THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

ALFRED ADLER

ABNORMAL DEVELOPMENT

 Adler believed that people are what they make of themselves. The creative power
endows humans, within certain limits, with the freedom to be either psychologically
healthy or unhealthy and to follow either a useful or useless style of life.

 The goal of the human soul is conquest, perfection, security, superiority. Every child is
faced with so many obstacles in life that no child ever grows up without striving for
some form of significance. —Alfred Adler

ABNORMAL PERSONALITY
 People develop abnormally when their social interest is under developing.
1. They also set their goals too high,
2. live in their own private world
3. have a rigid and dogmatic lifestyle
EXTERNAL FACTORS AFFECTING ABNORMAL DEVELOPMENT
 EXAGERRATED PHYSICAL DEFICIENCIES:
- Whether congenital or the result of injury or disease, are not sufficient to lead to
maladjustment .they must be accompanied by accentuated feelings of inferiority.
These subjective feelings may be greatly encouraged by a defective body but they
are the progeny of the creative power.
 PAMPERED STYLE OF LIFE:
- Pampered people have weak social interest but a strong desire to perpetuate the
pampered, parasitic relationship they originally had with one or both of their
parents. They expect others to look after them, overprotect them, and satisfy their
needs. They are characterized by extreme discouragement, indecisiveness,
oversensitivity, impatience, and exaggerated emotion, especially anxiety. They see
the world with private vision and believe that they are entitled to be first in
everything (Adler, 1927, 1964).
 NEGLECTED STYLE OF LIFE:
- Children who feel unloved and unwanted are likely to borrow heavily from these
feelings in creating a neglected style of life. Neglect is a relative concept.
- Abused and mistreated children develop little social interest and tend to create a
neglected style of life. They have little confidence in themselves and tend to
overestimate difficulties connected with life’s major problems.
- They are distrustful of other people and are unable to cooperate for the common
welfare. They see society as enemy country; feel alienated from all other people,
and experience a strong sense of envy toward the success of others. Neglected
children have many of the characteristics of pampered ones, but generally they are
more suspicious and more likely to be dangerous to others (Adler, 1927).
SAFE GUARDING TENDENCIES
 These are patterns of behavior to protect people’s exaggerated sense of self-esteem
against public disgrace.
 It enables people to hide their inflated self-image and to maintain their current style of
life.
 Excuses, aggression, and withdrawal are three common safeguarding tendencies, each
designed to protect a person’s present style of life and to maintain a fictional, elevated
feeling of self-importance (Adler, 1964)
DEFENSE MECHANISM VS SAFE GUARDING TENDENCIES
 Freudian defense mechanisms operate unconsciously to protect the ego against anxiety,
 Adlerian safeguarding tendencies are largely conscious and shield a person’s fragile self-
esteem from public disgrace.
  Freud’s defense mechanisms are common to everyone, but Adler (1956) discussed
safeguarding tendencies only with reference to the construction of neurotic symptoms.
EXCUSES
 The most common of the safeguarding tendencies are excuses, which are typically
expressed in the “Yes, but” or “If only” format.
 In the “Yes, but” excuse, people first state what they claim they would like to do—
something that sounds good to others—then they follow with an excuse.
 A woman might say, “Yes, I would like to go to college, but my children demand too
much of my attention.”
 The “If only” statement is the same excuse phrased in a different way. “If only my
husband were more supportive, I would have advanced faster in my profession.”
AGGRESSION
 Adler (1956) held that some people use aggression to safeguard their exaggerated
superiority complex, that is, to protect their fragile self-esteem. Safeguarding through
aggression may take the form of depreciation, accusation, or self-accusation
1. Depreciation is the tendency to undervalue other people’s achievements and to
overvalue one’s own. This safeguarding tendency is evident in such aggressive
behaviors as criticism and gossip.
EXAMPLE: “The only reason Kenneth got the job I applied for is because he
is an African American.”
2. Accusation, the second form of an aggressive safeguarding device, is the
tendency to blame others for one’s failures and to seek revenge, thereby
safeguarding one’s own tenuous self-esteem.
EXAMPLE: “I wanted to be an artist, but my parents forced me to go to
medical school. Now I have a job that makes me miserable.”
3. Self-accusation, is marked by self-torture and guilt. Some people use self-
torture, including masochism, depression, and suicide, as means of hurting
people who are close to them. Guilt is often aggressive, self-accusatory behavior.
EXAMPLE: “I feel distressed because I wasn’t nicer to my grandmother
while she was still living. Now, it’s too late.”
WITHDRAWAL
 Personality development can be halted when people run away from difficulties. Adler
referred to this tendency as withdrawal, or safeguarding through distance.
 Some people unconsciously escape life’s problems by setting up a distance between
themselves and those problems.
SAFEGUARDING THROUGH WITHDRAWAL
 Adler (1956) recognized four modes of safeguarding through withdrawal:
1. Moving backward - Is the tendency to safeguard one’s fictional goal of superiority by
psychologically reverting to a more secure period of life.
- Moving backward is similar to Freud’s concept of regression in that both involve
attempts to return to earlier, more comfortable phases of life.
- Moving backward is designed to elicit sympathy, the deleterious attitude offered so
generously to pampered children.
2. STANDING STILL - Psychological distance can also be created by standing still. This
withdrawal tendency is similar to moving backward but, in general, it is not as severe.
- People who stand still simply do not move in any direction; thus, they avoid all
responsibility by ensuring themselves against any threat of failure.
- They safeguard their fictional aspirations because they never do anything to prove
that they cannot accomplish their goals.
3. HESITATING - Closely related to standing still is hesitating. Some people hesitate or
vacillate when faced with difficult problems. Their procrastinations eventually give
them the excuse “It’s too late now.”
- Adler believed that most compulsive behaviors are attempts to waste time.
Compulsive hand washing, retracing one’s steps, behaving in an obsessive orderly
manner, destroying work already begun, and leaving work unfinished are examples
of hesitation.
- Although hesitating may appear to other people to be self-defeating, it allows
neurotic individuals to preserve their inflated sense of self-esteem.
4. CONSTRUCTING OBSTACLES - The least severe of the withdrawal safeguarding
tendencies is constructing obstacles.
- Some people build a straw house to show that they can knock it down.
- By overcoming the obstacle, they protect their self-esteem and their prestige. If they
fail to hurdle the barrier, they can always resort to an excuse
- Safeguarding tendencies are found in nearly everyone, but when they become
overly rigid, they lead to self-defeating behaviors. Overly sensitive people create
safeguarding tendencies to buffer their fear of disgrace, to eliminate their
exaggerated inferiority feelings, and to attain self-esteem.
FAMILY CONSTELLATION
 Refers to one’s position within the family in terms of birth order among siblings and the
presence or absence of parents and other caregivers.
 Adler emphasized that personalities of oldest, middle and the youngest children in a
family are apt to quite dissimilar simply by virtue of the different experiences that each
child has as that particular member of the family group.