Lecture 21 Notes Personality a hypothetical construct a set of consistent behavioral traits displayed by an individual the consistency and distinctiveness of behavior Freud Explain motivation personality and mental disorder based on early childhood experience unconscious motives and conflict and how people cope with aggressive and sexual urges Personality Structure Id the primitive and instinctual component of personality The source of primary biological urges that provide the energy for behavior The Id operates according to the pleasure principle demands immediate gratification of these biological urges Primary process thinking illogical irrational and fantasy oriented Ego decision making component of personality mediates between the Id s demands for immediate gratification and the dictates of socially acceptable behavior The ego operates according to the reality principle takes social norms into account at the level of practical behavior Secondary process thinking rational realistic and oriented toward problem solving NO ETHICS INVOLVED not that it is wrong to do this you will get in trouble if you do this Superego the moral component of personality the internalization social norms and standards of right and wrong Levels of Consciousness Conscious what you are aware of at a particular moment in time Preconscious information that you have stored in memory that you can retrieve remember Unconscious thoughts memories and desires that are unavailable to consciousness they cannot be retrieved o Dreams reveal contents of unconscious o Freudian slips slips of the tounge that reveal your true feelings o Psychoanalysis Freudian approach to therapy use these things to find out what is in your unconscious that is driving your behavior and creating your problems The unconscious is larger than the conscious and the preconscious The ego and the superego operate at all three levels of consciousness but the id is entirely buried in the unconscious so we have no access to it Why sex and aggression as the biological urges of focus Because with sexual and aggressive behavior there are a lot of conflicts between the id social ethical norms Conflicts over sex and aggression are more important because they are more prevalent Conflicts arouse anxiety this anxiety is then reduced avoided through defense mechanisms unconscious reactions that prevent unpleasant emotions such as repression Psychosexual stages Stage theories human development in childhood goes through a series of stages in a particular order you have to finish one stage before you can move to another and to problems that are in a particular stage must be resolved before you can move on sometimes the stages are resolved in problematic ways Psychosexual stages are developmental periods with a characteristic sexual focus sexual being anything that provides physical pleasure that will affect the adult personality These stages focus on sources of physical pleasure and a NEED TO OVERCOME bad desires associated with these sources PEOPLE HAVE DESIRES THAT ARE FUNDAMENTALLY BAD Fixation is failure to move onto the next stage at the appropriate time excessive frustration or gratification with the needs associated with that stage a general fixation leads to overemphasis on the psychological needs associated with that stage of fixation for the rest of the persons life The stages o Oral o Anal Time the 1st year Focus mouth Experience feeding and weaning problems arise with feeding schedule feeding type and how weaning occurs Fixation consequence excessive interest in mouth oriented activities large interest in oral sex putting stuff in mouth chewing gum etc Time 1 3 years old Focus anus Experience toilet training expulsion or retention of feces is pleasurable Fixation consequence being a non giving individual either of belongings or of themselves very private individuals Also excessive punishment during toilet training can result in hostility toward females o Phallic Time 3 6 years old Focus genitals self stimulation of the genitals Experience Oedipal complex children develop an interest in physical pleasure in the opposite sex parent which is accompanied by hostility toward the same sex parent Why The same sex parent is a competitor for the opposite sex parent s attention Fixation sex related problems stemming from failure to adequately identify with the same sex parent root cause of any problem and particularly problems in not fulfilling typical role for your sex homosexuality Women Freud claims that women are subject to penis envy because they do not have a penis and want one Freud also says that many young girls were sexually molested o Latent Stage Time 6 puberty Focus none Experience social contact outside the family Fixation sexual repression o Genital Stage Time puberty Focus genitals others stimulation of the genitals Experience intimate relationships with others Fixation N A
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