Personality

An individual’s characteristic pattern of

thinking, feeling, and acting.

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 There are many major theories in personality
to explain the constructs of personality.
◦ Psychoanalytic perspective: exploring the
unconscious mind
◦ Humanistic perspective: the self-actualizing person
◦ Trait perspective: personality dimensions

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 Freud’s clinical
experience led him to
develop the first
comprehensive
theory of personality
which included, the
unconscious mind,
psychosexual stages

Culver Pictures
and defense
mechanisms.
Sigmund Freud
(1856-1939)

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Conscious: In Freud’s analysis of levels of consciousness, the
regions of mind containing the mental contents of which you
are aware at any given moment.

Preconscious: In Freud’s analysis of levels of consciousness,

regions of mind containing ideas you can easily bring to
awareness.

Unconscious: In Freud’s analysis of levels of consciousness,

regions of mind containing ideas you are not aware of and
generally cannot become aware of even if you wanted to.

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 According to Freud, our personality (how we
function) is divided into three main
structures:
◦ Id: the personality structure that motivates people
to satisfy basic bodily (sexual & aggressive) needs.
– the animal self
◦ Ego: the mental system that balances the demands
of the id with the opportunities and constraints of
the real world. – the societal self
◦ Superego: the personality structure that represents
society’s moral and ethical rules. – the moral self

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 Freud believed that Id is the most important
part of personality. It is the only one that
provided original energy (drive)
 Ego and Superego are formed later, during
upbringing and socialization. They battle with
the Id impulses constantly.

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 Freud suggested that the
structure of personality was
like an iceberg. The three
Freudian levels of
consciousness—conscious,
preconscious, and
unconscious— are like
regions of an iceberg that,
respectively, float above the
surface of the water, are
visible just below the
surface, and lurk, invisibly,
below the surface. Most of
personality, including the
entire id, resides below the
surface in the unconscious
region of the mind.

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 Freud identified five psychosexual stages:
Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

 Psychosexual stage: In Freud’s theory of

psychological development, a period during
which the child focuses on obtaining sensual
gratification through a particular part of the
body

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 Oral stage Anal stage Phallic stage Latency stage Genital stage

•the •the •the •the •the

developmental developmental developmental developmental developmental
stage (ages 0 stage (18 stage (3 to 6 stage during stage that
to 18 months) months to 3 years) during which sexual starts at
during which years) during which the desires are puberty,
children seek which children source of repressed into signaling the
gratification experience gratification is the reawakening
through the gratification the genitals. unconscious of sexual
mouth. from the until puberty. desire.
release of
tension
resulting from
the control
and
elimination of
feces.

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 Freud proposed two types of mental energies:
◦ Life energies (sex instincts) motivate the
preservation of life and reproduction. The life
energies are primarily sexual; they motivate people
to pursue sex and, more generally, to desire
pleasurable, sensual activities.
◦ Death energies (aggression instincts) oppose the
life energies. Freud believed that humans possess
an instinctive awareness of their mortality and a
mental energy that motivates them to attain a final
resting place (i.e., to die).

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 In psychoanalysis, mental energies are called
psychodynamics

 Psychodynamic processes: In Freud’s theory,

changes in mental energy that occur as
energy flows from one personality structure
to another, or is directed to desired objects
 Anxiety: If the energy flow (drive) is blocked
somehow, it will result in anxiety, which is
the ultimate source of mental disorder.

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 Defense mechanism: A mental strategy that,
in psychoanalytic theory, is devised by the
ego to protect against anxiety.
 These defense mechanisms reduce anxiety in
two ways:
◦ Block anxiety-provoking ideas from reaching the
consciousness (such as repression)
◦ Distort anxiety-provoking ideas so that if they do
reach consciousness, they arrive in a socially
acceptable form (such as sublimation)

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Defense Definition Example
Mechanism
Denial After buying a house in an earthquake-prone
Failure to admit the existence or
area, a person denies the existence of valid
true nature of emotionally
scientific evidence showing that an earthquake is
threatening information
likely to strike.
Repression Failure to remember anxiety-
An adult does not recall an emotionally
provoking information about one’s
disturbing event from childhood.
past
Rationalization Formulating a logical reason or
After being turned down for a date, you say you
excuse that hides one’s true motives
weren’t really attracted to the person anyway.
or feelings
Projection Concluding that other people A hostile, aggressive person starts a fight with
possess undesirable qualities that someone but blames the other person for
actually exist in oneself initiating it.
Reaction formation
Expressing thoughts and behaviors
You are extremely friendly and generous toward
that are the opposite of one’s true
someone you actually dislike.
motives

Sublimation Expressing socially undesirable

A person releases aggressive energy by taking a
motives in a socially acceptable
class in martial arts.
form
Displacement Redirecting mental energy from a An employee angry at his or her boss yells at
threatening target to an unrelated family members, thus redirecting the anger to
and less threatening target them.
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 Psychoanalytic psychologists use two methods to
assess the personality as alternatives to the self-
report strategy:
 Free association method: A method of both
personality assessment and therapy devised by
Freud in which psychologists encourage people
to let their thoughts flow freely and say whatever
comes to mind.
 Projective test: Personality assessment tool in
which items are ambiguous and psychologists
are interested in the way test takers interpret the
ambiguity, “projecting” elements of their own
personality onto the test.

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 This item is from the
Rorschach, a
projective test.
According to
psychodynamic
theory, test takers
“project” some of their
own unconscious level
of personality onto
the test item when
interpreting what the
image represents.

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 13a_Freudian theory

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