Module 1 Flashcards

Question

What is Freud's Ego part of personality?

Answer 1

The desire for immediate fulfillment is balanced by the ego, which operates according to the reality principle. This function of personality is not inborn but develops as children learn that not all desires can be fulfilled, or even if they can, might be fulfilled after a delay. The ego operates in the conscious, then, and addresses how the real world impacts the desires of the id.

Answer 2

The superego is the final function of personality, developing by the time a child is school-aged. The superego is the child’s internalization of social norms and standards.

Answer 3

As the ego is caught between the id’s impulses and the superego’s moral standards, it must attempt to balance the conflict between the other two functions, as well as the conflict between the internal life and the realities of the external world. In a well-functioning adult, this balance works. However, that balance between competing impulses is not always easy to achieve.

Answer 4

Personality development progresses through stages that are named after the bodily area from which a person of a particular age centers her pleasure and enjoyment.

Answer 5

Either deriving too much pleasure or getting too little pleasure in a particular stage can cause a person to become stuck (or fixated, to use Freud’s language) as we seek to recreate the pleasure, or to address the fact that we were deprived during that stage’s pleasures.

Answer 6

``` Oral Stage (Birth to 18 months) Anal Stage (18 months - 3 years) Phallic Stage (3 years - 5 years) Latency Stage (5 years - puberty) Genital Stage (puberty - adulthood) ```

Answer 7

In the oral stage, children derive their primary pleasure through their mouths. Their major developmental task from birth to approximately 18 months is to grow and begin to understand the world. They do that by investigating whether or not new things are food—everything goes into a baby’s mouth, and they are easily soothed by sucking, so pacifiers provide a pleasurable experience for young children. Of course, the central activity that provides pleasure to children in this stage is nursing. Children in this stage are primarily functioning in response to their id impulses. If they derive too much pleasure in this stage (for example, they are allowed to breastfeed for a long time and are weaned late) or too little pleasure (they are weaned early), they will become fixated and not progress fully to healthy adult development. Instead, their personality will be one of dependency on others and general neediness as they seek to recreate the initial comfort they found when all of their needs were taken care of by their mother. Behavioral indicators that an adult has a fixated oral personality might also be smoking or chewing gum or constantly biting one’s fingernails. These are reversions to seeking oral pleasure.

Answer 8

During the anal stage, children’s pleasure moves from an oral focus about feeding to a focus on the anus, as the primary developmental task shifts to toilet training. Children derive pleasure from learning to control their bodies, and by extension, to control the environment around them. They can choose to eliminate their bowels or not, and so gain control of themselves and their environment. Many parents will remember times when their potty-training child made pronouncements about needing the bathroom on a car trip and the frantic search for a place to stop that then ensues: The child is definitely in control of the environment in that case. Difficulties with toilet training, whether training too late or traumatically too early can lead to anal fixations, which are also about control. For example, an anal retentive personality might have a high need for orderliness and cleanliness in his environment, whereas an anal expulsive personality might exert control over her surroundings by leaving her belongings scattered and messy. In both cases these are issues of control of the environment.

Answer 9

During this stage of development, the zone from which pleasure is derived is the genitalia, specifically the penis. Boys and girls are both beginning to explore their bodies and are learning about differences in anatomy. The focus of this stage, then, is on boys’ anatomy. According to Freud, once girls realize that boys have a penis and they don’t, girls experience penis envy because they are missing this significant feature. Once boys realize they have a penis and girls don’t, they come to believe that girls must have lost their penis, and so become overly focused on keeping theirs. In order to work through this, boys go through what Freud called Oedipal conflict, a series of steps where boys turn their affections toward their mothers and desire them sexually. Boys are fearful that their fathers will be angered by their competition for her affection, and so boys undergo castration anxiety where they fear that they will be emasculated by their fathers. In order to deal with this anxiety, boys recognize that they cannot compete against their fathers, and thus begin to identify with their fathers in order to adopt an appropriate male role. It is the internalization of the external standards of masculinity that helps boys to develop a superego.

Answer 10

During the Phallic Stage. boys go through what Freud called Oedipal conflict, a series of steps where boys turn their affections toward their mothers and desire them sexually. Boys are fearful that their fathers will be angered by their competition for her affection, and so boys undergo castration anxiety where they fear that they will be emasculated by their fathers. In order to deal with this anxiety, boys recognize that they cannot compete against their fathers, and thus begin to identify with their fathers in order to adopt an appropriate male role. It is the internalization of the external standards of masculinity that helps boys to develop a superego.

Answer 11

Electra Conflict

Answer 12

According to Freud, once the phallic stage is navigated, children enter a period of latency, where no new psychological challenges or conflicts emerge. Rather, children focus on developing same-sex friendships throughout elementary school and developing interests throughout those school years.

Answer 13

Assuming that a person has successfully navigated the first three stages, once puberty is reached the person enters the genital stage. Although the area of focus for pleasure is the genitals, it is quite different from the phallic stage. The difference here is that mutual genital pleasure is the focus, rather than just male sexual anatomy. The genital stage, then, is about healthy relationships with others and with productive work. The genital stage of personality focuses on our healthy adult growth.

Module 1 Flashcards

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