INTELLIGENCE, THINKING AND PERSONALITY

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INTELLIGENCE, THINKING AND PERSONALITY

• PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

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WHAT IS A PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY?

• Behaviour is a result of struggles and
  compromises among motives, drives, needs and
  conflicts
• Behaviour can reflect a motive in a subtle or
  disguised way
• The same behaviour can reflect different motives
  at different times or in different people
• People may be more or less aware of the forces
  guiding their behaviour and the conflicts among
  them

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FREUD -BASIC FRAMEWORK

• Influenced by a mechanist-physiological school
• Behaviour governed by an energy system, with a
  relatively fixed amount of energy available at
  any one time
• The Pleasure Principle - the goal of behaviour is
  pleasure (reduction of tension, release of
  energy)
• People are driven by sexual and aggressive
  instincts
• The expression of these drives can conflict with
  the demands of society - so the energy that would
  be released in the fulfilment of these drives
  must find other channels of release

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FREUD - LEVELS OF AWARENESS

• Conscious
• what we are aware of
• Preconscious
• what we can become aware of, if we attend to it
• Unconscious
• what we cannot become aware of (except under
  special circumstances)

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THE UNCONSCIOUS

• Is, in Freuds conception, dynamic
• We are motivated to keep some thoughts, feelings,
  desires etc. out of conscious awareness
• However, these thoughts etc. can influence our
  everyday behaviour in unexpected ways (e.g. slips
  of the tongue)
• The Psychopathology of Everyday Life
• Note - modern (cognitive) notions of
  unconscious influences on behaviour are quite
  different from Freuds

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LATER DEVELOPMENTS, THE ID, THE EGO AND THE
SUPEREGO

• ID
• source of drive energy
• contains sexual and aggressive instincts
• operates according to the pleasure principle
• free of inhibitions
• present from birth

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LATER DEVELOPMENTS, THE ID, THE EGO AND THE
SUPEREGO

• EGO
• does not have its own energy (in 1923
  formulation)
• tries to satisfy the demands of the ID subject to
  the constraints imposed by the SUPEREGO
• operates according to the reality principle
  (satisfy desires at time when most pleasure can
  be gained - may require delayed gratification)

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LATER DEVELOPMENTS, THE ID, THE EGO AND THE
SUPEREGO

• SUPEREGO
• contains the ideals we strive for
• controls behaviour in accordance with societal
  dictates
• approximates the conscience

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LATER DEVELOPMENTS, LIFE AND DEATH INSTINCTS

• Life Instinct (Eros)
• subsumes drives for self-preservation and for
  species-preservation (sexual instincts)
• its energy is the libido
• Death Instinct (Thanatos)
• subsumes hostile, sadistic and aggressive
  tendencies
• claims that organisms aim to die and to return to
  an inorganic state

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ANXIETY

• The interplay of forces tending to express and to
  inhibit drives can lead to anxiety
• Anxiety is a painful state and is avoided using
  defence mechanisms

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DEFENCE MECHANISMS

• projection (from internal to external)
• denial
• isolation (of action from emotion)
• undoing
• reaction formation (opposite drive)
• rationalisation
• repression
• sublimation

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FREUDIAN THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT

• Adult Personality Types are related to stages in
  development
• Thinking begins as primary process thinking,
  which does not distinguish reality and fantasy
• Progresses to secondary process thinking (which
  is reality directly i.e. directed toward the
  fulfilment of desires in socially acceptable
  ways) - via development of ego and superego

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FREUDIAN THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT

• Instincts develop via states of bodily tension
  focused in the erogenous zones
• Three main stages
• Oral (below age 2)
• Anal (ages 2 to 3)
• Phallic (ages 4 and 5)

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FREUDIAN PERSONALITY TYPES

• Particularly in the Anal and Phallic stages there
  are conflicts between the desire for
  gratification and societal norms
• Unresolved problems at these stages lead to
  problems/personality types in adult life (e.g.
  Anal Retentive)
• Castration anxiety and Oedipus complex (for
  males) and penis envy (for females) in the
  phallic stage can also influence adult personality

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FREUDIAN PERSONALITY TYPES

• Fixations occur when an individual doesnt want
  to move to the next stage because of too much or
  too little gratification at the current stage.
• Regression (to an earlier mode of gratification)
  can occur at times of stress etc.
• for example, overeating at times of stress can be
  seen as a search for oral gratification

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FREUDIAN PERSONALITY TYPES

• Oral - narcissistic, because fixated at a stage
  when the self is not clearly distinguished from
  the rest of the world
• Anal - the anal triad
• orderliness and cleanliness
• parsimony and stinginess
• obstinacy
• Phallic
• Male - exhibitionist emphasis on masculinity
• Female - hysterical personality, flirtatious but
  naive

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OTHER PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES - ADLER

• Placed a greater emphasis on social processes and
  conscious thoughts than Freud (especially
  feelings about the self)
• Developed the notion of inferiority complex,
  derived from an earlier interest in ways of
  coping with organ inferiorities
• Spoke of a will to power (later a striving for
  superiority)

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OTHER PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORIES - JUNG

• Viewed libido as a generalised energy, not
  specifically sexual
• Developed the notion of the collective
  unconscious
• it contains universal symbols called archetypes
• Emphasised the importance of opposing forces
  within a person, such as
• public persona vs. private self
• masculine vs. feminine sides of personality
• introversion vs. extraversion

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MORE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

• Object Relations Theory
• emphasises relations with significant other
  people in determining ones sense of self, and
  hence ones personality
• Attachment Theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth)
• early experience of attachment to primary carers
  leads to adult attachment types secure,
  avoidant, anxious/ambivalent

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INTELLIGENCE, THINKING AND PERSONALITY

• PERSONALITY SUMMARY

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PERSONALITY SUMMARY(FROM AN EXPERIMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY POINT OF VIEW)

• Trait Theories - produce replicable descriptors
  of people, but dont directly address the role of
  traits in behaviour
• Social-Cognitive Theories - ask, experimentally
  about the relative importance of traits and
  situations
• Phenomenological Theories - emphasise a persons
  own experience, but can they be tested?
• Psychodynamic Theories - based on the fantasies
  and fabrication of an egomaniac