactions and conflicts amidst the components create personality (Freud, 1923/1949). Co-ordinate to Freudian theory, the id is the component of personality that forms the basis of our virtually primitive impulses. The id is entirely unconscious, and it drives our nearly of import motivations, including the sexual drive (libido) and the aggressive or destructive bulldoze (Thanatos). According to Freud, the id is driven by the pleasure principlethe desire for immediate gratification of our sexual and aggressive urges. The id is why we fume cigarettes, drinkable alcohol, view pornography, tell hateful jokes about people, and engage in other fun or harmful behaviours, often at the cost of doing more productive activities.

In stark dissimilarity to the id, the superego represents our sense of morality and oughts. The superego tell usa all the things that we shouldn't do, or the duties and obligations of society. The superego strives for perfection, and when we fail to live up to its demands we feel guilty.

In contrast to the id, which is about the pleasure principle, the function of the ego is based on the reality principlethe idea that we must delay gratification of our basic motivations until the advisable fourth dimension with the appropriate outlet. The ego is the largely conscious controller or decision-maker of personality. The ego serves every bit the intermediary between the desires of the id and the constraints of society independent in the superego (Effigy 12.8, "Ego, Id, and Superego in Interaction"). We may wish to scream, yell, or hit, and yet our ego normally tells us to wait, reflect, and choose a more advisable response.

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Effigy 12.eight Ego, Id, and Superego in Interaction.

Freud believed that psychological disorders, and peculiarly the experience of anxiety, occur when there is conflict or imbalance among the motivations of the id, ego, and superego. When the ego finds that the id is pressing too difficult for immediate pleasure, it attempts to correct for this problem, oftentimes through the utilise of defence mechanismsunconscious psychological strategies used to cope with feet and maintain a positive cocky-image. Freud believed that the defence force mechanisms were essential for effective coping with everyday life, but that any of them could be overused (Table 12.4, "The Major Freudian Defence force Mechanisms").

Table 12.4 The Major Freudian Defence Mechanisms.
[Skip Table]
Defence mechanism Definition Possible behavioural example
Displacement Diverting threatening impulses away from the source of the feet and toward a more acceptable source A educatee who is angry at her professor for a low grade lashes out at her roommate, who is a safer target of her anger.
Project Disguising threatening impulses by attributing them to others A man with powerful unconscious sexual desires for women claims that women apply him as a sexual activity object.
Rationalization Generating self-justifying explanations for our negative behaviours A drama student convinces herself that getting the part in the play wasn't that of import subsequently all.
Reaction formation Making unacceptable motivations appear every bit their exact opposite Jane is sexually attracted to friend Jake, but she claims in public that she intensely dislikes him.
Regression Retreating to an earlier, more childlike, and safer stage of development A university student who is worried about an important examination begins to suck on his finger.
Repression (or denial) Pushing feet-arousing thoughts into the unconscious A person who witnesses his parents having sexual activity is afterward unable to remember annihilation almost the event.
Sublimation Channeling unacceptable sexual or aggressive desires into adequate activities A person participates in sports to sublimate aggressive drives. A person creates music or art to sublimate sexual drives.

The about controversial, and least scientifically valid, part of Freudian theory is its explanations of personality development. Freud argued that personality is developed through a series of psychosexual stages, each focusing on pleasure from a dissimilar function of the trunk (Table 12.5, "Freud's Stages of Psychosexual Development"). Freud believed that sexuality begins in infancy, and that the appropriate resolution of each stage has implications for later personality development.

Tabular array 12.v Freud'south Stages of Psychosexual Development.
[Skip Table]
Stage Approximate ages Description
Oral Birth to 18 months Pleasure comes from the mouth in the form of sucking, biting, and chewing.
Anal 18 months to 3 years Pleasure comes from bowel and bladder elimination and the constraints of toilet training.
Phallic iii years to half dozen years Pleasance comes from the genitals, and the conflict is with sexual desires for the opposite-sex parent.
Latency half dozen years to puberty Sexual feelings are less important.
Genital Puberty and older If prior stages have been properly reached, mature sexual orientation develops.

In the starting time of Freud's proposed stages of psychosexual development, which begins at birth and lasts until about 18 months of historic period, the focus is on the mouth. During this oral phase, the infant obtains sexual pleasance by sucking and drinking. Infants who receive either too piddling or as well much gratification go fixated or locked in the oral phase, and are likely to backslide to these points of fixation under stress, even every bit adults. According to Freud, a child who receives too little oral gratification (due east.g., who was underfed or neglected) will become orally dependent as an adult and be probable to manipulate others to fulfill his or her needs rather than condign contained. On the other hand, the child who was overfed or overly gratified will resist growing up and try to render to the prior country of dependency by interim helpless, demanding satisfaction from others, and acting in a needy way.

The anal stage, lasting from near 18 months to three years of age, is when children showtime experience psychological conflict. During this stage children desire to experience pleasure through bowel movements, but they are likewise existence toilet trained to delay this gratification. Freud believed that if this toilet training was either besides harsh or too lenient, children would become fixated in the anal stage and become likely to regress to this stage under stress equally adults. If the child received too picayune anal gratification (i.eastward., if the parents had been very harsh almost toilet training), the adult personality will be anal retentivestingy, with a compulsive seeking of society and tidiness. On the other hand, if the parents had been too lenient, the anal expulsive personality results, characterized by a lack of self-control and a tendency toward messiness and carelessness.

The phallic phase, which lasts from age 3 to age six is when the penis (for boys) and clitoris (for girls) go the main erogenous zone for sexual pleasure. During this phase, Freud believed that children develop a powerful just unconscious allure for the contrary-sex parent, every bit well equally a desire to eliminate the same-sexual activity parent as a rival. Freud based his theory of sexual development in boys (the Oedipus complex) on the Greek mythological grapheme Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother, and then put his ain eyes out when he learned what he had done. Freud argued that boys volition normally eventually carelessness their love of the female parent, and instead identify with the male parent, also taking on the begetter's personality characteristics, but that boys who do not successfully resolve the Oedipus complex will feel psychological problems afterward in life. Although it was non as important in Freud'south theorizing, in girls the phallic stage is oftentimes termed the Electra complex, after the Greek character who avenged her father's murder by killing her mother. Freud believed that girls often experienced penis green-eyed, the sense of deprivation supposedly experienced by girls because they do non take a penis.

The latency stage is a menstruum of relative at-home that lasts from nearly vi years to 12 years. During this fourth dimension, Freud believed that sexual impulses were repressed, leading boys and girls to take piffling or no interest in members of the opposite sex.

The fifth and terminal stage, the genital stage, begins almost 12 years of historic period and lasts into machismo. According to Freud, sexual impulses return during this fourth dimension frame, and if development has proceeded ordinarily to this bespeak, the child is able to move into the evolution of mature romantic relationships. But if earlier bug accept not been appropriately resolved, difficulties with establishing intimate love attachments are likely.

Freud's Followers: The Neo-Freudians

Freudian theory was so popular that it led to a number of followers, including many of Freud's own students, who developed, modified, and expanded his theories. Taken together, these approaches are known every bit neo-Freudian theories. The neo-Freudian theories are theories based on Freudian principles that emphasize the office of the unconscious and early experience in shaping personality simply place less show on sexuality as the primary motivating strength in personality and are more than optimistic concerning the prospects for personality growth and change in personality in adults.

Alfred Adler (1870-1937) was a follower of Freud's who adult his own interpretation of Freudian theory. Adler proposed that the main motivation in human personality was not sex or assailment, only rather the striving for superiority. According to Adler, we want to be amend than others and we reach this goal by creating a unique and valuable life. We may attempt to satisfy our need for superiority through our school or professional accomplishments, or by our enjoyment of music, athletics, or other activities that seem important to us.

Adler believed that psychological disorders begin in early on childhood. He argued that children who are either overly nurtured or overly neglected by their parents are later on likely to develop an inferiority complexa psychological state in which people feel that they are not living upwards to expectations, leading them to have depression self-esteem, with a tendency to try to overcompensate for the negative feelings. People with an inferiority complex oft endeavour to demonstrate their superiority to others at all costs, even if it means humiliating, dominating, or alienating them. According to Adler, about psychological disorders event from misguided attempts to compensate for the inferiority complex in guild run into the goal of superiority.

Carl Jung (1875-1961) was another student of Freud'southward who developed his ain theories almost personality. Jung agreed with Freud well-nigh the power of the unconscious simply felt that Freud overemphasized the importance of sexuality. Jung argued that in addition to the personal unconscious, at that place was also a collective unconscious, or a collection of shared ancestral memories. Jung believed that the collective unconscious contains a diversity of archetypes, or cross-culturally universal symbols, which explain the similarities among people in their emotional reactions to many stimuli. Important archetypes include the mother, the goddess, the hero, and the mandala or circumvolve, which Jung believed symbolized a desire for wholeness or unity. For Jung, the underlying motivation that guides successful personality is self-realization, or learning about and developing the cocky to the fullest possible extent.

Karen Horney (the concluding syllable of her last name rhymes with "eye"; 1855-1952) was a High german physician who applied Freudian theories to create a personality theory that she thought was more balanced betwixt men and women. Horney believed that parts of Freudian theory, and particularly the ideas of the Oedipus complex and penis envy, were biased against women. Horney argued that women's sense of inferiority was not due to their lack of a penis just rather to their dependency on men, an arroyo that the civilization fabricated it difficult for them to break from. For Horney, the underlying motivation that guides personality development is the want for security, the power to develop appropriate and supportive relationships with others.

Some other important neo-Freudian was Erich Fromm (1900-1980). Fromm'south focus was on the negative touch on of technology, arguing that the increases in its use have led people to feel increasingly isolated from others. Fromm believed that the independence that technology brings u.s. also creates the need to "escape from freedom," that is, to get closer to others.

Research Focus: How the Fear of Decease Causes Ambitious Behaviour

Fromm believed that the principal human motivation was to escape the fear of death, and gimmicky research has shown how our concerns almost dying can influence our behaviour. In this inquiry, people have been made to face up their death by writing nearly information technology or otherwise being reminded of it, and furnishings on their behaviour are so observed. In one relevant study, McGregor and colleagues (1998) demonstrated that people who are provoked may be specially ambitious after they have been reminded of the possibility of their own death. The participants in the study had been selected, on the basis of prior reporting, to accept either politically liberal or politically conservative views. When they arrived at the lab they were asked to write a short paragraph describing their stance of politics in the United states. In improver, half of the participants (the bloodshed salient condition) were asked to "briefly draw the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you" and to "jot down every bit specifically as you tin can, what you think will happen to you as y'all physically die, and one time you are physically dead." Participants in the exam command condition also thought nearly a negative outcome, just not ane associated with a fear of decease. They were instructed to "delight briefly describe the emotions that the idea of your next important exam arouses in you lot" and to "jot down as specifically as yous can, what you lot think will happen to you equally you physically take your adjacent exam, and in one case you are physically taking your next exam."

And then the participants read the essay that had supposedly just been written past another person. (The other person did not exist, simply the participants didn't know this until the end of the experiment.) The essay that they read had been prepared by the experimenters to be very negative toward politically liberal views or to be very negative toward politically bourgeois views. Thus one-half of the participants were provoked by the other person by reading a statement that strongly conflicted with their own political beliefs, whereas the other one-half read an essay in which the other person's views supported their own (liberal or conservative) behavior.

At this point the participants moved on to what they thought was a completely divide written report in which they were to be tasting and giving their impression of some foods. Furthermore, they were told that it was necessary for the participants in the enquiry to administer the food samples to each other. At this point, the participants establish out that the food they were going to be sampling was spicy hot sauce and that they were going to be administering the sauce to the very person whose essay they had just read. In addition, the participants read some information about the other person that indicated that he very much disliked eating spicy food. Participants were given a taste of the hot sauce (it was really hot!) then instructed to identify a quantity of it into a loving cup for the other person to sample. Furthermore, they were told that the other person would have to eat all the sauce.

As you lot can see in Effigy 12.9, "Aggression as a Part of Bloodshed Salience and Provocation," McGregor and colleagues constitute that the participants who had not been reminded of their ain death, fifty-fifty if they had been insulted past the partner, did not retaliate by giving him a lot of hot sauce to consume. On the other hand, the participants who were both provoked by the other person and who had also been reminded of their ain death administered significantly more than hot sauce than did the participants in the other three conditions. McGregor and colleagues (1998) argued that thinking nigh one'due south own decease creates a strong concern with maintaining one'southward ane cherished worldviews (in this case our political beliefs). When we are concerned about dying nosotros become more than motivated to defend these of import behavior from the challenges made by others, in this case past aggressing through the hot sauce.

Aggression as a Functional of Mortality Salience and Provocation. Long description available.
Effigy 12.9 Aggression as a Function of Mortality Salience and Provocation. Participants who had been provoked by a stranger who disagreed with them on important opinions, and who had also been reminded of their own death, administered significantly more than unpleasant hot sauce to the partner than did the participants in the other three weather condition. [Long Clarification]

Strengths and Limitations of Freudian and Neo-Freudian Approaches

Freud has probably exerted a greater impact on the public'southward understanding of personality than any other thinker, and he has besides in large part defined the field of psychology. Although Freudian psychologists no longer talk about oral, anal, or genital fixations, they practise go on to believe that our childhood experiences and unconscious motivations shape our personalities and our attachments with others, and they still make use of psychodynamic concepts when they conduct psychological therapy.

Nevertheless, Freud's theories, as well equally those of the neo-Freudians, have in many cases failed to pass the test of empiricism, and equally a result they are less influential now than they have been in the past (Crews, 1998). The issues are, first, that information technology has proved to be difficult to rigorously test Freudian theory because the predictions that information technology makes (especially those regarding defence mechanisms) are often vague and unfalsifiable and, second, that the aspects of the theory that can be tested often have not received much empirical support.

As examples, although Freud claimed that children exposed to overly harsh toilet training would become fixated in the anal phase and thus exist decumbent to excessive neatness, stinginess, and stubbornness in adulthood, research has found few reliable associations between toilet training practices and developed personality (Fisher & Greenberg, 1996). And since the time of Freud, the need to repress sexual desires would seem to have go much less necessary as societies have tolerated a wider variety of sexual practices. And notwithstanding the psychological disorders that Freud thought we acquired by this repression have not decreased.

There is too little scientific support for about of the Freudian defence mechanisms. For example, studies have failed to yield evidence for the existence of repression. People who are exposed to traumatic experiences in state of war have been found to call up their traumas only too well (Kihlstrom, 1997). Although nosotros may attempt to button information that is feet-arousing into our unconscious, this often has the ironic effect of making us remember about the information even more strongly than if nosotros hadn't tried to repress it (Newman, Duff, & Baumeister, 1997). It is true that children remember fiddling of their childhood experiences, just this seems to be true of both negative also as positive experiences, is true for animals equally well, and probably is better explained in terms of the encephalon's inability to form long-term memories than in terms of repression. On the other hand, Freud's important idea that expressing or talking through one's difficulties can be psychologically helpful has been supported in current enquiry (Baddeley & Pennebaker, 2009) and has become a mainstay of psychological therapy.

A particular trouble for testing Freudian theories is that near anything that conflicts with a prediction based in Freudian theory tin can be explained abroad in terms of the use of a defense force machinery. A man who expresses a lot of acrimony toward his male parent may exist seen via Freudian theory to exist experiencing the Oedipus circuitous, which includes conflict with the father. But a man who expresses no anger at all toward the father besides may exist seen as experiencing the Oedipus complex by repressing the anger. Because Freud hypothesized that either was possible, but did not specify when repression would or would non occur, the theory is hard to falsify.

In terms of the important role of the unconscious, Freud seems to have been at least in part right. More and more research demonstrates that a big part of everyday behaviour is driven past processes that are outside our witting awareness (Kihlstrom, 1987). And yet, although our unconscious motivations influence every aspect of our learning and behaviour, Freud probably overestimated the extent to which these unconscious motivations are primarily sexual and aggressive.

Taken together, it is fair to say that Freudian theory, similar most psychological theories, was not entirely correct and that information technology has had to be modified over time every bit the results of new studies have get available. But the fundamental ideas well-nigh personality that Freud proposed, also as the use of talk therapy as an essential component of therapy, are nevertheless still a major part of psychology and are used by clinical psychologists every twenty-four hours.

Focusing on the Self: Humanism and Self-Appearing

Psychoanalytic models of personality were complemented during the 1950s and 1960s by the theories of humanistic psychologists, an approach to psychology that embraces the notions of cocky-esteem, self-actualization, and free volition. In contrast to the proponents of psychoanalysis, humanists embraced the notion of complimentary will. Arguing that people are costless to cull their own lives and make their own decisions, humanistic psychologists focused on the underlying motivations that they believed drove personality, focusing on the nature of the cocky-concept, the set of beliefs nearly who we are, and cocky-esteem, our positive feelings about the self.

One of the near of import humanists, Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), conceptualized personality in terms of a pyramid-shaped hierarchy of motives, also called the bureaucracy of needs,  (Figure 12.10 "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs"). At the base of the pyramid are the lowest-level motivations, including hunger and thirst, and safety and belongingness. Maslow argued that simply when people are able to see the lower-level needs are they able to move on to achieve the higher-level needs of self-esteem, and somewhen cocky-actualization, which is the motivation to develop our innate potential to the fullest possible extent.

Maslow studied how successful people, including Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Helen Keller, and Mahatma Gandhi, had been able to lead such successful and productive lives. Maslow (1970) believed that self-actualized people are creative, spontaneous, and loving of themselves and others. They tend to have a few deep friendships rather than many superficial ones, and are generally individual. He felt that these individuals practice non need to conform to the opinions of others because they are very confident and thus gratis to express unpopular opinions. Self-actualized people are likewise likely to accept peak experiences, or transcendent moments of tranquility accompanied by a strong sense of connection with others.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Long description available.
Figure 12.10 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Abraham Maslow conceptualized personality in terms of a bureaucracy of needs. The highest of these motivations is self-actualization. [Long Description]

Perchance the best-known humanistic theorist is Carl Rogers (1902-1987). Rogers was positive almost human nature, viewing people as primarily moral and helpful to others, and believed that we tin can achieve our full potential for emotional fulfilment if the self-concept is characterized by unconditional positive regarda set up of behaviours including being genuine, open to experience, transparent, able to listen to others, and self-disclosing and empathic. When we treat ourselves or others with unconditional positive regard, we express agreement and back up, even while we may acknowledge failings. Unconditional positive regard allows u.s.a. to admit our fears and failures, to drib our pretenses, and still at the same time to feel completely accepted for what we are. The principle of unconditional positive regard has become a foundation of psychological therapy; therapists who use it in their practice are more effective than those who practise not (Prochaska & Norcross, 2007; Yalom, 1995).

Although there are critiques of the humanistic psychologists (e.g., that Maslow focused on historically productive rather than destructive personalities in his research and thus drew overly optimistic conclusions about the capacity of people to benefit), the ideas of humanism are so powerful and optimistic that they have continued to influence both everyday experiences and psychology. Today the positive psychology movement argues for many of these ideas, and research has documented the extent to which thinking positively and openly has important positive consequences for our relationships, our life satisfaction, and our psychological and physical health (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000).

Inquiry Focus: Self-Discrepancies, Anxiety, and Depression

Tory Higgins and his colleagues (Higgins, Bond, Klein, & Strauman, 1986; Strauman & Higgins, 1988) have studied how different aspects of the cocky-concept relate to personality characteristics. These researchers focused on the types of emotional distress that we might experience equally a result of how we are currently evaluating our self-concept. Higgins proposes that the emotions we experience are adamant both by our perceptions of how well our own behaviours meet up to the standards and goals we have provided ourselves (our internal standards) and past our perceptions of how others think about us (our external standards). Furthermore, Higgins argues that different types of self-discrepancies atomic number 82 to dissimilar types of negative emotions.

In one of Higgins's experiments (Higgins, Bond, Klein, & Strauman, 1986), participants were kickoff asked to describe themselves using a cocky-report mensurate. The participants listed x thoughts that they idea described the kind of person they really are; this is the actual self-concept. So, participants too listed 10 thoughts that they thought described the type of person they would ideally similar to be (the platonic self-concept) likewise as x thoughts describing the way that someone else — for instance, a parent — thinks they ought to be (the ought self-concept).

Higgins then divided his participants into two groups. Those with depression self-concept discrepancies were those who listed similar traits on all three lists. Their ideal, ought, and actual self-concepts were all pretty like and so they were non considered to be vulnerable to threats to their self-concept. The other half of the participants, those with high self-concept discrepancies, were those for whom the traits listed on the ideal and ought lists were very different from those listed on the bodily self list. These participants were expected to be vulnerable to threats to the cocky-concept.

Then, at a later enquiry session, Higgins first asked people to express their current emotions, including those related to sadness and anxiety. After obtaining this baseline mensurate, Higgins activated either ideal or ought discrepancies for the participants. Participants in the ideal self-discrepancy priming status were asked to think about and talk over their ain and their parents' hopes and goals for them. Participants in the ought cocky-priming condition listed their own and their parents' behavior apropos their duty and obligations. Then all participants over again indicated their current emotions.

Equally yous can see in Figure 12.11, "Research Results," for depression self-concept discrepancy participants, thinking nigh their platonic or ought selves did not much change their emotions. For high self-concept discrepancy participants, nevertheless, priming the ideal self-concept increased their sadness and dejection, whereas priming the ought self-concept increased their anxiety and agitation. These results are consistent with the idea that discrepancies between the platonic and the actual self lead us to experience sadness, dissatisfaction, and other depression-related emotions, whereas discrepancies between the bodily and ought self are more likely to lead to fear, worry, tension, and other feet-related emotions.

Research Results. Long description available.
Effigy 12.eleven Research Results. Higgins and his colleagues documented the bear upon of self-concept discrepancies on emotion. For participants with low self-concept discrepancies (correct bars), seeing words that related to the self had niggling influence on emotions. For those with loftier self-concept discrepancies (left bars), priming the platonic self increased dejection whereas priming the ought self increased agitation. [Long Description]

Ane of the disquisitional aspects of Higgins'southward approach is that, as is our personality, our feelings are influenced both by our own behaviour and by our expectations of how other people view us. This makes information technology clear that even though you might non care that much about achieving in school, your failure to do well may still produce negative emotions because you realize that your parents exercise think it is important.

Fundamental Takeaways

  • One of the almost of import psychological approaches to understanding personality is based on the psychodynamic approach to personality developed by Sigmund Freud.
  • For Freud the mind was like an iceberg, with the many motivations of the unconscious being much larger, but as well out of sight, in comparison to the consciousness of which we are aware.
  • Freud proposed that the mind is divided into three components: id, ego, and superego, and that the interactions and conflicts among the components create personality.
  • Freud proposed that we use defence mechanisms to cope with anxiety and maintain a positive cocky-image.
  • Freud argued that personality is developed through a series of psychosexual stages, each focusing on pleasure from a different part of the body.
  • The neo-Freudian theorists, including Adler, Jung, Horney, and Fromm, emphasized the role of the unconscious and early on experience in shaping personality, but placed less bear witness on sexuality as the primary motivating strength in personality.
  • Psychoanalytic and behavioural models of personality were complemented during the 1950s and 1960s past the theories of humanistic psychologists, including Maslow and Rogers.

Exercises and Critical Thinking

  1. Based on your understanding of psychodynamic theories, how would you lot analyze your own personality? Are in that location aspects of the theory that might help you explain your ain strengths and weaknesses?
  2. Based on your agreement of humanistic theories, how would y'all try to modify your behaviour to better come across the underlying motivations of security, credence, and self-realization?
  3. Consider your own self-concept discrepancies. Do yous have an actual-ideal or actual-ought discrepancy? Which one is more than important for yous, and why?

References

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Crews, F. C. (1998).Unauthorized Freud: Doubters face a legend. New York, NY: Viking Press.

Dolnick, E. (1998).Madness on the couch: Blaming the victim in the heyday of psychoanalysis. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Fisher, Due south., & Greenberg, R. P. (1996).Freud scientifically reappraised: Testing the theories and therapy. Oxford, England: John Wiley & Sons.

Freud, Southward. (1923/1949).The ego and the id. London, England: Hogarth Printing. (Original piece of work published 1923)

Higgins, E. T., Bond, R. Due north., Klein, R., & Strauman, T. (1986). Self-discrepancies and emotional vulnerability: How magnitude, accessibility, and blazon of discrepancy influence touch on.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(1), 5–fifteen.

Kihlstrom, J. F. (1987). The cerebral unconscious.Science, 237(4821), 1445–1452.

Kihlstrom, J. F. (1997). Retentivity, abuse, and scientific discipline.American Psychologist, 52(9), 994–995.

Maslow, Abraham (1970).Motivation and personality (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Harper.

McGregor, H. A., Lieberman, J. D., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Arndt, J., Simon, 50.,…Pyszczynski, T. (1998). Terror management and aggression: Show that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview-threatening others.Periodical of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 590–605.

Newman, L. S., Duff, K. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (1997). A new look at defensive project: Thought suppression, accessibility, and biased person perception.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(5), 980–1001.

Prochaska, J. O., & Norcross, J. C. (2007).Systems of psychotherapy: A transtheoretical analysis (6th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Roudinesco, Due east. (2003).Why psychoanalysis? New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Seligman, Thousand. East. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, Yard. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction.American Psychologist, 55(one), 5–14.

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Image Attributions

Figure 12.9: Adapted from McGregor, et al., 1998.

Figure 12.11: Adapted from Higgins, Bond, Klein, & Strauman, 1986.

Long Description

Figure 12.9 long description: Aggression as a Function of Mortality Salience and Provocation
Provocation Morality Salience Control status
No 15 grams of hot sauce 17 grams of hot sauce
Yes 26 grams of hot sauce eleven grams of hot sauce

[Return to Figure 12.9]

Figure 12.10 long description: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, from lesser to top.
Physiological (Base) Need to satisfy hunger and thirst.
Prophylactic Demand to feel that the world is organized and predictable; need to feel safe, secure, and stable.
Love/belonging Need to love and be loved, to belong and be accepted; need to avoid loneliness and alienation.
Esteem Demand for self-esteem, achievement, competence, and independence; demand for recognition and respect from others.
Cocky-appearing (Top) Need to alive up to one'south fullest and unique potential.

[Return to Figure 12.10]

Figure 12.xi long description: Research results. Actual-ideal discrepancies primed.
Change in rated emotion
Blues Agitation
High self-concept discrepancy 3.1 0.8
Low self-concept discrepancy negative 1.three 0.9
Figure 12.11 long description continued: Research results. Actual-ought discrepancies primed.
Change in rated emotion
Dejection Agitation
Loftier self-concept discrepancy 0.eight four.9
Depression cocky-concept discrepancy 0.3 negative 2.4

[Return to Figure 12.11]

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Source: https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/11-2-the-origins-of-personality/

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