module 39 - perspectives on personality

Question 1

personality

Answer 1

• an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting

Question 2

2 aspects of Freud’s psychoanalysis

Answer 2

1. Freud’s theory of personality attributes thoughts and actions to unconscious desires and conflicts
2. a collection of techniques used to analyze and treat psychological issues
   - psychodynamic theories were descended from these

Question 3

Freud’s model of the mind

Answer 3

• personality is comprised of:
  id
• unconscious energy that strives to satisfy basic sexual and aggressive drives
• operates on pleasure principle, demanding immediate gratification
  superego
• focuses on ideal behavior and strives for perfection
• acts as moral conscience by representing internalized ideals and aspirations
  ego
• mostly conscious “executive” that operates on the reality principle
• mediates conflict between id and superego
• seeks to gratify the id’s impulses in more long term ways

Question 4

Freud’s psychosexual stages

Answer 4

• Freud believed that unresolved conflicts at nay stage can have lasting effects on personality (become “fixated” in a stage)

Question 5

Freud and defense mechanisms

Answer 5

• believed that the ego (consciousness) protects itself from anxieties using defense mechanisms to unconsciously distort reality
  
  • anxieties come from conflicts between the id and superego (unconscious energy and internalized ideals)
• believed that repression of unconscious conflicts underlies all defense mechanisms may manifest as symbols in dreams or slips of tongue

Question 6

6 well known defense mechanisms

Answer 6

1. regression
2. reaction formation
3. projection
4. rationalization
5. displacement
6. denial

Question 7

projective tests

Answer 7

• subject is shown an ambiguous stimulus for the unconscious to be “projected” onto
• person says whatever immediately comes to mind in response to the stimulus, in order to bypass conscious filtering
• idea is that since the stimulus is ambiguous, the meaning the subject puts on it is revealing of the subject’s unconscious

Question 8

projective test examples

Answer 8

thematic apperception test
- subject makes up stories from ambiguous picture
Rorschach tests
- inkblots
- subject says what image they see in the abstract blob
Free association
- saying the first word that comes to mind in response to a prompt word

Question 9

Freud’s ideas today

Answer 9

• most of his ideas are not scientifically supported
• made important contributions by drawing attention to the unconscious, the irrational, and the importance of sexuality in motivating behavior
• some evidence for certain defense mechanisms but more to protect self-esteem than to repress early childhood trauma
• genetics play bigger role than early childhood trauma in motivating behavior
  
  • experiences also important but throughout life, not just in childhood