Personality

1. Personality

2. Empty out… • Your pockets OR • Your purse OR • Your backpack • Really, just empty out one of your personal items. If there is anything you don’t want us to see, definitely don’t take that out.  • In small groups discuss what your personal items “say” about your personality • Think about “common” items that may be missing & what those items say about your personality as well

3. Personality An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

4. Psychoanalytic Perspective In his clinical practice, Freud encountered patients suffering from nervous disorders. Their complaints could not be explained in terms of purely physical causes. Culver Pictures Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

5. Psychodynamic Perspective Freud’s clinical experience led him to develop the first comprehensive theory of personality, which included the unconscious mind, psychosexual stages, and defense mechanisms. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

7. Exploring the Unconscious A reservoir (unconscious mind) of mostly unacceptable thoughts, wishes, feelings, and memories. Freud asked patients to say whatever came to their minds (free association) in order to tap the unconscious.

8. Dream Analysis Another method to analyze the unconscious mind is through interpreting manifest and latent contents of dreams. The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli (1791)

9. Psychoanalysis The process of free association (chain of thoughts) leads to painful, embarrassing unconscious memories. Once these memories are retrieved and released (treatment: psychoanalysis) the patient feels better.

10. Model of Mind The mind is like an iceberg. It is mostly hidden, and below the surface lies the unconscious mind. The preconscious stores temporary memories.

11. Our Personality • Conscious- things we are aware of. • Preconscious- things we can be aware of if we think of them. • Unconscious- deep hidden reservoir that holds the true “us”. All of our desires and fears.

12. Personality Structure Personality develops as a result of our efforts to resolve conflicts between our biological impulses (id) and social restraints (superego).

13. Fig. 12-2, p. 473

14. Id • Exists entirely in the unconscious (so we are never aware of it). • Our hidden true animalistic wants and desires. • Works on the Pleasure Principle • Avoid Pain and receive Instant Gratification.

15. Ego If you want to be with someone. Your id says just take them, but your ego does not want to end up in jail. So you ask her out and just try really hard. • Develops after the Id • Works on the Reality Principle • Negotiates between the Id and the environment. • In our conscious and unconscious minds. • It is what everyone sees as our personality.

16. Superego • Develops last at about the age of 5 • It is our conscience (what we think the difference is between right and wrong) • The Ego often mediates between the superego and id.

17. Personality Development Freud believed that personality formed during the first few years of life divided into psychosexual stages. During these stages the id’s pleasure-seeking energies focus on pleasure sensitive body areas called erogenous zones.

19. Psychosexual Stages Freud divided the development of personality into five psychosexual stages.

20. Table 12-2, p. 477

22. Oedipus Complex A boy’s sexual desire for his mother and feelings of jealousy and hatred for the rival father. A girl’s desire for her father is called the Electra complex.

23. Identification Children cope with threatening feelings by repressing them and by identifying with the rival parent. Through this process of identification, their superego gains strength that incorporates their parents’ values.

24. Defense Mechanisms • The ego has a pretty important job…and that is to protect you from threatening thoughts in our unconscious. • One way it protects us is through defense mechanisms. • You are usually unaware that they are even occurring.

26. Scenario • Quarterback of the high school football team, Brandon, is dating Jasmine. • Jasmine dumps Brandon and starts dating • Drew, president of the chess club. Drew Jasmine Brandon

27. Repression • Pushing thoughts into our unconscious. • When asked about Jasmine, Brandon may say “Who?, I have not thought about her for awhile.” • Why don’t we remember our Oedipus and Electra complexes?

28. Denial • Not accepting the ego-threatening truth. • Brandon may act like he is still together with Jasmine. He may hang out by her locker and plan dates with her.

29. Displacement • Redirecting one’s feelings toward another person or object. • Often displaced on less threatening things. • Brandon may take his anger on another kid by bullying.

30. Projection • Believing that the feelings one has toward someone else are actually held by the other person and directed at oneself. • Brandon insists that Jasmine still cares for him.

31. Reaction Formation • Expressing the opposite of how one truly feels. • Cootie stage in Freud’s Latent Development. • Brandon claims he hates Jasmine.

32. Regression • Returning to an earlier, comforting form of behavior. • Brandon begins to sleep with his favorite childhood stiffed animal, Sajalicious.

33. Rationalization • Coming up with a beneficial result of an undesirable outcome. • Brandon thinks he will find a better girlfriend. “Jasmine was not all that anyway!” • I really did want to go to ______ anyway, it was too _____.

34. Intellectualization • Undertaking an academic, unemotional study of a topic. • Brandon starts doing a research paper on failed teenage romances.

35. Sublimation • Channeling one’s frustration toward a different goal. • Sometimes a healthy defense mechanism. • Brandon starts to learn how to play the guitar and writing songs (or maybe starts to body build).

36. Table 12-1, p. 475

37. Fig. 12-3, p. 475

38. Defense Mechanisms in Movies

39. Neo-FreudiansPsychodynamic Theories • Eric Erickson • Carl Jung and his concept of the “personal” and “collective” unconscious. • Alfred Adler and his ideas of superiority and inferiority. • Adler also talked about birth order and how it played a part in personality.

40. The Neo-Freudians Like Freud, Adler believed in childhood tensions. However, these tensions were social in nature and not sexual. A child struggles with an inferiority complex during growth and strives for superiority and power. National Library of Medicine Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

41. The Neo-Freudians Like Adler, Horney believed in the social aspects of childhood growth and development. She countered Freud’s assumption that women have weak superegos and suffer from “penis envy.” The Bettmann Archive/ Corbis Karen Horney (1885-1952)

42. The Neo-Freudians Jung believed in the collective unconscious, which contained a common reservoir of images derived from our species’ past. This is why many cultures share certain myths and images such as the mother being a symbol of nurturance. Archive of the History of American Psychology/ University of Akron Carl Jung (1875-1961)

43. Psychoanalysis Today • Couch sitting • Transference is likely to happen. • The idea is to delve into your unconscious. • Pull out Manifest Content. • Then talk about the Latent Content.

44. Getting into the Unconscious • Hypnosis • Dream Interpretation • Free Association (having them just randomly talk to themselves…and then interpreting the conversation). • Projective Tests (and test that delves into the unconscious). • Examples are TAT and Inkblot Tests.

45. Rorschach Inkblot Test The most widely used projective test uses a set of 10 inkblots and was designed by Hermann Rorschach. It seeks to identify people’s inner feelings by analyzing their interpretations of the blots. Lew Merrim/ Photo Researcher, Inc.

47. If you saw... 1 X-ray: this suggests you have things welling up inside you that you want to express, but you'd prefer to suffer in silence and not rock the boat. You find it hard to say no in general. 2 Professor: You are benevolent, self-effacing, and a very good friend and thinker. 3 Stingray or skate: You tend to put yourself second, and are familiar, though not necessarily comfortable, with being elbowed aside by more powerful characters.  As a result you can sometimes be apologetic to a fault.

49. If you saw... 1 emus: You feel the pull of the highlife  -  though, sometimes, you don't like how you feel the next day; you waver between extreme moods, taking yourself too seriously or just not caring. 2 Beetle: You are very hard-working; success comes naturally to you. You lay your plans, and follow them through. 3 sunglasses, bra or beard: You like dressing up, although you can worry excessively about what people think of you and seek external solutions  -  a new car, new clothes  -  to internal problems.