Contents

1.Unit I. Explaining the Inner Life: Psychoanalytic Theories of Personality …5

2.Unit II. In Search of Personality: Trait, Learning, and Humanistic

Approaches …………………………………………………………………….16

3. Unit III. Assessing Personality ………………… .………………………… 29

4. Credit questions ...…………………………………………………………...38

5. References ….………………………………………………………………..40

Unit I Explaining the Inner Life: Psychoanalytic Theories of Personality

Lead – in

1. Read the text and answer the questions:

1. Do you know people like Michelle leBlanc?

2. Is it common for individuals to show a certain set of characteristics in one situation and quite the opposite features in another one?

3. Do you know people whose behaviour is absolutely predictable?

4. What category might you include yourself in: predictable or unpredictable?

Prologue

When she went to a party - and she generally chose not to - Michelle LeBlanc could usually be found in the most inconspicuous corner. She rarely talked to more than a few close friends, if anyone at all, and her attempts at socializing consisted mostly of asking people to pass her something she couldn't reach from the bar. If they had taken the time to notice, people who observed her behavior at social engagements would probably have called her the shyest person they had ever seen.

Yet, if they had happened to see her in her job as hostess at a local restaurant, they would have been shocked: She was witty and charming, and customers were immediately drawn to her. It was as if she were an entirely different person.

And the same observers would have been even more surprised if they had seen her with her family, for here she was like still another person, so outgoing and energetic that her brothers always referred to her as the family social director. It was clear that her family adored her lively and outgoing ways, and that in their eyes she could do no wrong.

2. Read the following descriptions of two young men and try to comment on their personalities. Are they absolutely different?

Rick was without doubt the sloppiest person I had ever known. His dorm room was a mess. Clothes were strewn all over the place, some clean, some dirty—you never knew which, and of course, neither did he. There were piles of papers on his desk, and stacks of books cluttered the floor. If he had gone out of his way to be messy, he couldn’t have done a better job.

***

Ben was so neat and organized it almost drove me crazy. Everything was in its place, and if you picked up a book from its shelf and then put it down somewhere else, he immediately scooped it up and put it back where it belonged. Even his writing was extremely neat and controlled. I had the impression he would go into a panic if someone happened to spill something on the furniture.

At first glance, these sound like descriptions of people with very different personalities. Yet to one group of personality theorists, psychoanalysts, these two young men may actually be very similar - at least in terms of the underlying aspect of their personalities that is motivating their behavior. According psychoanalysts, behavior is caused largely by powerful forces that are shaped large degree by childhood experiences and about which people are unaware. The originator and most important of the theorists to hold such a view, indeed one of the best-known figures in all of psychology, is Sigmund Freud. An Austrian physician, Freud was the originator of psychoanalytic theory t the early 1900s.

Pre-reading

1. Look through Text A and find Russian equivalents for underlined words and expressions. Define to what part of speech they belong.

2. Match the following terms with their definitions:

1. Personality	a) Physicians or psychologists who specialize in psychoanalysis
2. Psychoanalysts	b) Infantile wishes, desires, demands, and needs hidden from conscious awareness
3. Psychoanalytic theory	c) The raw, unorganized, inherited part of personality whose purpose is to reduce tension created by biological drives and irrational impulses
4. Unconscious	d) The principle by which the id operates, in which the person seeks the immediate reduction of tension and the maximization of satisfaction
5. Instinctual drives	e)The part of personality that provides a buffer between the id and the outside world
6. Id	f) The part of the superego that prevents us from doing what is morally wrong
7. Pleasure principle	i) The part of personality that represents the morality of society as presented by parents, teachers, etc.
8. Ego	j) The principle by which the ego operates, in which instinctual energy is restrained in order to maintain an individual’s safety and integration into society
9. Reality principle	k) A part of the personality of which a person is unaware and which is a potential determinant of behavior
10. Superego	l) The sum total of characteristics that differentiate people or the stability in a person’s behavior across different situations
11. Conscience	m) Freud’s theory that unconscious forces act as determinants of personality
13. Ego-ideal	n) The part of the superego that motivates us to do what is morally proper

Text A

Part I

“Did you see the picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger sexing - oops, I mean, flexing - his muscles on the cover of People magazine this week?” asked Debbie, as she and her friend Kathy walked home from class.

Although this may seem to be merely an embarrassing slip of the tongue, according to psychoanalytic theory mistakes such as these are not errors at all. Rather, they are indications of deeply felt emotions and thoughts that are harbored in the unconscious, a part of the personality of which a person is not aware. Many of life’s experiences are painful, and the unconscious provides a “safe” haven for our recollections of such events, where they can remain without continually disturbing us. Similarly, the unconscious contains instinctual drives: infantile wishes, desires, demands, and needs that are hidden from conscious awareness because of the conflicts and pain they would cause us if they were part of our everyday lives.

To Freud, conscious experience is just the tip of the iceberg; just as with the unseen mass of a floating iceberg, the material found in the unconscious dwarfs the information about which we are aware. Much of people’s everyday behavior, then, is viewed as being motivated by unconscious forces about which they know little. For example, a child’s concern over being unable to please his strict and demanding parents may lead him to have low self-esteem as an adult, although he may never understand why his accomplishments - which may be considerable - never seem sufficient. Indeed, consciously he may recall his childhood with great pleasure; it is the unconscious, which holds the painful memories, that provokes the low self-evaluation.

According to Freud, to fully understand personality it is necessary to illuminate and expose what is in the unconscious. But because the unconscious disguises the meaning of material it holds, it cannot be observed directly. It is therefore necessary to interpret clues to the unconscious - slips of the tongue, fantasies, and dreams - in order to understand the unconscious processes directing behavior. A slip of the tongue, such as the one we quoted earlier, might be interpreted as revealing the speaker’s underlying unconscious sexual interests.

While the notion of an unconscious does not seem all that farfetched to most of us, this is only because Freudian theory has had such a widespread influence, with applications ranging from literature to religion. In Freud’s day, however, the idea of an unconscious was revolutionary, and the best minds of the time rejected his ideas as without basis and even laughable. That it is so easy for us to understand theories that are based on the assumption that there is a part of personality about which people are unaware - one that is responsible for much of our behavior - is a tribute to the influence of the theory.

***

Part II

To describe the structure of personality, Freud developed a comprehensive theory in which he said personality consisted of three separate but interacting parts, the id, the ego, and the superego. Although Freud describes these parts in very concrete terms, it is important to realize that they are not actual physical structures found in a certain part of the brain; instead, they represent parts of a general model of personality that describes the interaction of various processes and forces within one’s personality that motivate behavior. Yet the id, ego, and superego can be represented figuratively; as we can see in Figure 1, Freud suggested that they can be depicted as in the diagram, which also shows how the three components of personality are related to the conscious and the unconscious.

If personality were to consist only of primitive, instinctual cravings and longings, it would need only one component: the id. The id is the raw, unorganized, inherited part of personality whose sole purpose is to reduce tension created by primary drives related to hunger, sex, aggression, and irrational impulses. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, in which the goal is the immediate reduction of tension and the maximization of satisfaction.

Unfortunately for the id - but luckily for people and society - reality prevents the demands of the pleasure principle from being fulfilled in most cases. Instead, the world produces constraints: We cannot always eat when we are hungry, and sexual drives can be discharged only when time, place - and partner - are willing. To account for this fact of life, Freud suggested a second part of personality, which he called the ego.

The ego provides a buffer between the id and the realities of the objective, outside world. In contrast to the pleasure-seeking nature of the id, the ego operates according to the reality principle, in which instinctual energy is retrained in order to maintain the safety of the individual and help integrate the person into society. In a sense, then, the ego is the “executive” of personality: It makes decisions, controls actions, and allows thinking and problem solving of a higher order than the id is capable of. The ego is also the seat of higher cognitive abilities such as intelligence, thoughtfulness, reasoning, and learning.

The superego, the final personality structure to develop, represents the rights and wrongs of society as handed down by a person’s parents, teachers, and other important figures. It becomes a part of personality when children learn right from wrong, and continues to develop as people begin to incorporate the broad moral principles of the society in which they live into their own standards.

The superego actually has two parts, the conscience and the ego-ideal. The conscience prevents us from doing morally bad things, while the ego-ideal motivates us to do what is morally proper. The superego helps to control impulses coming from the id, making them less selfish and more virtuous.

Although on the surface the superego appears to be the opposite of the id, the superego and the id share an important feature: They are both unrealistic in that they do not consider the constraints of society. While this lack of reality within the superego pushes the person toward greater virtue, if left unchecked it would create perfectionists who were unable to make the compromises that life requires. Similarly, an unrestrained id would create a primitive, pleasure-seeking, thoughtless individual, seeking to fulfill without delay every desire. The ego, then, must compromise between the demands of the superego and the id, permitting a person to obtain some of the gratification sought by the id while keeping the moralistic superego from preventing the gratification.

Figure 1.

In Freud’s model of personality, there are three major structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. As the schematic shows, only a small portion of personality is conscious. It is important to note that this figure should not be thought of as an actual physical structure, but rather as a model of the interrelationships between the parts of personality.

Post – reading

1. Answer the following questions:

a) What does the unconscious provide for our recollections of painful events?

b) What can inability to please strict parents lead to?

c) Why cannot the unconscious be observed directly?

d) What can be considered the clues to the unconscious?

e) According what principles does id operate to?

f) What principle is instinctual energy restrained in?

g) What personality structure has two parts: the conscience and the ego-ideal?

h) What might an unrestrained id create?

2. Say if the statement is True or False. If the statement is False give the correct variant using the text.

a) To Freud, unconscious experience is the tip of the iceberg.

b) The painful memories of one’s childhood provoke the high self-evaluation.

c) A slip of the tongue might reveal the speaker’s underlying unconscious interests.

e) Personality consists of Three parts which interact with each other.

f) Reality can’t prevent the demands of the pleasure principle.

Pre-reading

1. Look through Text B and find Russian equivalents for underlined words and expressions. Define to what part of speech they belong.

2. Match the following terms with their definitions:

1. Anxiety	a. Behavior reminiscent of an earlier stage of development, carried out in order to have fewer demands put upon oneself
2. Neurotic anxiety	b. A defense mechanism whereby people justify a negative situation in a way that protects their self-esteem
3. Defense mechanisms	c. A refusal to accept or acknowledge anxiety-producing information
4. Repression	d. A defense mechanism, considered healthy by Freud, in which a person diverts unwanted impulses into socially acceptable thoughts, feelings, or behaviors
5. Regression	e. Anxiety caused when irrational impulses from the id threaten to become uncontrollable
6. Displacement	f. A phenomenon whereby adults have continuing feelings of weakness and insecurity
7. Rationalization	g. Theorists who place greater emphasis than did Freud on the functions of the ego and its influence on our daily activities
8. Denial	h. A concept developed by Jung proposing that we inherit certain personality characteristics from our ancestors and the human race as a whole
9. Projection	i. According to Jung, universal symbolic representations of a particular person, object, or experience
Sublimation	j. The expression of an unwanted feeling or thought, directed toward a weaker person instead of a more powerful one
10. Neo-Freudian psychoanalysts	k. The primary defense mechanism, in which unacceptable id impulses are pushed back into the unconscious
11. Collective unconscious	l. Unconscious strategies people use to reduce anxiety by concealing its source from themselves and others
12. Archetypes	m. A feeling of apprehension or tension
13. Inferiority complex	n. A defense mechanism in which people attribute their own inadequacies or faults to someone else

Text B

Part III

Freud’s efforts to describe and theorize about the underlying dynamics of personality and its development were motivated by very practical problems that his patients faced in dealing with anxiety, an intense, negative emotional experience. According to Freud, anxiety is a danger signal to the ego. Although anxiety may arise from realistic fears - such as seeing a poisonous snake about to strike - it may also occur in the form of neurotic anxiety, in which irrational impulses emanating from the id threaten to burst through and become uncontrollable. Because anxiety, naturally, is unpleasant, Freud suggested that people develop a range of defense mechanisms to deal with it. Defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies people use to reduce anxiety by concealing the source from themselves and others.

The primary defense mechanism is repression, in which unacceptable id impulses are pushed back into the unconscious. Repression is the most direct method of dealing with anxiety; instead of dealing with an anxiety-producing impulse on a conscious level, one simply ignores it. For example, a person who feels hatred for his father might repress these feelings: They would remain lodged within the id, since acknowledging them would be so anxiety - provoking. This does not mean, however, that they would have no effect: The true feelings might be revealed through dreams, slips of the tongue, or symbolically, in some other fashion. He might, for instance, have difficulty with authority figures, such as teachers, and do poorly in school. Alternatively, he might join the military, where he could give harsh orders to others and never have them questioned.

If repression is ineffective in keeping anxiety at bay, other defense mechanisms may be called upon. For example, regression might be used, whereby people behave as if they were at an earlier stage of development. By retreating to a younger age - for instance by complaining and throwing tantrums - they might succeed in having fewer demands put upon them.

Anyone who has ever been angered by a professor and then returned to the dorm and yelled at his or her roommate knows what displacement is all about. In displacement, the expression of an unwanted feeling or thought is redirected from a more threatening, powerful person to a weaker one. A classic case is yelling at one’s secretary after being criticized by the boss.

Rationalization, another defense mechanism, occurs when we distort reality by justifying what happens to us: We come up with explanations that allow us to protect our self-esteem. If you’ve ever heard someone saying that he didn’t mind being stood up for a date because he really had a lot of work to do that evening, you might be seeing rationalization at work.

In denial, a person simply refuses to accept or acknowledge an anxiety-producing piece of information. For example, when told that his wife has died in an automobile crash, a husband may at first deny the tragedy, saying that there must be some mistake, and only gradually come to conscious acceptance that she actually has been killed. In extreme cases, denial may linger; the husband may continue to expect that his wife will return home.

Projection is a means of protecting oneself by attributing unwanted impulses and feelings to someone else. For example, a man who feels sexually inadequate may complain to his wife that she is sexually inept.

Finally, one defense mechanism that Freud considered to be particularly healthy and socially acceptable is sublimation. In sublimation, people divert unwanted impulses into socially approved thoughts, feelings, or behaviors. For example, a person with strong feelings of aggression may become a butcher - and hack away at meat instead of people. Sublimation allows the butcher the opportunity not only to release the psychic tension, but to do so in a way that is socially acceptable.

All of us employ defense mechanisms to some degree according to Freudian theory. Yet some people use them so much that a large amount of psychic energy must be constantly directed toward hiding and rechanneling unacceptable impulses, making everyday living difficult. In this case, the result is a neurosis, a term which refer to mental disorders produced by anxiety.

***

Part IV

Freud’s personality theory presents an elaborate and complicated set of propositions - some of which are so removed from everyday explanations of behavior that they may appear difficult to accept. But laypersons are not the only ones to be concerned about the validity of Freud’s theory; personality psychologists, too, have been quick to criticize its inadequacies.

Among the most compelling criticisms is the lack of scientific data to support his theory. Although there are a wealth of individual assessments of particular people that seem to support the theory, there is a lack of definitive evidence showing that the personality is structured and operates along the lines Freud laid-out - due, in part, to the fact that Freud’s conception of personality is built on unobservable abstractions. Moreover, while we can readily employ Freudian theory in after-the-fact explanations, it is extremely difficult to predict how certain developmental difficulties will be displayed in the adult. For instance, if a person is fixated at the anal stage, he might, according to Freud, be unusually messy - or he might be unusually neat. His theory provides no guidance for predicting which manifestation of the difficulty will occur. Freudian theory produces good history, then, but not such good science. Finally, Freud made his observations - albeit insightful ones - and derived his theory from a limited population: primarily upper-class Austrian women living in the strict, puritanical era of the early 1900s. How far can one generalize beyond this population is a matter of considerable question.

Despite these criticisms, which cannot be dismissed, Freud’s theory has had an enormous impact on the field of psychology and indeed on all of western thinking. The concepts of the unconscious, anxiety, and defense mechanisms and the notion that adult psychological difficulties have their roots in childhood experiences have permeated people’s views of the world and their understanding of the causes of their own behavior and that of others. Moreover, psychoanalytic theory spawned a significant method of treating psychological disturbances. For these reasons, then, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory remains a significant contribution to our understanding of personality.

***

Part V

One particularly important outgrowth of Freud’s theorizing was the work done by a series of successors who were trained in traditional Freudian theory but: who later strayed from some of the major points of the original theory. These theorists are known as neo-Freudian psychoanalysts.

The neo-Freudians placed greater emphasis than did Freud on the functions of the ego, suggesting that it had more control than the id over day-to-day activities. They also paid greater attention to social factors and the effects of society and culture on personality development. Carl Jung, for example, who initially adhered closely to Freud’s thinking, later rejected the notion of the primary importance of unconscious sexual urges - a key notion of Freudian theory - and instead looked at the primitive urges of the unconscious more positively. He suggested that people had a collective unconscious, a set of influences we inherit from our own particular ancestors, the whole human race, and even animal ancestors from the distant past. This collective unconscious is shared by everyone, and is displayed by behavior that is common across diverse cultures, such as love of mother, belief in a supreme being, and even behavior as specific as fear of snakes.

Jung went on to propose that the collective unconscious contained archetypes, universal symbolic representations of a particular person, object, or experience, for instance, there is a mother archetype, which contains both our experiences with our own mothers and reflections of our ancestors’ relationship with mother figures. The existence of such an archetype is suggested by the prevalence of mothers in art, religion, literature, and mythology. (Think of the Virgin Mary, Earth Mother, wicked stepmothers of fairy tales, Mother’s Day, and so forth!) To Jung, these archetypes play an important role in determining our day-to-day reactions to stimuli. Jung might, for example, attribute the popularity of such movies as Star Wars to their use of broad archetypes of good and evil (the Force versus the Empire), father and son (Luke Sky walker versus Darth Vader), and several others.

To Alfred Adler, another important neo-Freudian psychoanalyst, Freudian theory’s emphasis on sexual needs was misplaced. Instead, Adler proposed that the primary motivation behind human behavior was a striving for superiority, an attempt to achieve perfection. Adler used the term inferiority complex to describe the phenomenon in which adults have not been able to overcome the feelings of inferiority that they had as children when they were physically small and limited in their knowledge about the world. Early social relationships with parents have an important effect on how well children are able to outgrow feelings of personal inferiority and instead orient themselves toward attaining more socially useful goals of perfecting society - rather than themselves.

Post – reading

1. Answer the following questions:

a) What is a danger signal to the ego?

b) What do defense mechanisms conceal?

c) How might true feelings be revealed?

d) Could you give an example of classic displacement?

e) Why may an aggressive person tend to become a butcher?

f) What is the main reason for such mental disorders as neurosis?

2. Say if the statement is True or False. If the statement is False give the correct variant using the text.

a) Freud theory is valid and has never been criticized.

b) It is always easy to predict developmental difficulties in the future life of the adult.

c) Freud derived his theory from a variety of population.

d) Neo-Freudians paid little attention to social factors and culture on personality development.

e) A collective unconscious is different across diverse cultures.

f) The existence of archetypes is reflected in religion, literature and mythology.

g) Alfred Adler believed that the primary motivation behind human behaviour is a striving for superiority.

Follow-up

1. Find the appropriate heading for each part of texts A and B:

a) Revising Freud: The Neo-Freudian Psychoanalysts.

b) Dealing with dangers from within: Defense Mechanisms.

c) Evaluating Freudian Theory.

e) Freud’s psychoanalytic Theory.

f) Structuring Personality: Id, Ego and Superego.

2. Say if the statement is True or False. If the statement is False give the correct variant using text A and B.

• Psychoanalytic theory proposes that many deeply felt emotions and thoughts are not found in the unconscious, the part of personality of which a person is unaware. Personality is structured into two components: the ego, and the superego.

• Defense mechanisms are unconscious strategies people use to reduce anxiety by concealing its source. Among the most important are repression, regression, displacement, rationalization, denial, projection, and sublimation.

• Among the neo-Freudian psychoanalysts who built and modified psychoanalytic theory are Piaget, who developed the concepts of the collective unconscious and archetypes, and Leontyev, who coined the term “inferiority complex.”

3. The part of the personality of which we are unaware is the

a. oral stage b. conscience c. animus d. unconscious

4. Match each of the following with its description:

a.	____ Id	1.	Diverting unwanted impulses into socially accepted behaviors
b.	____ Ego	2.	The personality’s decision maker
c.	____ Superego	3.	The distortion of reality to protect self-esteem
d.	____ Sublimation	4.	Feelings of inadequacy based on one’s life position
e.	____ Archetypes	5.	Attachment to some form of gratification
f.	____ Inferiority complex	6.	Unconscious cravings for pleasure
g…	____ Rationalization	7.	Universal symbolic representations of people, objects, or experiences
h.	____ Fixation	8.	The component of the personality responsible for moral behavior

5. Theresa, still reeling from an argument with her husband, yells at her young son when he accidentally spills his juice, and sends him to his room. The defense mechanism employed by Theresa is called

a. repression b. regression c. displacement d. projection

6. An intense, negative emotional experience that serves as a danger signal to the ego is ____________.

7. The idea of a collective unconscious was suggested by Alfred Adler. True or false?

8. Who of the following theorists suggested that our primary motivation is a striving for superiority?

a. Freud b. Allport c. Jung d. Adler

9. Use Psychoanalytic theory to comment on the following expression: What You See Is Not What You Get. Find information from texts A and B to support your ideas. You can use media sources as well. Then write down an opinion essay (250 words).

10. Project work. Use different media sources to find out more information about Psychoanalytic theory of personality and its theorists. Make up a good presentation in class.