Freud's Structure of Personality Theory

hello again and welcome back to shorts in psychology this is the first video on the personality topic series and today we're going to be talking about all things Freud in particular his theory regarding the structure of personality Sigmund Freud was the founding father of psychoanalysis a method used to explain human behavior and treat mental illness Freud believed that life was built around tension and pleasure he believed that all tension was due to the build up of libido or sexual energy and the all pleasure came from its discharge according to Freud the unconscious mind was a storehouse for unacceptable repressed desires specific to the individual and that past experiences particularly in childhood have a great influence on our adult lives shaping our personality for example anxiety originating from traumatic experiences in a person's past is hidden from consciousness and may cause problems during adulthood in the form of neuroses such as melancholia hysteria or obsessive or compulsive behaviors Freud believed the human psyche was composed of three elements the conscious mind contains ideas thoughts and feelings of which we are aware and this makes up 10% of our psyche 50 to 60 percent of the psyche is the sub or pre conscious mind which contains material that can easily be recalled such as what we did last weekend the remaining 30 to 40 percent of the psyche is the unconscious mind which is well below the surface of awareness and contains repressed memories traumatic experiences unacceptable urges and all of our primitive instincts and desires according to Freud there are three basic structures of personality the heed the ego and the super-ego these three elements work together to create complex behaviors and have a powerful influence on individuals each of these three elements of personality emerge at different points in life although each part of the personality comprises unique features they interact to form a whole and each part makes relative contribution to an individual's behavior the is the only component of personality present birth and is entirely unconscious Freud called a caldron of seething excitement as it is the irrational component of personality that seeks immediate satisfaction of instinctual urges and desires regardless of the consequences and it's ruled by the pleasure principle it is the primitive and instinctive part of the mind that consists of all the inherited or biological components of personality including sexual and aggressive drives if the needs of the eed are not satisfied immediately a state of anxiety or tension results the EDD is impulsive and responds immediately to the instincts the personality of a newborn child is all heed and only later does it develop an ego and super-ego imagine trying to convince a baby to wait until lunchtime to eat its meal instead the eat requires immediate satisfaction and because the other components of personality are not yet present the infant will cry until these needs are fulfilled although people eventually learn to control it via the ego the heed remains infantile in its function throughout a person's life and does not change with time or experience as it is not in touch with the external world the heed is not affected by reality logic or the everyday world as it is operates within the unconscious part of the mind Freud said that the ego is the part of the egg which has been modified by the direct influence of the external world it develops to mediate between the unrealistic ed and the external real world hence it operates according to the reality principle it is the partly conscious rational decision-making component of personality that regulates thoughts and behavior ideally the ego works by reason whereas the Ede is chaotic and unreasonable the ego considers social realities and norms etiquette and rules in deciding how to behave it works out realistic ways of satisfying the its demands in a manner acceptable in the real world in many cases the impulses can be satisfied through a process of delayed gratification the ego will eventually allow the behavior but only in the appropriate time and place Freud made the analogy of the heed being a horse while the ego is the rider the ego is like a man on horseback who has to hold and check the superior strength of the horse for example imagine that you are stuck in a long meeting at work you find yourself growing increasingly hungry as the meeting drags on while the it might compel you to jump up from your seat and rush to the break room for a snack the ego guides you to sit quietly and wait for the meeting to end instead of acting upon the primal urges of the heed you spend the rest of the meeting imagining yourself eating a cheeseburger once the meeting is finally over you can seek out the object you were imagining and satisfy the demands of the in a realistic and appropriate manner the last component of personality to develop is the super-ego which emerges around age 5 it is the partly conscious self evaluative and moralistic component of personality that is formed through the internalization of parental and societal rules the super-ego provides guidelines for making judgments and focuses on how we ought to behave the super-ego acts to perfect and civilize our behavior working to suppress all unacceptable urges of the aid it struggles to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather than upon realistic principles the super-ego consists of two systems the conscience and the ideal self the conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt for example if the ego gives in to the Eids demands the super-ego may make the person feel bad through guilt the ideal self or ego ideal is an imaginary picture of how you ought to be and represents career aspirations how to treat other people and how to behave as a member of society when talking about the eed the ego and the super-ego it is important to remember that these are not three totally separate entities with clearly defined boundaries these aspects of personality IDEs are dynamic and always interacting within a person to influence an individual's overall personality and behavior if the ego is able to adequately moderate between the demands of the reality the heed and the super-ego a healthy and well-adjusted personality emerges Freud believed that an imbalance between these elements would lead to a maladaptive personality an individual with an overly dominant heed for example might become impulsive uncontrollable or even criminal this individual acts upon his or her most basic urges with no concern for whether the behavior is appropriate acceptable or illegal an overly dominant super-ego on the other hand might lead to a personality that is extremely moralistic and possibly judgmental this person may be very unable to accept anything or anyone that he or she perceives as bad or immoral an excessively dominance at ego can also result in problems an individual with this type of personality might be so tied to reality rules and appropriateness that they are unable to engage in any type of spontaneous or unexpected behavior this individual may seem very concrete and rigid incapable of accepting change and lacking an internal sense of right from wrong it is easy to see how conflict might arise between the IDI go and super-ego when the ego is unable to deal with the demands of the constraints of reality and the moral standards of the super-ego an unpleasant inner state of anxiety arises this anxiety acts as a signal to the ego that things are not going the way they should as a result the ego employs defense mechanisms to help reduce these feelings of anxiety let's summarize some of the defense making since the ego may employ to alleviate anxiety repression acts to keep information out of conscious awareness however these memories don't just disappear they continue to influence our behavior for example a person who has repressed memories of abuse suffered as a child may later have difficulty forming relationships denial was probably one of the best known defense mechanisms and is an outright refusal to admit or recognize that something has occurred or is currently occurring in many cases there might be overwhelming evidence that something is true yet the person will continue to deny its existence or truth because it is too uncomfortable to face denial can involve a flat-out rejection of the existence of a fact or reality in other cases it might involve admitting that something is true but minimizing its importance sometimes people will accept reality and the seriousness of the fact but they will deny their own responsibility and instead blame other people or other outside forces drug addicts or alcoholics often deny that they have a problem while victims of traumatic events may deny that the event ever occurred projection is a defense mechanism that involves taking our own unacceptable qualities or feelings and ascribing them to other people for example if you have a strong dislike for someone you might instead believe that he or she does not like you projection works by allowing the expression of the desire or impulse but in a way that the ego cannot recognize therefore reducing anxiety rationalization is the defense mechanism that involves explaining and unacceptable behavior or feeling in a rational or logical manner avoiding the true reasons for the behavior for example a person who has turned down for a date might rationalize the situation by saying they were not attracted to the other person anyway a student might blame a poor exam score on the instructor rather than his or her lack of preparation rationalization not prevents anxiety it may also protect self-esteem and self-concept when confronted by success or failure people tend to attribute achievement to their own qualities and skills while failures are blamed on other people or outside forces displacement involves taking out our frustrations feelings and impulses on people or objects that are less threatening displaced aggression is a common example of this defense mechanism rather than express our anger in ways that could lead to negative consequences like arguing with our boss we instead express our anger towards a person or object that poses no threats such as our spouse children or pets reaction formation reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feeling impulse or behavior an example of reaction formation would be treating someone you strongly dislike in an excessively friendly manner in order to hide your true feelings when confronted by stressful events people sometimes abandon coping strategies and revert to patterns of behavior used in earlier development this defense mechanism is called regression for example an individual fixated at an earlier developmental stage might cry or sulk upon hearing unpleasant news finally sublimation is a defense mechanism that allows us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting these behaviors into a more acceptable form for example a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kickboxing as a means of venting frustration Freud believed that sublimation was a sign of maturity that allows people to function normally in socially acceptable ways let's finish by applying Freud's theories to a few past exam questions pause the video while you take a moment to complete this question as I've mentioned in class the exam will never ask specifically for Freud as other psychodynamic theories could be taught to students however in your case you can describe any of Freud's theories relating to person including his levels of consciousness unconscious subconscious and conscious structure of personality Ede ego super-ego psycho stages of development or defense mechanisms as the question is worth six months you just need to have three ideas well described relating to one of these this is probably easiest to achieve by describing either the levels of consciousness or structure of personality and this is often where students have the most success in this question you need to apply the theory to a scenario of our Amanda pause the video while you answer the question this question asks you to describe one aspect of a psychodynamic theory of personality so this means that two marks are for the description of this aspect and two marks are for your description of how Amanda's characteristics illustrate this aspect therefore rather than describing all three elements of personality you need to choose one for example you may describe the eat and how characteristics of Amanda's personality such as the fact that she is self-centered and makes decisions based on emotions rather than facts is evidence that her personality is dominated by her Ede rather than ego or super-ego similarly you could choose to describe the unconscious mind and Amanda's unconscious drives including her being talkative and making decisions based on emotion rather than the facts to conclude let's look at an extended response question in this video we are just going to answer the first dot point which is worth four marks so you will need two well-described points as your answer pause the video while you do this this question has a lot of material that you could use in your answer here as for the other questions we've looked at you could describe any of Freud's theories relating to personality however in this video I'm going to focus on characteristics that relate to the three components of personality edie ego and super-ego you we have to choose two characteristics listed and these could both relate to the same component or different components so for example you may explain how two characteristics are illustrative of the eed component or one of the in component and one of the superego phrases listed that could describe an abdominal personality include childish rebellious repressed memories pleasure-seeker instinctive or hostile three examples of phrases that describe the ego are extremely rational sensitive and overly overly efficient the super-ego could be described as controlling critical always feels guilty and moralistic there are also many phrases here that related well to the psychosexual stages of development so we will return to this question in the next video hopefully though this has given you a good introduction to some of Freud's psychoanalytic - personality as always thanks for listening

Channel: Shorts in Psychology

Views: 152,882

Rating: 4.9051685 out of 5

Keywords: Freud, psychodynamic

Id: Gfrrl8_U1Ac

Length: 16min 36sec (996 seconds)

Published: Sat May 19 2018