KAREN HORNEY 1885-1952

Major Concepts from Horney

Rejection of Penis Envy Concept-

n  Women’s sense of inferiority did not come from genital inferiority but rather from the way they were raised in society

n  Came from belief that women must secure the love of a man

n  Culture elevated masculinity – devaluated femininity-delicate weak & submissive

Basic Anxiety:

n  child’s fear of being alone, helpless, & insecure

n  Children are powerless-unable to gain their place in society immediately-so must repress feelings of hostility & anger towards powerful adults, instead they need to strive to please them to get their needs met

n  Arises from social conflicts in family and larger conflicts within society

Horney’s 10 Neurotic (security seeking) Needs

• n  Affection & approval
• n  Having a “partner”
• n  Narrowly restricting one’s life
• n  Power
• n  Exploiting others
• n  Social recognition & prestige
• n  Personal achievement
• n  Personal admiration
• n  Self-sufficiency & Independence
• n  Perfection & Unassailability

ALFRED ADLER 1870-1937

Adler’s Individual Psychology

n  Based on the unique motivations of individuals

n  Importance of each person’s perceived niche in society

n  Importance of goal directness of human nature – teleological aspect

n  Concern with social conditions-need to take preventive measures to avoid disturbances in personality

Adler’s Personality Typology

ADLER’S TYPES	GREEK HUMORS	GREEK TYPES	SOCIAL INTEREST	ACTIVITY
Ruling-Dominant	Yellow Bile	Choleric irritable	Low	High
Getting-Learning	Phlegm	Phlegmatic Lethargic	Low	Low
Avoiding	Black Bile	Melancholic brooding	Very Low	Low
Socially Useful	Blood	Sanguine cheerful	High	High

M.Y.E.R.S B.R.I.G.G.S

Myers-Briggs Types-   4 Functions

n  Sensation (S) seeks fullest possible experience of what is immediate and real

n  Intuition (N) seeks the broadest view of what is possible and insightful

n  Thinking (T) seeks rational order and plan according to impersonal logic

n  Feeling (F) seeks rational order according to harmony among subjective values

Myers Briggs Attitudes & Orientation to Outer World

 Attitudes:

n  Extroverted (E) attention drawn out to objects & people in environment

n  Introverted (I) attention on inner world of concepts  & Ideas 

 Orientation-implicit in Jung’s work

n  Perceptive (P) – attuned to incoming information

n  Judging (J) – making decisions, seeking closure, planning operations, or organizing activities

CARL JUNG 1875-1961

Concept from Jung’s View

•   Group of emotionally charged feelings, thoughts and ideas related to a particular theme
•  Strength determined by its libido (psychic-energy) or “value”
•   Personality is made up of opposing forces that continually pull against one another

Jung’s Functions of the Mind

• Sensing – Is there something there?
• Thinking - What is it that is there?
•   Feeling - What is it worth?
•   Intuiting – Where did it come from and where is it going?
• Sensing & Thinking=Rational-Judgment & reason
• Feeling & Intuiting=Irrational-conscious reasoning is virtually absent

Jung’s Attitudes of the Mind

• Exists in each person one is more dominant than other in each person
•   Extroversion – direct psychic energy towards the things in external world
• Introversion – direct psychic energy more inwardly focused

Jung’s 8 Personality Types

•  Extroversion Sensing
•   Introversion Sensing
•   Extroversion Thinking
•  Introversion Thinking
• Extroversion Feeling 
•   Introversion Feeling
•   Extroversion Intuiting
•  Introversion Intuiting

Sigmund Freud

“The twig of personality is bent at an early stage.”

•          Freud identified 5 stages of personality development (psychosexual stages): 

Oral

1. 0 to 18 months
2. Pleasure centres on the mouth – sucking, biting, chewing
3. Weaning can lead to fixation if not handled correctly
4. Unresolved conflicts can lead to oral activities in adulthood 

Anal

1. 18 to 36 months
2. Pleasure focuses on coping with demands to control bowel & bladder elimination
3. Toilet training can lead to anal fixation (anal-retentive or expulsive behaviours in adulthood) if not handled correctly

       Phallic

1. 3 to 6 years
2. Pleasure is in the genitals
3. Coping with incestuous sexual feelings (Oedipus or Electra complex can occur)
4. Fixation can lead to excessive masculinity in males and the need for attention or domination in females 

Latency

1.        7 years to puberty 
2.        Sexuality is repressed and dormant
3.        Children participate in hobbies, school and same-sex friendships
4.    During these stages the Id focuses on pleasure sensitive body areas called erogenous zones 

Genital

1. •          Puberty onwards
2. •          Maturation of sexual interests
3. •          Sexual feelings re-emerge and are oriented toward others
4. •          Healthy adults find pleasure in love and work
5. •          Fixated adults have their energy tied up in earlier stages

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Defence Mechanisms

•          Failure to resolve psychological conflict amongst Id, Ego, and Superego
-> anxiety
-> unconscious mental processes employed by the ego to reduce anxiety (i.e., defence mechanisms)

•          Repression

•          Regression

•          Displacement

•          Reaction Formation

•          Projection

•          Rationalisation

•          Sublimation

Psychoanalytic Assessment

•          Access to unconscious is via

–        free association,

–        dreams,

–        slips of the tongue

–        Ideal: ‘Psychological x-Ray’

•          Projective Tests:

–        Presents ambiguous stimuli and then ask person to describe or tell a story about it

Major Ego or Neo-Analyst Theorists

Major Ego or Neo-Analyst Theorists

• Carl Jung- collective unconscious, archetypes, complexes
•   Alfred Adler- social influence
•   Karen Horney- conception of women
• Eric Erikson- beyond childhood to adulthood-life cycle

Ego or Neo-Analysts

n  Importance of the feelings of self (ego) that arise from interactions & conflicts

n  Sense of self(ego) central core of personality

n  Ego = core individuality of person

n  Start from Psychoanalysis

n  Emphasis on motivation & social interaction

P.E.R.S.O.N.A.L.I.T.Y

Why study personality?

•          Personality is a central topic in psychology.

•          Aims to understand causes of behavior in ourselves and others by attributing unique individual characteristics.

What is Personality?

“An individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.”

What is Personality?

•          A person’s general style of interacting with the world.
•          Differences between people which are  relatively consistent over time and place.
•          Personality is the set of psychological traits and mechanisms within the individual that is organized and relatively enduring and that influences his or her interactions with, and adaptations to, the environment (including the intrapsychic, physical, and social environment).
•          Individuals can be studied in two ways: 

              Nomothetically: As individual instances of general characteristics that are distributed in the population  

           Idiographically: As single and unique cases

Current Issues in Personality

•          Appropriate Units of Personality

–        Traits

–        Motives

–        Cognitions

–        Which traits, motives, cognitions, etc.

   Current Issues in Personality

•          Nomothetic:  scientific, analytic, common units

                                                                vs.

•          Idiographic:  individual level, study individual lives in depth

Major theoretical perspectives

•          Psychoanalytic

•          Trait

•          Humanistic

•          Social-Cognitive

•          Biological (not covered)

Psychodynamic Perspective

•          Developed by Sigmund Freud

•          Psychoanalysis is both:

–         an approach to therapy and

–         a theory of personality

•          Emphasises unconscious motivation

•          Conscious: Information in your immediate awareness; all things we are aware of at any given moment

•          Pre-conscious: Information which can easily be made conscious; everything that can, with a little effort, be brought into consciousness; stores temporary memories

•          Unconscious: Thoughts, feelings, urges, wishes, and other information of which we are unaware and that is difficult to bring to conscious awareness; inaccessible warehouse of anxiety-producing thoughts and drives

Psychodynamic Personality Structure

Personality arises from one’s efforts to resolve conflicts between 3 interacting systems of the mind:

•          Id (Biological – aggression & pleasure-seeking)

Instinctual drives present at birth

Seeks to satisfy basic biological urges

Operates on the ‘pleasure principle’, unconstrained by logic or reality

Does not distinguish between reality and fantasy

•          Ego (Rationality)

Develops ~ 6-8 months, out of the Id

Operates on the ‘reality principle’

Seeks to satisfy urges in a realistic way

Understands reality and logic

Mediates between Id and Superego

•          Superego (Social)

Develops ~ 5 years

Represents internalised societal and parental morals, values, ideals

Strives for the ideal

Responsible for guilt

Its sole focus is on how one ought to think and behave