According to Freud the mind can be divided into three different levels 1 The conscious mind includes everything that we are aware of This is the aspect of our mental processing that we can think and talk about rationally A part of this includes our memory which is not always part of consciousness but can be retrieved easily at any time and brought into our awareness Freud called this the preconscious 2 The preconscious mind is the part of the mind that represents ordinary memory While we are not consciously aware of this information at any given time we can retrieve it and pull it into consciousness when needed 3 The unconscious mind is a reservoir of feelings thoughts urges and memories that outside of our conscious awareness Most of the contents of the unconscious are unacceptable or unpleasant such as feelings of pain anxiety or conflict According to Freud the unconscious continues to influence our behavior and experience even though we are unaware of these underlying influences Freud likened these three levels of mind to an iceberg The top of the iceberg that you can see above the water represents the conscious mind The part of the iceberg that is submerged below the water but is still visible is the preconscious The bulk of the iceberg lies unseen beneath the waterline and represents the unconscious Figure 12 1The Conscious and Unconscious Mind The Iceberg Analogy The iceberg analogy illustrates how much of the mind is unconscious in Freud s theory The conscious mind is the part of the iceberg above water the unconscious mind the part below water Notice that the id is totally unconscious whereas the ego and the superego can operate at either the conscious or the unconscious level Th e conflicts that erupt among the demands of the id the superego and reality create a great deal of anxiety for the ego The ego has strategies for dealing with this anxiety called defense mechanisms Defense mechanisms are tactics the ego uses to reduce anxiety by unconsciously distorting reality For example imagine that Jason s id is pressing to express an unconscious desire to have sex with his mother Clearly acting on this impulse would not please the superego or society at large If he became aware of this impulse Jason might recoil in horror Instead Jason s ego might use the defense mechanism of displacement and he might develop a relationship with a girlfriend who looks and acts like his mother Mechanism Repression The master defense mechanism the ego pushes unacceptable impulses out of awareness back into the unconscious mind Example A young girl was sexually abused by her uncle As an adult she can t remember anything about the traumatic experience Rationalization The ego replaces a less acceptable motive with a more acceptable one A college student does not get into the fraternity of his choice He tells himself that the fraternity is very exclusive and that a lot of students could not get in Displacement The ego shifts feelings toward an unacceptable object to another more acceptable object A woman can t take her anger out on her boss so she goes home and takes it out on her husband Sublimation The ego replaces an unacceptable impulse with a socially acceptable one A man with strong sexual urges becomes an artist who paints nudes Projection The ego attributes personal shortcomings problems and faults to others A man who has a strong desire to have an extramarital affair accuses his wife of flirting with other men Reaction Formation The ego transforms an unacceptable motive into its opposite A woman who fears her sexual urges becomes a religious zealot Denial The ego refuses to acknowledge anxiety producing realities A man won t acknowledge that he has cancer even though a team of doctors has diagnosed his cancer Regression The ego seeks the security of an earlier developmental period in the face of stress A woman returns home to mother every time she and her husband have a big argument Pscyhosexual stages Freud believed that human beings go through universal stages of personality development and that at each developmental stage we experience sexual pleasure in one part of the body more than in others Each stage is named for the location of sexual pleasure at that stage Erogenous zones are parts of the body that have especially strong pleasuregiving qualities at particular stages of development Freud thought that our adult personality is determined by the way we resolve confl icts between these early sources of pleasure the mouth the anus and then the genitals and the demands of reality Oral stage fi rst 18 months Th e infant s pleasure centers on the mouth Chewing sucking and biting are the chief sources of pleasure that reduce tension in the infant Anal stage 18 to 36 months During a time when most children are experiencing toilet training the child s greatest pleasure involves the anus and urethra and their functions Freud recognized that there is pleasure in going and holding it as well as in the experience of control over one s parents in deciding when to do either Phallic stage 3 to 6 years Th e name of Freud s third stage comes from the Latin word phallus which means penis Pleasure focuses on the genitals as the child discovers that self stimulation is enjoyable Genital stage adolescence and adulthood Th e genital stage is the time of sexual reawakening a point when the source of sexual pleasure shifts to someone outside the family Freud believed that in adulthood the individual becomes capable of the two hallmarks of maturity love and work However Freud felt that human beings are inevitably subject to intense confl ict reasoning that everyone no matter how healthy or well adjusted still has an id pressing for expression Adulthood even in the best of circumstances still involves reliving the unconscious confl icts of childhood According to trait theories personality consists of broad enduring dispositions traits that tend to lead to characteristic responses In other words we can describe people in terms of the ways they behave such as whether they are outgoing friendly private or hostile Big Five Individuals high in extraversion are more likely than others to engage in social activities Emmons Diener 1986 and to experience gratitude McCullough Emmons Tsang 2002 and a strong sense of meaning in life King others 2006 In addition extraverts are more forgiving L Th ompson others 2005 People rate extraverts as smiling and standing energetically and as dressing stylishly Naumann others