PSYCHODYNAMIC PERSPECTIVE

PERSONALITY
Personality

A pattern of enduring, distinctive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize the way an individual
adapts to the world.

THEORIES

Psychodynamic perspectives views of personality as primarily unconscious and as developing in stages.

Developing personality (Freud) personality develops in childhood through a series of stages.

1st Stage

Oral Stage the babys mouth is the focal point of pleasure.

- The babys mouth is the focal point of pleasure. During the first 12-18 months of life, children suck,
mouth, and bite anything that will fit into their mouths.

To Freud, this behavior suggested that the mouth is the primary site of a kind of sexual pleasure; weaning
represents the main conflict during the oral stage.

If infants are overly indulged or frustrated in search for oral gratification, they may become fixated at this
stage.

Fixation refers to the conflicts or concerns that persist beyond the developmental period in which they
first occur.

For example:

- if infants oral needs were constantly gratified immediately at the first sign of hunger, rather than learning
that feeding takes place on a schedule, fixation may occur.

Fixation at the oral stage might produce an adult who is unusually interested in oral activities eating,
talking, smokingor symbolic sorts of oral interests: sarcastic or very gullible (swallowing anything).

2nd stage

Anal Stage

- 12- 18 months until 3 years of age;

- period wherein the emphasis is toilet training;
- Main source of pleasure is on the anal regionthe children obtain considerable pleasure from both
retention and expulsion of feces.
- Fixation happens when the toilet training is particularly demanding
- If fixation happens, adults may show unusual rigidity, orderliness, punctuality---or extreme disorderliness
or sloppiness.
 3rd Stage

Phallic Stage

- at about age 3; the child focuses on the genitals and pleasures derived from fondling them.
- the stage of Oedipal conflict
4th Stage

Latency

- 5 years to adolescence;

- Comes after the resolution of the oedipal conflict, and last until puberty.

5th Stage

Genital Stage

- adolescence to adulthood;
- Establishment of mature sexual relationships.

Personality Structure (Freud)

1. Id consists of unconscious drives and is the individuals reservoir of psychic energy; works according to
pleasure principle (always seeks pleasure and avoids pain)
2. Ego deals with the demands of reality; abides by the reality principle. It tries to bring the individuals
pleasure within the norms of society. (The executive branch of the personality)
3. Superego harsh internal judge of our behavior. Our conscience and evaluates the morality of our
behavior.
Example:

ego I will have sex only occasionally and use pills

id I want to be satisfied; sex feels good
superego I feel guilty about having sex at all
Neo-Freudian Psychoanalysts

Neo-Freudian psychoanalysts:
Psychoanalysts who were trained in traditional Freudian theory but later rejected some of its major points.

Theories

1. Carl Jung
One of the most influential neo-Freudian. He rejected the notion of the primary importance of
unconscious sexual urges.
He looked at the primitive urges of the unconscious more positively, suggesting that people have
collective unconscious: a common set of ideas, feelings, images, and symbols that we inherit from
our relatives, the human race, and even nonhuman animal ancestors from the distant past.
This collective unconscious is shared by everyone and is displayed by behavior that is common across
diverse culturessuch as love of mother, belief in supreme being, and even behavior such as fear of
snakes (Oehman & Mineka, 2003)
Jung proposed that the collective unconscious contains archetypes: universal symbolic
representations of a particular person, object, or experience (Jung,1961).

Example: Mother archetypes has some prevalence in art, religion, mythology, and literature which
contains reflections of our ancestors relationships with mother figures.

2. Alfred Adler
also considered Freuds emphasis on sexual needs misplaced
He proposed that the primary motivation is striving for superiority, a quest to achieve self-
improvement and perfection.
Adler used the term inferiority complex to describe situations in which adults have not been able to
overcome the feelings of inferiority they developed as children (when they were small & limited in
their knowledge about the world).
3. Erik Erikson
His concern was the psycho-social theory of development;
Insisted that it is the conflict between instincts and cultural demands what shape personality.
(review your developmental stage)
PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT

1. SELF-REPORT TEST

Also called an objective test or inventory, a type of test that directly asks people whether specific items
(usually true/false or agree/disagree) describe their personality traits.

Example:
- I am easily embarrassed
- I love to go to parties
- I like to watch cartoons on TV

1.1 Assessment of the Big Five Factors

The 5-factor model that summarizes the broad dimensions of personality characteristics

Extroversion: The extroversion trait includes characteristics such as sociability, high emotional
expressiveness, excitability, assertiveness, and talkativeness.

Conscientiousness: included attributes of high levels of thoughtfulness, impulse control and goal-
directed behaviors. The conscientious people are mindful of details and highly organized.

Agreeableness: includes the attributes of altruism, trust, affection, kindness, and other pro-social
behaviors.

Openness: attributes such as insight and imagination. Moreover, such individuals tend to have a wide
spectrum of interests.

Neuroticism: Neurotic individuals tend to experience anxiety, emotional instability, irritability, sadness
and mood swings.

1.2 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

The most widely used and researched empirically keyed self-report personality test.
2. PROJECTIVE TESTS

Personality assessment tool that presents individuals with an ambiguous stimulus and then asks them to
describe it or tell a story about it ---in other words, to project their own meaning onto it.

2.1 Rorschach inkblot test

A widely used projective test that uses an individual perception of inkblots to determine his or her
personality.

2.2 Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective test designed to elicit stories that reveal something about an individuals personality.