Personality - Psychodynamic

Personality - Psychodynamic

1. KLUCKMAN & MURRAY (1953) all people are like all others, some others, no others.

   • enduring psychological qualities that effect thinking etc..

2. PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACHES

   • FREUD
     • the mind is an energy system, limited energy, energy blocked and expressed differently. catharsis = freeing emotions through talking. release energy.
       • people not born innocent but born with sexual and aggressive drives, the role of society is to curb these drives. social norms.
         • ID = pleasure principle, SUPEREGO = the opposite, morality. the EGO = resolves conflict between the two, reality principle
           • life instinct: libido, sexual energy. death instinct: thanatos, e.g. suicide, drive to die.
     • conscious, preconscious and unconscious
       • UNCONSCIOUS: Bargh and Barndollar (1996) primed for achievement or affiliation found performance up / down
         • PSYCHOANALYTIC view: unsonscious irrational, illogical, sexual, aggressive
         • COGNITIVE view: rational, logical, any content
         • motivated unconscious: motivated to banish traumatic thoughts from awareness. thoughts in unconscious influence ongoing conscious
       • DREAMS
         • content of dreams revealed mind contains unconscious contents. manifest content: storyline. latent: unconscious drives / emotions
           • symbolisation e.g. penis = snake
       • implicit vs. explicit
     • DEFENSE MECHANISMS
       • anxiety painful state can't tolerate it for very long so use defense mechanisms
         • DENIAL - avoid recognising threat. 'can't happen to me'
         • PROJECTION: unacceptable, internal changed to external. projects negative self features onto someone else.
         • REACTION FORMATION: defends against unacceptable impulse by recognising and expressing its opposite.
         • REPRESSION: thoughts / wishes are diminished from consciousness
     • PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES:
       • erogenous zones, sexual gratification. oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital.
         • PHALLIC: (4-5) genital excitement. boy has fear of losing penis, castration anxiety. oedipus complex, kill father, marry mother. girls have penis envy
           • resolution through identifying with same-sex parent
   • ERIKSON - lifespan development through 8 stages. not just child development. enhanced freud.
     • Erikson believed in psychoSOCIAL stages. such as trust vs. mistrust, etc. resolve crisis to move onto next stage

3. POST FREUD

   • PROJECTIVE TESTS - respond to ambiguous stimuli and responses reveal personality. emphasises unconscious
     • RORSCHACH INKBLOT TEST - ambiguous inkblots, can either suggest good or bad psychological functioning
       • APA have said that projective tests aren't valid or reliable. TAT works, RIT doesn't
     • THEMATIC APPERCEPTION TEST (TAT) - cards with scenes, asked to make up a story based on scenes. personality projected onto stimuli.
   • ALFRED ADLER
     • Adler focused on social urges and conscious thought, compared to freud who focused on sexual urges / unconscious.
       • focus on bodily inferiorities and how people compensate for them. e.g. stutter, more likely to become great speaker. all experience childh inferiority
       • inferiority complex, strive for superiority. birth order effects, first borns conscientious, later borns rebel.
   • CARL JUNG
     • libido is general life energy, not necessarily sexual. we dont rely on past, we are forward looking.
     • collective unconscious - cumulative experience of past generations, collective unconscious is universal, compared to personal unconscious

4. EVALUATION:

   • DESCRIPTION: good desc. of personality development, wide phenomena, good des. of complexity, defense mechanisms described psychological functioning
     • good and useful description of unconscious, however drawing conclusions / descriptions based on neurotic individuals not useful
   • EXPLANATION: confusing expl. of NORMAL PS developm. expl. of pathology stronger, psychosexual overstress sex drives, good expl. of defense mechanisms,
   • EMPIRICAL VALID: no solid conclusions that problems in adulthood arise from childhood, case studies and only noted findings important to him not valid
     • some methods unclear / problematic
     • consistently measure ego it must exist, scales can measure differences in ego strength. and universals found / cross cultural validity
   • TESTABLE CONCEPTS: subliminal persuasion shows evidence for the unconscious, people with eating disorders ate more after subliminal distressing messag
     • tested that area of the brain found that links dreams to goal-seeking consistent with theory. evidence has been found since, but later perationalised
   • COMPREHENSIVENESS: freud theory is comprehensive, addresses normal and abnormal behaviour, psycho processes underlying both are shown. ground breaking
   • PARSIMONY: very parsimonious theory, not a huge number of concepts and all are relevant (to abnormal and normal)
   • HEURISTIC VALUE: enormous impact, still much researched today, still provokes debate, influenced other disciplines
   • APPLIED VALUE: huge advances in treatment of mental patients, more humane treatment, led to couns and therapy. psychoanalysis effective for mild condi