INTRODUCTION TO PERSONALITY

Defining personality, examine the dynamics and development of personality

- Personality - the unique and relatively enduring internal and external aspects of a
person’s character that influence behavior in different situations.
- Nature vs. Nurture - research indicated that both genetic and environmental influences
play significant roles in shaping personality
- Stability and change - personality traits are relatively stable, but certain components
might keep changing.
- While certain personality traits tend to be stable over time (eg: big five traits), others can
change and adapt in response to life experiences, major life events, and environmental
shifts.

Dynamics of Personality
- Psychological development stages: (stage theorists)
- Erikson
- Identity formation- humanist theory- Carl Rogers– the development of one's identity
including self-concept, self esteem and self image is a dynamic process influenced by
social, cultural, and personal factors. Identity can evolve as individuals progress in other
aspects of their life
- Socialization- social interaction including family dynamics, peer relations, and cultural
norms all play a role in shaping personality. Influences values beliefs, attitudes, and
behavioral patterns
- Coping and adaptation
- Personality dynamics ensure how individuals cope with stress, adversity, and life
changes. Effective coping strategies and resilience can influence personality dev
and well-being
- Learning and conditioning-
- Behavioral theories of personality such as based on classical cond, operant
conditioning, and associative learning.
 - Trait stability and flexibility -
- Some personality traits like introversion or extroversion may be relatively stable
while others such as adaptability or openness to new experiences can be more
flexible and influenced by situational factors.
- Person-environment interaction - personality dynamics are often understood within
the context of person-environment interactions. Individuals may select shape or be
shaped by their environment based on personality characteristics.
- Influence of life events - significant life changes or traumatic experiences can alter
personality traits
- Cognitive and emotional processes - the way individuals think, perceive, and process
emotions can impact their personality dynamics. For example, cognitive biases or
emotional regulation strategies can influence behavior and decision-making
- Personality change efforts: Individuals actively seek to change aspects of their
personality through therapy self-help or personal growth efforts.
- Culture and societal influences: Cultural norms, and societal expectations can
influence how personality traits are expressed

Components of Personality
Diff theories
- Physical appearance
- Temperaments
- Emotionality
- Sociability
- Character
- Interest
- Ability

Shaping of Personality

- Genetic influences (temperament, physical appearance)

- Envt influences (parenting, learning exp)
- most psychological theories of dev. assume that forces acting early in life have
more influence in shaping our personality than later influences
- Child differ from one another in the degree to which they form secure
attachments to their primary caregivers in their 1st year of development
 - Those who form such attachments are observed in later childhood to approach
difficult problems with enthusiasm and persistence, to be self-directed and eager
to learn and to be leaders among their peers
- In contrast, children who are less securely attached at the end of their first year -
more frustrated,
- Failure to form secure attachments in early years has been related to the inability
to develop close personal relationships in childhood

- Cultural influences
- Western culture
- Independent
- Self-assertive
- Motivated to achieve
- Non-western culture
- Interdependence of a person with others in the community
- Children are encouraged to be a part of a functioning community

● Uniqueness vs Universality
○ Theorists such as Rogers, Maslow, and Allport believed that humans are unique
to each other
○ On the other hand behaviorist and cognitive theorists like Erikson and Piaget
expressed that all of us are of the same universal nature.
● Active vs. reactive
○ Humans are deemed to be active doers of actions according to humanists and
cognitive theorists
 ○ In contrast, behaviorists believe that people are very reactive to outside stimuli,
that is we passively react to various situations.
- Personality is a complex subject that branches out to many ideologies and philosophies

(refer Schultz and Schultz & Feist and Feist)

Self-report and projective tests for assessing personality (seminar)

Purpose of personality assessment

● Identifying individual’s personality
○ Strengths and weaknesses
○ Adaptive capacities and limitations
○ Preferred coping style
○ Underlying needs and concerns
○ Attitudes towards themselves and other people
● Counselling
● Forensic
○ Personality test indications of mental impairment can contribute in criminal cases
to determinations of competence and sanity.
○ In civil cases, personality assessment findings related to psychological
dysfunction or incapacity are often relevant in adjudicating personal injury and
disability claims.
○ In family law, personality test information about the personal qualities and
psychological adjustment of children and their parents is commonly considered in
mediating child custody and visitation rights.

Self-report measures
- Self-report inventories or questionnaires are objective tests of personality in which
individuals respond to questions or statements by describing their own feelings,
emotions, and others’ reactions to self
- Single trait tests- LoC scale - (rotter, 1966); sensation-seeking scale (zuckerman, 1978),
the self-monitoring scale (synder, 1974)
- Multidimensional tests - 16 PF test, Big 5 test
1. 16 PF test
a. Developed by Raymond cattell in 1949
b. Source traits or primary traits and surface traits or secondary traits. Factor
analysis - 16
c. Based on a trait continuum which consists of two opposite traits on either ends
d. An individual can fall on any degree of the trait along the dimension
e. Multiple choice test

2. MMPI
a. MMPI was developed by Starke Hathaway and J.C. McKinley
b. These items cover physical and psychological health; political and social
attitudes; educational, occupational, family, and marital factors; and neurotic and
psychotic behavior tendencies.
c. The test’s clinical scales measure such personality characteristics as gender role,
defensiveness, depression, hysteria, paranoia, hypochondriasis, and
schizophrenia.
d. Some items can be scored to determine if the test-taker was faking or careless,
or misunderstood the instructions
e. Translated to 140 languages
f. MMPI - 1st published in 1943.
g. MMPI - 2 published in 1989, 567 statements
h. MMPI-3 (2020). This is the newest version of the MMPI, 335 statements
i. MMPI - A (1992) for adolescents
j. MMPI-A-RF(2016). It contains 241 items and takes 25 to 45 minutes to complete
k. The Indian adaptation - Jodhpur Multiphasic Personality Inventory developed by
Malik and Joshi in 1981.
 l. MMPI -2 : 9 Validity, 10 Clinical, 15 Content, 5 PSY-5, 9 Restructured Clinical, 20
Supplementary
m. Clinical scale covers -
n. Administered to 18+ and above, reading level - 6th grade to 8th grade, pen/paper
or computer test, takes 60-90 mins to complete

3. Neo-PI
a. Based on the Big 5 personality model
b. Six facets are measured under each of the 5 traits - 30 facets in all
c. Revised NEO PI is currently used
d. NEO-PI-3
i. short version of NEO-PI-R - NEO-FFI (Five-Factor Inventory) and is now
known as the NEO-FFI-R.
ii. 2 versions - form R & S
iii. 12yrs and above, 240 Items, likert scale

4. MBTI
a. Based on Carl Jung’s personality types
i. sensing/intuition
ii. thinking/feeling
iii. introversion/extraversion
iv. perceiving/judging
b. Type theory
c. 16 personality types
 5. MCMI - Millon clinical multiaxial inventory
a. Broadband measures of major dimensions of psychopathology
b. Theodore millon’s personality theory
c. Ranges on a spectrum from typical to disordered
i. Typical functioning
ii. Abnormal types/traits
iii. Disordered
d. The MCMI-IV(2015) is aligned with the DSM-5 and ICD-10 codes for personality
disorders.
e. 15 clinical personality scales (3 severe), 7 clinical syndromes, 3 severe clinical
syndromes
f. Age - 18+
g. Reading level - 5th grade
h. Time - 25-30 mins

Advantages and disadvantages of objective tests

Advantages Disadvantages

Objective scoring Susceptible to deliberate deception

Administered easily Social desirability

Thorough perceive and systematic Acquiescence response set (i.e yes or no

information responses only)
Mutli-dimensional inventories Rapport

Forced choice technique

Concealing purpose

Verification and correction

Projective tests
- A personality assessment device in which subjects are presumed to project personal
needs, fears, and values onto their interpretation or description of an ambiguous
stimulus

Features of projective tests

- All use ambiguous or unstructured test stimuli
- Mostly not told the purpose of the test or how responses will be scored or interpreted
- No correct or incorrect answers
- Scoring and interpretation rely heavily on subjective clinical judgments
- Projective hypothesis
- It refers to the notion that when confronted with ambiguous and unstructured
stimuli, the responses elicited by a person reflect one’s unconscious needs,
feelings, anxieties, motives, thoughts, conflicts, and prior behavioral conditioning.

● Rorschach inkbot technique

○ It was developed by Hermann Rorschach in 1921.
○ 10 inkblots printed individually on 6 3 /4 by 9 3 /4 cards.
 ■ Five of these blots are printed in shades of gray and black (Cards I and
IV-VII);
■ two of the blots are in shades of red, gray, and black (Cards II and III);
■ three blots are in shades of various pastel colors (Cards VIII-X).
○ Response Phase
○ Inquiry Phase
○ These procedures yield three sources of data.
■ structure their responses
■ content themes that provide clues to a person’s underlying needs,
attitudes, and concerns
■ manner in which individuals conduct themselves and relate to the
examiner,
○ Interpretation using
■ At least five major systems are in common use: those of Beck (1961),
Piotrowski (1957), Klopfer (1954, 1956), Rapaport-Schafer (1945, 1946),
and Exner (1974)

● Thematic apperception test

○ Henry A. Murray and Christina D. Morgan in 1935.
○ It helps to reveal the individual’s motivations, thoughts, internal conflicts and so
on.
○ 31 picture
■ 14 - picture of a single person,
■ 11 - two or more people engaged in some kind of relationship,
■ 3 - group pictures of three or four people
■ 2 - nature scenes, and
■ 1- totally blank.
○ 8-10 cards are presented one at a time
○ The themes of the cards are dependent upon the age, gender etc of the test
taker.
○ These kinds of information typically derive from four interpretively significant
aspects of the imagery in TAT stories:
■ How the people in a story are identified and described
■ How the people in a story are interacting
 ■ The emotional tone of the story
■ The plot of the story
○ Indian adaptation of TAT by Dr Uma Chowdhary (1960)
■ Modified for indian population
■ 14 cards

● Sentence completion methods

○ SCT is used to understand and assess the needs, desires, conflicts, attitudes
and experiences of individuals.
○ Response words are analyzed for their commonplace or unusual nature, for their
possible indication of emotional tension, and for their relationship to sexual
conflicts.
○ Speed of response is considered important.
○ item stem
○ Interpretation of the responses with both of these approaches can be highly
subjective.
○ However, some sentence-completion tests, such as the Rotter Incomplete
Sentence Blank, provide for more objective scoring.
○ Function in the same manner as self-reports when both give rise to slightly
indirect inferences.
○ When sentence completions shift from self-descriptions to comments on other
people or events, however, they become less direct in their implications than
self-report endorsements
○ Comment on event
○ Sacks Sentence Completion Test (SSCT) - Indian Adaptation
■ 60-item test
■ Four areas: Family, Sex, interpersonal, relationships and self-concept

Advantages and disadvantages

Advantages Disadvantages

Reducing possibilities of deception Lack of established methods of

 administration, scoring and interpretation;
poor standardization and reliability

It helps to cross conscious defenses Interpretation - personal subjective insights

Sources of personality data, research methods in personality

- Areas of personality research
- Overt behavior (what we do and say in response to certain stimuli)
- Feelings and conscious experiences (tests and questionnaires)
- Unconscious forces

Idiographic and nomothetic research approach

- The number of subjects used and the ways in which they are studied may also
categorize personality research
- Idiographic approach
- Intensive study of small number of subjects
- In some cases - only a single subject
- Complete in-depth understanding of a single case
- Views each person uniquely and measures personality via case studies,
interviews and observations
- Idiographic approach involves learning as much about an individual as possible
to determine their personality traits.
- Goal: therapeutic, in which the knowledge gained about a subject is used to aid
to treatment. An additional goal is gaining general insights into human personality
- Nomothetic approach
- Involves comparing & analyzing statistical differences among large samples of
subjects.
- Seeks to find common patterns in people’s personalities & measures personality
via Psychometrics.
- Nomothetic Approach involves performing experiments on larger groups of
people.
- Goal: to obtain data that can be generalized to a broad range of people.
- Example: the Big 5 Model of Personality, Piaget’s developmental stages.
 Point of Nomothetic approach Idiographic approach
discussion

Approach Macro-centric study of personality Micro-centric study of

that classified people into groups on personality that focuses on the
what personality traits they have. individual rather than the group.

Core belief Believes that personality can be Believes that each individual has
described by a combination of a unique psychological structure
predefined personality traits, & most that constitutes personality.
likely for similarities between larger
groups of individuals.

Type of approach Involves performing experiments on Involves learning as much about

larger groups of people. an individual as possible to
determine their personality traits.

Measurement Psychometrics is the measuring of Methods such as Case-Study,

tool/Method traits through testing & Interview, etc. are employed.
experimentation.

Example The Big 5 Model of Personality Case study of a person with

PTSD. The researcher would
collect data about the
individual’s symptoms,
experiences & history.

(refer schultz & schultz, pg 24)

Clinical method
- The primary clinical method- Case Study or Case History, in which psychologists
search their patients past & present for clues that might point to the source of the
patient’s emotional problems.
 - Similar to writing a Mini-Biography of a person’s emotional life from the early years to the
present day, including fears, feelings, & experiences.
- Freud used Case Studies extensively in developing his theory of Psychoanalysis.
- Case of Katharina,
- Case of Lucy.
- In addition to the Case Study Method, methods such as Tests, Interviews, & Dream
Analysis could also be used for assessment.

Limitations Advantages

Does not offer precision & control of the Can provide a window through which to
experimental & correlational methods. view the depths of personality.

The data obtained by the clinical method are

more subjective, relating to mental & largely
unconscious events & early life experiences.

Such data are open to different interpretations,

that may reflect the therapists’ personal biases,
more so than data obtained by other methods.

Memories of childhood experiences may even

be distorted by time & their accuracy cannot be
easily verified.

Experimental method
- An experiment is a technique for determining the effect of one or more variables or
events on behavior.
- If a psychologist wants to determine the effect of just 1 stimulus variable, he/she can,
arrange an experimental situation in which only that variable is allowed to operate.
- All other variables must be eliminated or held constant during the experiment
- If the behaviour of the subjects change while only the stimulus variable is in operation,
then, we can be certain that it alone is responsible for any change in behaviour
- If not, the results of the experiment would not be accurate due to the role of any
confounding/extraneous variable
 - Concepts of experimental method
- IV - manipulated by the experimenter
- DV - subjects behaviour/response to the manipulation
- To be sure no other variable other than the IV can affect the results, researchers must
study 2 groups of subjects
- Experimental group - subjects who receive the experimental treatment
- Control group - subjects not exposed to the treatment

Limitations Advantages

There are some situations in which this Whether applied online or in a laboratory, has
method cannot be employed; some aspects the potential for being the most precise
of personality & behavior cannot be controlled research method.
rigorously in laboratory settings due to Ethical
& Safety considerations.

If the participants already know that they Well controlled, systematic & provides
are being observed, the results of the excellent data.
experiment may not change because of
the experimental treatment but because of
the participant’s awareness.

Virtual research method

- Psychologists routinely conduct research online, including
- Administering psychological tests
- Taking opinion surveys
- Presenting experimental stimuli
- Recording the subjects responses

Limitations Advantages

Research has shown that Web users tend to Studies conducted on the Web produce faster
be younger, more affluent, & better educated responses.
than nonusers, thus limiting the chances that
an online sample will be truly representative
of the population as a whole.

Responders may differ from non-responders Less costly

on important personality characteristics.

Research conducted in Germany-found that Potential to reach broader range of subjects

people who failed to respond to an online of different ages, levels of education, types of
survey were judged on the basis of their employment, income levels, social class, &
personal Web sites- to be more introverted, ethnic origin.
more disagreeable, & less open to new
experiences than those who did respond to
the survey.

Impossible to determine how honest &

accurate online subjects will be when they
provide personal information on factors such
as age, gender, ethnic origin, education or
income.

Correlational method
- Investigating the relationships that exist among variables.
- Rather than manipulating the IV, the experimenter deals with the variables existing
attributes.
- Example- Instead of experimentally creating stress in subjects in the psychology
laboratory & observing the effects, researchers can study people who already function in
stressful situations- such as Police officers, Race car drivers, or College Students
suffering from text anxiety.
- The correlational subjects are not assigned Experimental & Control Groups.
- The performance of subjects who differ on an IV- such as age, gender, order of
birth, level of aggressiveness, or degree of neuroticism- is compared with their
performance or DV, such as Personality Test Responses or Job Performance
Measures.
- Relationship between the variables- in how behavior in one variable changes or differs
as a function of another variable.
- Types of correlation
- Positive Correlation: Relationship between 2 variables that moves in the same
direction, i.e. when one variable increases, the other increases; when one
variable decreases, the other decreases.
- Negative Correlation: event of 2 variables moving in the opposite direction, i.e.
when one variable increases, the other decreases; when one variable decreases,
the other increases.
- 0 Correlation: indicates that there is no relationship between the variables.
- Correlation coefficient
- Primary Statistical Measure of Correlation - Correlation Coefficient.
Provides precise information about the direction & strength of the relationship
between 2 variables.
Direction can be- Positive or Negative
- Correlation coefficient ranges from +1.00 (a perfect positive correlation) to -1.00
(a perfect negative correlation).
- The closer the coefficient is to +1.00 or -1.00, the stronger the relationship & the
more confidently we can make predictions about 1 variable from the other.
- Limitations
- Primary Limitation of the Correlational Method relates to Cause & Effect.
- Just because 2 variables show a high correlation, it does not necessarily follow
that one has caused the other.
- There might be such a relationship, but the researchers cannot automatically
conclude that such a relationship exists as they can with a well controlled,
systematic experiment.
- Restrictions on drawing conclusions from Correlational Research: difficulties for
researchers, whose goal is to identify specific causes.
- For practitioners whose goal is to predict behavior in the real world, the
correlational method is more satisfactory
 PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH
(refer schultz & schultz)

PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

(instincts, structure of mind, levels of mental health, defense mechanisms, psychosexual

stages)

Life history of Freud

- Work-life - practiced as a clinical neurologist in 1881 and began to explore the
personalities of those suffering from emotional disturbances. Also worked with Charcot
(psychiatrist, hypnotherapist). Realized childhood sexual conflict is the base for neurosis.
But realized it was not real but rather fantasies described by the patient.

● Psychic determination
- Determination - everything that happens has a cause in science
- In psychoanalysis, everything happens in a person’s mind, therefore, everything
he thinks and does also has a specific cause
- No role of miracles, free will, accidental
- Eg: the reason for forgetting a name or dropping a dish
- These causes arise from reasons that lie in a hidden part of the mind (i.e. the
unconscious)

● Internal structure
○ 3 mental structures (Id, Ego, Superego)
○ They can function independently or in some cases conflict with each other
○ Ego balances the two
○ Id - the irrational and emotional part of the mind
■ Most primitive part - unchanged
■ Psychical region of unconscious
■ No contact with reality
■ Strives to reduce tension by satisfying basic desires
■ Pleasure principle
■ illogical/amoral - entertains incompatible ideas
 ■ Operates through the primary process
■ Survival dependent on the secondary process in the ego
■ Development varies widely in different individuals
○ Ego - rational
■ In contact with reality and the external world
■ Keeps evolving
■ Grows out of the id during infancy, borrows energy from the id
■ Reality principle
■ Executive branch - cognitive and intellectual functions
■ Considers demands of id, superego, external world
■ In case of overpowering demands, the ego gets anxious - uses defense
mechanisms
○ Superego - moral part of the mind
■ Moralistic and idealistic principle
■ Grows out of the ego
■ No contact with outerworld
■ Demands perfection
■ Subsystems
● Conscience (punishments)
● Ego ideal (rewards)
■ Repression - controls sexual and aggressive impulses
■ Guilt

● Psychic conflict and compromise

○ Mind is divided between two parts
○ Ego balances between competing demands of motivation, morality, and
practicality
 ○ This leads to anxiety and the individual adopts defense mechanisms to deal with
it

Defense mechanisms & its contemporary views

- Anxiety is an objectless fear and is a threat to the ego

- Neurotic and psychotic behavior
- Traumatic anxiety (Otto Rank) - birth anxiety
- 3 types of anxiety - Reality anxiety; Neurotic anxiety; Moral anxiety
- How does the ego deal with anxiety
- Rationally - run away from threatening situation, inhibit impulsive need that is the
source of danger, obeying dictates of the conscience
- Non-rationally - defense mechanisms
- Defense mechanisms are the mechanisms that the ego uses to defend itself against
anxiety. 4R - 2D- 2I- 2R- P- S
1. Denial - Denying the existence of an external threat or traumatic event
2. Reaction formation - expressing an id impulse that is the opposite of the one
that is truly driving the person
3. Repression - involves unconscious denial of the existence of something that
causes anxiety. It can operate on memories of situations or people, on our
perception of the present, and even on body’s physiological functioning
4. Identification/introjection - internalization or reproduction of behaviors
observed in others, such as a child developing the behavior of his/her parents
without conscious realization of the process. Identification sometimes functions to
overcome feelings of powerlessness.
5. Projection - involves attributing a disturbing impulse to someone else. Lustful,
aggressive and other unacceptable impulses are seen as being possessed by
other people, not by oneself
6. Regression - involves retreating to an earlier, less frustrating period of life and
displaying the usually childish behaviors characteristic of that more secure time.
Regression usually involves a return to one of the psychosexual stages of
childhood development by behaving as if they are back to that period and away
from anxieties of the present
7. Isolation - thoughts related to some unpleasant occurrence are dissociated from
other thinking and thus do not come to mind
 8. Rationalisation - involves reinterpreting our behavior to make it seem more
rational and acceptable to us. We excuse or justify a threatening thought or
action by persuading ourselves there is a rational experience for it
9. Displacement - if an object that satisfies an id impulse is not available, the
person may shift that impulse to another object.
10. Sublimation - instinctual energy is diverted into other channels of expression,
ones that society considers acceptable and admirable (in displacement, you look
for a substitute object to satisfy id impulses). Sublimation does not bring up total
satisfaction to id impulses and results in a buildup of the energy
11. Intellectualization - prevents clear, undistorted recognition of an impulse
through excessive or distorted explanation

● Contemporary views
○ George Eman Vaillant categorised defenses on a continuum related to
psychoanalytic developmental levels
■ Level I: Pathological defenses (indicative of pathology) - projection
■ Level II: Immature defenses (in adults) - acting out, passive-aggressive
■ Level III: Neurotic defenses (in adults) - intellectualization, rationalization,
displacement
■ Level IV: Mature defenses (in adults) - sublimation, altruism
○ Anna Freud introduced signal anxiety stated that it was “not directly a conflicted
instinctual tension but a signal occurring in the ego of an anticipated instinctual
tension”
○ Otto Kernberg developed a theory of borderline personality organization with
was a consequence of BPD. he viewed the use of primitive defense mechanism
as central to this personality organization
○ Robert Plutchik’s theory views defenses as derivatives of basic emotions, which
in turn relate to particular diagnostic structures. According to this theory
■ reaction formation related to joy
■ denial relates to acceptance
■ Repression to fear
■ Regression to surprise
■ Compensation to sadness
■ Projection to disgust
 ■ Displacement to anger
■ Intellectualisation to anticipation

● Mental energy
○ Mind needs energy to make it function
○ The energy required is called mental or psychic energy or libido
○ It follows theory of conservation of energy
○ If energy is not expelled, it would build up overtime
○ Eg: someone makes you angry, if you do not express it the excess energy would
bubble up and come out

Primacy of unconsciousness

○ Mental states are of 3 types

■ Conscious
● Minor role
● Mental elements in awareness at any given point
● Sources
○ Perceptual conscious system
○ Preconscious - nonthreatening ideas
○ Unconscious - well-disguised images
■ Pre-conscious
● Elements that can become conscious with or without difficulty
● Sources -
○ Conscious exp - transitory or attention shifts
○ Unconscious - slip past the vigilant censor
■ Unconscious
● Drives and instincts motivate our words, feelings and actions
● Constantly strive to become conscious
● Dreams, slips of tongue, and repression
● Analogy of censor- primary censor (Un - preconsci), final censor (precon -
consci)
● Unconscious drives undergo transformation
● Origin - childhood traumatic experiences and phylogenetic endowment
● Critical importance of early experiences
○ Highlighted the importance of early developmental experience in shaping
personality
○ First weeks to months of life represented a critical period of personality dev.
○ Psychosexual stages (SDL) ToP notes 2
○ Dev Psych notes 1

● Impulses or instincts
○ Instincts are the driving force that is transformed into physiological energy
○ Physical aspects of impulses - needs
○ Mental aspects of impulses - wishes
○ These 2 propel people to take action
■ The need causes arousal in the body generates a physiological excitation
in the body and causes the mind to transform it into a wish (mental rep. of
needs) which causes the person to be motivated to satisfy the need.
○ 2 main instincts
■ Life instinct or eros - satisfying food, water, sex, decreasing unpleasant
and increasing pleasure
● Purpose of survival is to satisfy above mentioned needs
 ● Oriented to growth and development
● Libido - psychic energy manifested by life instinct
● Libido attached to or invested in objects = cathexis
● Sex instinct
● Necessity of inhibiting or suppressing sexual longings
■ Death instinct or thanatos - unconscious wish to die, it compels us to
destroy, kill
● Returning to original inanimate state
● Aggressive drive - wish to die turned against objects other than
the self. The aggressive drive compels us to destroy, conquer, and
kill
● Freud’s life experiences influenced this instinct

Dynamics of personality

Drives or impulses
- Constant motivational force
- Cannot be avoided through flight
- Has its own psychic energy
○ They have 4 components
■ Source - where need arises; part of the body or entire body
■ Aim - decreased need until no more action is necessary
■ Impetus - the amount of energy pressure used to satisfy or gratify
impulses
■ Object - things, action allows satisfaction of original desire
○ Sexual impulses can change their aims and can be substituted with other object
○ Sex/libido
■ Aim - pleasure
■ Full body invested with libido but Erogenous zones are especially capable
of producing pleasure (mouth, genitals, anus)
■ Aim to reach pleasure can take on an active or passive form and can be
temporarily or permanently inhibited
■ To Freud, however, all pleasurable activity is traceable to the sexual drive.
 ■ Difficult to recognise since erotic object can be transformed or displaced
(to others, objects, or self)
■ Flexible - sexual object
■ Forms - narcissism, love, sadism, masochism
○ Aggression
■ Aim - to return the organism to an inorganic state (death)
■ Final aim - self-destruction
■ This drive explains the need for barriers that people have made to check
aggression (rules like love thy neighbour etc)
■ Explain atrocities
■ Forms - teasing, gossip, sarcasm, humiliation/humor, enjoyment of other
people’s suffering
○ Anxiety
■ Affective unpleasant state accompanied by a physical sensation that
warns the person against danger
■ Ego - produce anxiety (3 types of anxiety caused by id, superego and
external world)
● Neurotic anxiety
○ Originates in childhood
○ Conflict b/w instinctual gratification and reality
○ Unconscious fear of being punished for expressing
id-dominated behaviour
○ Fear is based on potential consequences of indulging
instinct
○ Conflict between id and ego
○ Has some basis in reality
● Moral anxiety
○ Conflict between ego and superego
○ Fear of one’s conscience
○ Occurs when there is a conflict between instinctual
impulses and moral code
○ Results in shame or guilt
○ Depends on strength of superego
○ Has some basis in reality
 ● Realistic anxiety
○ Fear of real dangers in the real world
○ Purpose - guiding behaviour to escape or protect for
dangers
○ Fear subsides when threat is no longer present
○ Can become extreme in some cases
■ Seldom clear-cut, exist in combination
■ Anxiety is an ego-preserving mechanism - signals us that danger exists;
allows vigilant ego to be alert for signs of threat and danger
■ Self-regulating because it precipitates repression → reduces the pain of
anxiety

● Cathexis
○ Libidinal energy never flows out of the mind into the outside world
○ It attaches itself to mental representations of objects that will satisfy instinctual
needs
○ Eg: infant’s source of instinctual satisfaction as feeding, infants develop a strong
desire for mother, and invest a great deal of libido in thoughts, images, and
fantasies of mother
○ It is expended in pathological forms of behavior less will be available for other
healthy activities

Application of psychoanalysis (feist and feist - pg 56)

- Psychoanalysis: Perhaps Freud's most important contribution to the field of psychology

was the development of talk therapy as an approach to treating mental health problems.
- In addition to serving as the basis for psychoanalysis, talk therapy is now part of many
psychotherapeutic interventions designed to help people overcome psychological
distress and behavioral problems.
- The use of techniques such as free association, dream interpretation, and
transference in his therapies proved effective in uncovering repressed memories
from the unconscious and allowed them to progress in therapy.
- He introduced and emphasized the importance of transference between the
therapist and the patient.
 - The unconscious: Prior to the works of Freud, many people believed that behavior was
inexplicable. He developed the idea of the unconscious as being the hidden motivation
behind what we do. For instance, his work on dream interpretation suggested that our
real feelings and desires lie underneath the surface of conscious life.
- Childhood Influence: Freud believed that childhood experiences impact
adulthood—specifically, traumatic experiences that we have as children can manifest as
mental health issues when we're adults. While childhood experiences aren't the only
contributing factors to mental health during adulthood, Freud laid the foundation for a
person's childhood to be taken into consideration during therapy and when diagnosing.

Contributions of Freud’s theory

- Huge impact on psychology, psychiatry and culture

- Spurred an interest in personality in the 1930s. Even his unfalsifiable and false ideas
triggered much research
- Psychoanalysis itself is not a popular therapy method today.
- Freud’s theory placed too much emphasis on instincts, especially sex and aggression
- He focussed more on the past rather than the present.
- He also focussed more on disordered personalities.
- He gave ambiguous definitions of the id, ego, and superego and did not mention much
about brain structures
 NEO-FREUDIAN THEORIES

ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY - JUNG’S THEORY (1875-1961)

(Schultz - pg 88)

Q. Critically analyse __ theory

Q. Compare between theories

● Birth and development: born in switzerland into a family that included 9 clergyman. He
was introduces to religion and classics at his early age
● Father: he was closed. Considered him kind, tolerant but weak and powerless. He was
moody and irritable and failed to be a strong authority figure.
● Mother- powerful parent, emotionally unstable, had a negative attitude- fat, unattractive.
Marital problems.
● Sibling- 1 a sister born when he was 9, no help ease loneliness.
● Early life - spent many hours alone, carving a doll out of wood. He turned inward to his
unconscious to the world of dreams, visions, fantasies in which he felt more secure.
Whenever he faced problems he would seek solution through dreams and visions.
His dreams prompted him to explore unconscious mind
● Education: disliked school. Preferred self studies. Took up medicine in college, then took
up psychiatry. Reason - psychiatry will give him more opportunity to pursue his interests
in dreams, supernatural
● Work life- worked at a mental hospital, later developed clinical practice and conducted
research using word association tests.
● Years with freud- came across in 1907, became close- formally adopted as an eldest
son, has father son- relationship, disagree with theory, relationship broke in 1913.
● Reason for disagreement with freud’s theory
○ Sexuality: libido redefinining it as a more generalised psychic energy that
includes sex but is not restricted to it
○ Personality: whereas freud viewed human beings as prisoners or victims of
past events, Jung argued that we are shaped by our future as well as our
past. We are affected not only by what happened to us as children but also by
what we aspire to do in the future
 ○ Concept of unconscious- he added a new dimension- the inhibited experiences
of human and pre- human species. He combined ideas from history, mythology,
anthropology and religion to form his image of human nature.
● Neurotic episode: at 38 years severe neurotic episodes lasted for 3 years. He could
resolve it by analyzing his dreams, which framed the basis for his personality theory. He
felt crucial age of personality development is not childhood rather middle age
● Professional Life- fruitful, he explored diverse cultures in US, africa, india to broaden his
understanding of human nature

Key points - religious family, father meek, mother powerful, disagreement with freud.
disagree w freud-

Psychic energy: opposites, equivalence, entropy

● Libido = psychic energy; general life energy; influences psychological activities i.e.
perceiving, thinking and feeling.
● For eg. If you are highly motivated to attain power then you will devote most of your
psychic energy to seek power.
● 3 basic Principles of psychic energy
1. Opposition: Jung’s idea that conflict between opposing processes or tendencies
is necessary to generate psychic energy.
2. Equivalence: The continuing redistribution of energy within a personality; if the
energy expended on certain conditions or activities weakens or disappears, that
energy is transferred elsewhere in the personality
3. Entropy: A tendency toward balance or equilibrium within the personality; the
ideal is an equal distribution of psychic energy over all structures of the
personality.
● Jung drew on ideas from physics to explain the functioning of psychic energy he
proposed three basic principles.

● Principle of opposites
○ He noted the existence of opposed or polarities in physical energy in the universe
such as heat/cold, height/depth
○ So it is with psychic energy
 ○ This opposition - conflict between polarities is the primary motivator of behavior
and generation of energy.
○ Indeed the sharper the conflict b/w polarities, the greater the energy produced.
○ Jung’s idea that conflict b/w opposing processes or tendencies is necessary to
generate psychic energy.
● Principle of equivalence
○ Jung applied to psychic events the physical principle of conservation of energy
○ He stated that energy expended in bringing about some condition is not lost but
rather is shifted to another part of the personality
○ Thus if the psychic value in a particular area weaken or disappears, that energy
is transferred elsewhere in the psyche
○ For example- if we lose interest in a person, a hobby or a field of study the
psychic energy formerly invested in that area is shifted to a new one.
○ That is it should be equally desirable, compelling or fascinating.
● Principle of Entropy
○ In physics the principle of entropy refers to the equalization of energy
differences.
○ Ex: if a hot object and a cold object are placed in direct contact, heat will flow
from the hotter object to the colder object until they are in equilibrium at the same
temperature. In effect, an exchange of energy occurs, resulting in a kind of
homeostatic balance between the objects.
○ Jung applied this law to psychic energy and proposed that there is a tendency
toward a balance or equilibrium in the personality.
○ If two desires or beliefs differ greatly in intensity or psychic value energy will flow
from more strongly held to the weaker one.
○ Ideally the personality has an equal distribution of psychic energy over all its
aspects but this ideal state is never achieved.
○ If perfect balance or equilibrium were attained then the personality would have no
psychic energy because the opposition principle requires conflict for psychic
energy to be produced.

Systems of personality

● Ego
○ Attitudes
 ○ Psychological functions
● Personal unconscious
○ Complexes
● Collective unconscious
○ Archetypes
In Jung's view the total personality or psyche is composed of several distinct systems or
structures that can influence one another. The major systems are the

The ego
- The ego is the centre of consciousness (normal activities of waking life) the part of the
psyche concerned with perceiving, thinking, feeling, and remembering
- Much of our conscious perception of and reaction to our env is determined by 2 ways of
attitude
- Attitudes of Extraversion
- Attitudes of Introversion
- The attitudes
- Jung believed that psychic energy could be channeled externally toward the
outside world or internally toward the self
- Psychic energy channeled externally - extrovert
- Extraverts are open, sociable, and socially assertive, oriented toward
other people and the external world.
- Psychic energy channels internally - introversion-
- An attitude of psyche characterized by an orientation towards one’s own
thought and feelings
- Introverts are withdrawn and often shy and they tend to focus on
- According to jung, everyone has capacity for both attitudes, but only one
becomes dominant in the personality
- The dominant attitude then tends to direct the person’s behavior and
consciousness.
- The non-dominant attitude remains influential however and becomes a part of
personal unconscious where it can affect behavior
- For eg- in certain situations an introverted person may display characteristics of
extraversion, wish to be more outgoing or be attracted to an extravert.
- Psychological functions
 - As jung came to recognise that there were different kinds of extraverts and
introverts, he proposed additional distinctions among people based on what he
called psychological functions.
- Extroverts and introverts have capacity for all 4 psychological functions
- Types of function- FITS
- Sensing
- Intuting
- Thinking
- Feeling
- The interaction b/w attitudes * functions= 8 psychological types

- Psychological types

Extraverted Lives strictly in accordance with society’s rules. Tend to repress

thinking type feelings and emotions, to be objective in all aspects of life, and to
be dogmatic in thoughts and opinions. Perceived as rigid and
cold. They tend to make good scientists because their focus is on
learning about the external world and using logical rules to
describe and understand it.

Extraverted feeling Tends to repress thinking mode to be highly emotional. They

type confirm traditional values and moral codes they have been taught
are emotionally responsive and make friends easily sociable and
unusually sensitive to opinions and expectations of other people.
They are emotionally responsive, make friends easily, and tend
to be sociable and effervescent.
Extraverted Focus on pleasure and happiness and on seeking new
sensing type experiences. They are strongly oriented toward the real world
and are adaptable to different kinds of people and changing
situations. Not give in to introspection, they tend to be outgoing,
with a high capacity for enjoying life.

Extraverted Find success in business and politics because of a keen

intuiting type ability to exploit opportunities. They are attracted to new ideas,
tend to be creative, and are able to inspire others to accomplish
and achieve. They also tend to be changeable, moving from one
idea or venture to another, and to make decisions based more on
hunches than on reflection. Their decisions, however, are likely to
be correct.

Introverted thinking Do not get along well with other people and have difficulty
type communicating ideas. They focus on thoughts rather than
feelings and have poor practical judgment. Intensely concerned
with privacy, they prefer to deal with abstractions and theories,
and they focus on understanding themselves rather than other
people. Others see them as stubborn, aloof, arrogant, and
inconsiderate.

Introverted feeling repress rational thought. They are capable of deep emotion but
type avoid any outward expression of it. They tend to be quiet,
modest, and childish. They have little consideration for others’
feelings and thoughts and appear withdrawn, cold, and
self-assured.

Introverted sensing appear passive, calm, and detached from the everyday
type world. They look on most human activities with benevolence and
amusement. They are aesthetically sensitive, expressing
themselves in art or music, and tend to repress their
intuition.
 Introverted intuitive little contact with reality. They are visionaries and
type dreamers—aloof, unconcerned with practical matters, and poorly
understood by others. Considered odd and eccentric, they have
difficulty coping with everyday life and planning for the future.

Personal unconscious

- Similar to freud conception of preconscious = material is forgotten or suppressed/once it

was conscious
- Memory now related to personal consciousness
- Little mental effort is required to take something out.

Complex
- Complex - core or pattern of emotions, memories, perceptions, wishes organized around
a common theme (complex of power meaning he is preoccupied with theme of power -
risky behavior)
- Complex directs thoughts, behaviors in various way
- Complexes can be conscious or unconscious
- The person with a complex is generally not aware of its influence, although other people
may easily observe its effects.
- Some complexes may be harmful, but others can be useful. (perfection or achievement
complex may lead a person to work hard at developing particular talents or skills.)
- They originate from our childhood, adult, and ancestral experiences, the heritage of
the species contained in the collective unconscious.

Collective unconscious

- Deepest and least accessible level of psyche

- It stores the experience of the human and pre-human species in the CU
- This heritage is passed to each new generation
- He linked each person's personality with the past not only with childhood but also with
the history of the species.
- Includes archetypes
Archetypes
- The ancient experiences contained in CU
- How is it framed? - transferred from generation, hence they become imprinted on our
psyche and are expressed in our dreams and fantasies
- Major archetypes-
● Persona
● Anima
● Animus
● Shadow
● Self

Archetype Description Merits Demerits

Persona Mask that an actor wears to Important in life, we Instead of playing a

display various roles or faces do different rules in role, we become that
to the audience. Public face school, job, and to role. As a result,
we wear to present ourselves get along with other personality will not be
as someone different from people allowed to develop.
who we really are Ego comes to identify
with the persona
rather than the
person's true nature.
Deception to self

Anima Psyche of the man contains These opposite sex If undeveloped leads
feminine aspects characteristic aid in to a one-sidedness of
adjustment and the personality
Animus Psyche of woman contains
survival of the
masculine aspect
species

Shadow the dark side of the We must restrain, If suppressed more it

personality it contains overcome against will revolt. Ego
primitive animal instinct these primitive becomes weak and
behavior that society impulses or else unconscious gains
 considers immoral evil in society will punish us control.
hidden

Self Represent unity, integration Brings together and -

and harmony of the total balancing all parts of
personality occurs in middle the personality
ground actualization of self polarities becomes
involves goals plans for future assimilated so that
and accurate perception of equilibrium is
one's abilities maintained in the
personality.

Development of personality (SGD)

(individuation - 5 m Q)

Childhood
- The child’s ego begins to develop.
- Their personality is more or less a reflection of their parents.
- The ego begins to form substantively only when children become able to distinguish
between themselves and other people or objects in their world.
- Parents can impede or facilitate the development of personality.

Adolescence
- The psyche assumes a definite form and content.
- This period is called our “psychic birth”
 - It is marked by difficulties and the need to adapt. Childhood fantasies must end as the
adolescent confronts the demands of reality.
- The individual’s focus during these years is external, their consciousness is dominant,
and the primary conscious attitude is that of extraversion.
- The aim of life is to achieve their goals and establish a secure, successful place for
themselves in the world.
- Thus, young adulthood should be an exciting and challenging time, filled with new
horizons and accomplishments.

Middle age
- Major personality changes occur between the ages of 35 and 40.
- Period of midlife crisis.
- Even though midlife adults are well established in their careers and relationships, they
report having a feeling of emptiness in their lives.
- Jung believed that such drastic personality changes were inevitable and universal.
Middle age is a natural time of transition in which the personality is supposed to undergo
necessary and beneficial changes.
- The earlier challenges for which the individual had been preparing have been met, but
they have lots of energy left to meet new challenges.
- During the first half of their lives, they focus on external challenges and during the
second half, they focus on their neglected inner world and start self-actualizing.
- The attitude of the personality must shift from extraversion to introversion. The focus on
consciousness must be tempered by an awareness of the unconscious.

Individuation
- It is a condition of psychological health resulting from the integration of all conscious and
unconscious facets of the personality.
- It involves becoming an individual, fulfilling one’s capacities, and developing one’s self.
- It is an innate universal tendency but it can be hindered by environmental factors.
- To strive for individuation, middle-aged persons must abandon the behaviors and values
that guided the first half of life and confront their unconscious, bringing it into conscious
awareness and accepting what it tells them to do.
- In doing so, they must let the unconscious assimilate and not dominate.
It involves 3 steps
 1. Dethroning the persona: Although they must continue to play various social roles, they
must recognize that their public personality may not represent their true nature. They
must accept their genuine selves that the persona uncovers.
2. Acknowledging the shadow: they must become aware of the destructive and creative
aspects of the shadow and accept it instead of repressing it.
3. Acceptance of psychological bisexuality: A man must be able to express his anima
archetype (tenderness), and a woman must come to express her animus
(assertiveness). This is believed to be the most difficult step in the individuation process
because it represents the greatest change in one’s self-image. Accepting the emotional
qualities of both sexes opens new sources of creativity and serves as the final release
from parental influences.

Once the psyche’s structures are individuated and acknowledged, the next developmental
stage can occur. Jung referred to this as transcendence, an innate tendency toward unity or
wholeness in the personality, uniting all the opposing aspects within the psyche.

Contributions

- Less deterministic than Freud’s theory. Jung’s theory incorporates free will and
spontaneity.
- As compared to Freud, Jung placed less emphasis on childhood and accommodated
prospects of the future
- Each individual is unique only in the first half of their lives. Individuation in middle age
gives rise to universal personalities where no single trait is dominant.
- Jung presented a more positive, hopeful image of human nature than Freud did, and his
optimism is apparent in his view of personality development.
- Assessment techniques
- Word association test (WAT) is a projective test in which a patient responds to
stimulus words with whatever response first comes to mind. Jung used 100
emotion-eliciting words to uncover complexes.
- Symptom analysis - he focused on reported symptoms and interpreted the
client’s free association to these symptoms.
- Dream analysis refers to interpreting dreams to uncover unconscious conflicts.
 INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY - ADLER

(113 - Schultz)

Early life
- Marked by illness, rickets, jealousy of older brother, awareness about death
- Mother - pampered by mother due to his sickness, dethroned bat the age of 2 by arrival
of another baby.
- School- initially unhappy- got higher grades later

Inferiority and striving

Inferiority feelings
- Adler believed that it was a normal condition of all people; and a motivational source of
all human striving.
- Caused by universal aspects of the human environment and not genetics.
- Normal/universal phenomenon.
- Basic human motivation is to strive from a felt minus situation towards a plus situation.
From feeling of inferiority towards superiority
- The process begins in infancy.
- Infants are small and helpless and are totally dependent on adults.
- Adler believed that the infant is aware of his or her parents’ greater power and
strength and of the hopelessness of trying to resist or challenge that power.
- As a result, the infant develops feelings of inferiority relative to the larger,
stronger people around him or her

Compensation: A motivation to overcome inferiority, to strive for higher levels of development.

It causes an individual to grow and overcome real/imagined inferiorities. Throughout our lives
we are driven by the need to overcome this

Striving for superiority

- Adler initially identified feelings of inferiority with women’s lower social roles. Later, he
viewed humans as striving for superiority.
 - Superiority is the ultimate goal toward which we strive. It is the urge toward perfection or
completion that motivates each of us. (not to do better than others but self-perfection)
- Future-oriented.
- Striving for superiority increases tension. Reducing tension is not our sole motive
- We strive for perfection not just as individuals, but as group members.

Inferiority complex: A condition that develops when a person is unable to compensate for
normal inferiority feelings. It is an abnormal condition (neurotic maladjustment)
- Outcome- people with inferiority complex have a poor opinion of themselves and unable
to cope with the demands of life.
- Sources of inferiority complex
1. Organic inferiority: Adler concluded that defective parts or organs of the body
shape personality through the person’s efforts to compensate for the defect or
weakness. Efforts to overcome organic inferiority can result in striking artistic,
athletic and social accomplishments, but if these efforts fail, they can lead to an
inferiority complex
2. Family dynamics - Spoiling: Spoiling or pampering a child can also bring about an
inferiority complex. Spoiled children are the center of attention in the home. Their
every need or whim is satisfied, and little is denied them. Under the
circumstances, these children naturally develop the idea that they are the most
important persons in any situation and that other people should always defer to
them. When confronted with obstacles to gratification, spoiled children come to
believe that they must have some personal deficiency that is thwarting them;
hence, an inferiority complex develops.
3. Social influences - Neglect: The infancy and childhood of neglected children are
characterized by a lack of love and security because their parents are indifferent
or hostile. As a result, these children develop feelings of worthlessness, or even
anger, and view others with mistrust.

Superiority complex
- An condition that develops when a person overcompensates for normal inferiority
feelings.
- This involves an exaggerated opinion of one’s abilities and accomplishments.
 - Such a person may feel inwardly self-satisfied and superior and show no need to
demonstrate his or her superiority with accomplishments.
- In both cases, persons with a superiority complex are given to boasting, vanity,
self-centeredness, and a tendency to denigrate others.

2 types of superiority striving

- Striving for personal superiority
- No or little concern for others
- Goals are personal ones
- They are motivated largely by exaggerated feeling of personal inferiority
- Murderers, thieves, artists who strive for personal gain
- Some people disguise for their personal striving and may consciously or
unconsciously hide their self centeredness behind social concern (Teacher)
- Striving for success/perfection striving
- Healthy motive concerned with goals
- Helping others without demanding or expecting a personal pay off
- They see others not as opponents but as people with whom they can cooperate
for social benefits.

Social interest

- Individual’s innate potential to cooperate with other people to achieve personal and
societal goals
- He termed as - gemeinschaftsgefühl = community feeling
- Social interest is innate - the potential for social interest is realized depend on our early
social experiences
- Origin of Social interest is from infancy, as a newborn requires all the help from its
caregivers. Emphasis on Parents
- Mother is the first person sets tone for developing or thwarting social interest
- Mother must teach cooperation, companionship and courage.
- Social interest is connected with superiority or perfection.

Fictional finalism = imagined ideals

- Our goals are fictional or imagined ideals that can't be tested against reality
- We live our lives around ideals
 - These beliefs influence the ways we perceive and interact with other people (if we
believe behaving a certain way bring us reward in heaven, we will try to act according to
that belief - not based in objective reality - but real to the person who holds it)
- FF guides our behavior as we strive toward a complete or whole state of being
- We have the ultimate goal, a final state of being and a need to move toward it or we
strive for ideals that exist in us subjectively.
- Achieved through style of life.

Style of life

- Perfection is attained through many different behaviour patterns

- Each of us expressed striving differently
- A unique character structure or pattern of personal behaviors and characteristics by
which each of us strives for perfection

4 basic styles of life

- First 3 are unable to cooperate with other people and the clash between their style of life
and the real world results in abnormal behaviour, which is manifested in neuroses and
psychoses. They lack what adler calls social interest

Dominant type Displays dominant or ruling attitude with little social awareness
Such a person behaves w/o regard for others
The more extreme of this type attack others and become sadists,
delinquents, or sociopaths
They become alcoholics, drug addicts, or commit suicide - they
believe they hurt others by attacking themselves

Getting type The getting type (to adler, most common human type) expects to
receive satisfaction from other people and so becomes dependent
on them

Avoiding type the avoiding type makes no attempt to face life problems. By
avoiding difficulties the person avoids any possibility of failure
 Socially useful type The socially useful type cooperates with others and acts in
accordance with their needs.Such persons cope with problems
within a well developed framework of social interest

Creative power of self

- Life style is determined by social relationships in early childhood
- However he is not deterministic in his outlook. He proposed concept of creative power of
self = the ability to create an appropriate style of life
- We are not passively shaped by our childhood experiences
- Our free will that allows each of us to create an appropriate style of life abilities and
experiences given us by both our genetic endowment and our social environment
- Once created it remains permanent.

Birth order

The next important part of his theory was the Birth Order. Adler believed that an individual’s birth
order has a direct impact on the personality of the individual.

1. Firstborns
- happy, secure existence—until the second-born child appears.
- Suddenly, no longer the focus of attention, no longer receiving constant love and
care, first-borns are, in a sense, dethroned. The affection first-borns received
during their reign must now be shared.
- Often submit to the outrage of waiting until after the newborn’s needs have been
met
- They will try to recapture their former position of power and privilege.
- First-borns may become stubborn, ill behaved, and destructive and may refuse to
eat or go to bed.
- First-borns are often oriented toward the past, locked in nostalgia and pessimistic
about the future
- Mature intellectually to a higher degree than the younger children.
- Become good organizers, conscientious and scrupulous about detail,
authoritarian and conservative in attitude. May also grow up to feel insecure and
hostile toward others
 2. Second-born
- Dont experience sense of dethronement, since they never occupied the position
of complete power and attention
- By this time, parents have usually changed their child-rearing attitudes and
practices into - less concerned and anxious, more relaxed approach.
- 2nd borns have the 1st borns as pacesetters in their life, they always have the
older child's behavior as a model a threat or a source of competition
- They are not connected with power; more optimistic about future and are likely to
be competitive and ambitious and master negotiators, not competitor and
ambitious

3. Last born
- Never face the shock of dethronement by another child and often become the pet
of the family
- Driven by the need to surpass older siblings
- Often high achievers in whatever work they undertake as adults.
- The opposite can occur, however, if the youngest children are excessively
pampered and come to believe they needn’t learn to do anything for themselves
- May retain helplessness and dependency of childhood, can find it difficult to
adjust to adulthood

4. Only children
- Often mature early and manifest adult behaviors and attitudes
- Likely to experience difficulties in situations where they are not the centre of
attention

Contributions

- He was influential, ahead of his time - positive and humanistic psychology. Influenced
Horney and Maslow. Believed that women’s inferiority was social and not biological.
- Pioneered social psychology and group therapy; self-help books.
- It was Adler who originated the aggression drive, and inferiority complex, that was later
integrated into Freud’s theory or incorrectly attributed to Freud.
- Adler’s theory is simple, maybe oversimplified (Freud’s criticism)
 MURRAY’S PERSONOLOGY (schultz - 181)

Principles of personology

1. Personality is rooted in the brain

- The individual’s cerebral physiology guides and governs every aspect of the
personality. Example: certain drugs can alter the functioning of the brain, and so
the personality.
- Everything on which personality depends exists in the brain, including feeling
states, conscious and unconscious memories, beliefs, attitudes, fears, and
values.
2. Tension reduction
- People act to reduce physiological and psychological tension, but this does not
mean we strive for a tension-free state.
- It is the process of acting to reduce tension that is satisfying, according to Murray,
rather than the attainment of a condition free of all tension.
- Murray believed that a tension-free existence is itself a source of distress. We
need excitement, activity, and movement, all of which involve increasing, not
decreasing, tension.
- We generate tension in order to have the satisfaction of reducing it. Murray
believed the ideal state of human nature involves always having a certain level of
tension to reduce.
3. Individual’s personality continues to develop over time and is constructed of all the
events that occur during the course of that person’s life.
4. Personality changes and progresses it is not fixed or static.
5. Uniqueness of each person while recognizing similarities among all people. As he saw it,
an individual human being is like no other person, like some other people, and like every
other person.

Divisions of personality

● Id
○ Id contains all innate impulsive tendencies and provides energy and direction to
behaviour and is concerned with motivation
 ○ The id contains the primitive, amoral, and lustful impulses Freud described, but
also encompasses innate impulses that society considers acceptable and
desirable.
○ Id contains the tendencies to empathy, imitation, and identification; forms of love
other than lustful ones; and the tendency to master one’s environment.
○ The strength or intensity of id varies among individuals

● Superego
○ Defined as the internalization of the culture’s values and norms, by which rules
we come to evaluate and judge our behavior and that of others.
○ The substance of the superego is imposed on children at an early age by their
parents and other authority figures; one’s peer group and the culture’s literature
and mythology
○ Murray deviated from Freud’s ideas by allowing for influences beyond the
parent-child interactions
○ Superego is not rigidly crystallized by age 5, as Freud believed, but continues to
develop throughout life, reflecting the greater complexity and sophistication of our
experiences as we grow older.
○ It is not in constant conflict with the id, as Freud proposed, because the id
contains good forces as well as bad ones. The superego must try to thwart the
socially unacceptable impulses, but it also functions to determine when, where,
and how an acceptable need can be expressed and satisfied.
○ Ego ideal develops along with the superego and represents what we could
become at our best. It provides us with long term goals
● Ego
○ It is a conscious organizer of behavior; this is a broader conception than Freud’s
○ It consciously reasons, decides, and wills the direction of behavior. Thus, the ego
is more active in determining behavior than Freud believed.
○ Not merely the servant of the id, the ego consciously plans courses of action.
○ It functions not only to suppress id pleasure but also to foster pleasure by
organizing and directing the expression of acceptable id impulses.
○ Conflict can arise between the id and the superego. A strong ego can mediate
effectively between the two, but a weak ego leaves the personality a
battleground.
 ○ Unlike Freud, however, Murray did not believe that this conflict was inevitable

Needs

- A need involves a physicochemical force in the brain that organizes and directs
intellectual and perceptual abilities.
- Needs may arise either from internal processes such as hunger or thirst, or from events
in the environment.
- Needs arouse a level of tension; the organism tries to reduce this tension by acting to
satisfy the needs.
- Thus, needs energize and direct behavior. They activate behavior in the appropriate
direction to satisfy the needs.
- 20 needs
Types of needs
● Primary and secondary needs
○ Primary needs (viscerogenic needs) - arise from internal bodily states and
include those needs required for survival (such as food, water, air, and harm
avoidance), as well as such needs as sex and sentience.
○ Secondary Needs (psychogenic needs) - arise indirectly from primary needs.
They are called secondary not because they are less important but because they
develop after the primary needs. Secondary needs are concerned with emotional
satisfaction
● Reactive and proactive needs
○ Reactive needs - involve a response to something specific in the environment
and are aroused only when that object appears. For example, the harm
avoidance need appears only when a threat is present
○ Proactive needs - do not depend on the presence of a particular object. They are
spontaneous needs that elicit appropriate behavior whenever they are aroused,
independent of the environment.
Characteristics of needs
- The needs differ in terms of the urgency with which they impel behaviour i.e., need
prepotency (if air and water needs are not satisfied, it takes precedence over other
needs)
- Fusion of needs - some needs are complementary and can be satisfied by one
behavior or a set of behaviors (working to acquire fame and wealth can satisfy need for
ach, dominance and autonomy)
- Subsidation - refers to a situation in which one need is activated to aid in satisfying
another need. (to satisfy need for affiliation, it may be necessary to act differently,
evoking deference need)
- Press - childhood events can affect the development of specific needs and, later in life,
can activate those needs.
- Thema - The thema combines personal factors (needs) with the environmental factors
that pressure or compel our behavior (presses). Formed in early childhood and is a
powerful force in determining personality
- A child already has a press for aggression and if someone instigates him
(environmental factors) gives rise to a need for aggression resulting in an action
(punching the person)

Development in childhood

- Murray divided childhood into five stages, each characterized by a pleasurable condition
that is inevitably terminated by society’s demands.
- Each stage leaves its mark on our personality in the form of an unconscious complex
that directs our later development.
- There is nothing abnormal about them except when they are manifested in the extreme,
a condition that leaves the person fixated at that stage.
- The personality is then unable to develop spontaneity and flexibility, a situation that
interferes with the formation of the ego and superego.
● Claustral stage
○ The fetus in the womb is secure, serene, and dependent, conditions we may all
occasionally wish to reinstate.
○ The simple claustral complex is experienced as a desire to be in small, warm,
dark places that are safe and secluded
○ The anti-claustral or egression form of the claustral complex is based on a
need to escape from restraining womblike conditions. It includes a fear of
suffocation and confinement and manifests itself in a preference for open spaces,
fresh air, travel, movement, change, and novelty
● Oral stage
○ Oral succorance complex features a combination of mouth activities, passive
tendencies, and the need to be supported and protected. Behavioral
manifestations include sucking, kissing, eating, drinking, and a hunger for
affection, sympathy, protection, and love.
○ The oral aggression complex combines oral and aggressive behaviors,
including biting, spitting, shouting, and verbal aggression such as sarcasm.
○ Behaviors characteristic of the oral rejection complex include vomiting, being
picky about food, eating little, fearing oral contamination (such as from kissing),
desiring seclusion, and avoiding dependence on others
● Anal stage
○ Anal rejection complex, there is a preoccupation with defecation, anal humor,
and feces-like material such as dirt, mud, plaster, and clay. Aggression is often
part of this complex. Persons with this complex may be dirty and disorganized.
○ The anal retention complex is manifested in accumulating, saving, and
collecting things, and in cleanliness, neatness, and orderliness
● Urethral stage
○ Associated with excessive ambition, a distorted sense of self-esteem,
exhibitionism, bedwetting, sexual cravings, and self-love. It is sometimes called
the Icarus complex
● Genital or castration stage
○ Murray disagreed with Freud’s contention that fear of castration is the core of
anxiety in adult males.
○ He interpreted the castration complex in narrower and more literal fashion as a
boy’s fantasy that his penis might be cut off.
 ○ Murray believed such a fear grows out of childhood masturbation and the
parental punishment that may have accompanied it.

Assessment
● OSS - Office of Strategic Services Assessment program using projective tests
● TAT

PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL THEORY - HORNEY

Relevance

- Puts special emphasis on emotional relations between parent and child

- Based on the assumption that social and cultural conditions are largely responsible for
shaping personality
- Mentioned how environment plays a key role in personality development
- Explained using concepts of Basic anxiety, Theory of self, Neurotic needs

HORNEY Commonalities FREUD

Believed childhood social Believed that childhood

tensions were crucial for Id, ego, and superego sexual experiences shaped
personality formation personality
Importance of unconscious
Said childhood anxiety Placed more emphasis on the
caused by a dependent unconscious mind and
child’s sense of helplessness, desire’s influences on
Shaping of personality in
triggers our desire for love personality
childhood
and security

Countered the assumption Dynamics of anxiety and Biased against females,

that women have weak defense mechanisms believeing that they suffered
superego’s and suffer ‘penis from penis envy and had
envy’ weaker egos

- She, like Adler, emphasized social relationships in personality formation.

 - Horney believed people are driven by security and love needs, not just sexual or
aggressive forces.

Childhood need for safety

- Karen Horney agreed with Freud on the significance of early childhood in shaping one's
adult personality. However, they differed in their views on how personality is formed.
- Horney believed that social forces during childhood, not biological factors, play a pivotal
role in personality development.
- She rejected the idea of universal developmental stages or inevitable childhood conflicts
as proposed by Freud.
- Instead, she emphasized that the social relationship between the child and their parents
is the primary determining factor in personality development.
- Her concept of childhood centered around the “safety need”

- Safety need: A higher level need for security and freedom from fear. This depends on
the individual’s relationship with their parents, which in turn, determines normal/abnormal
personality development.
- Lack of warmth and affection from parents is a major way parents can weaken or
prevent a child's sense of security.
- Horney believed that children can endure traumatic experiences if they feel wanted and
loved, emphasizing the importance of genuine parental love.
- Various parental behaviors that can induce hostility in children, such as favoritism, unfair
punishment, promises not kept, ridicule, and humiliation.

- Reasons why children develop basic hostility, as described by Karen Horney, can be as
follows
1. Children’s perception of genuine love
- Children can discern whether their parents' love is genuine, and false
demonstrations of affection do not easily fool them.
2. Helplessness and dependency
- Horney placed great emphasis on the infant's inherent helplessness.
- When parents encourage excessive dependence.
 - The more helpless children feel, the less likely they are to oppose or rebel
against their parents, leading to the repression of hostility.
- They believe they need their parents for survival and security.
3. Fear, Love, and Guilt as a Repressive Forces
a. Fear
- Children can be made to feel fearful of their parents through punishment
or intimidation.
- Fear can lead children to repress their hostility towards parents, out of a
need for safety.
b. Love
- Paradoxically, love from parents can also lead to the repression of
hostility if it is not genuine.
- Parents may verbally express love and sacrifice, but their actions do not
align with their words.
- Repress their hostility out of fear of losing even these unsatisfactory
displays of love.
c. Guilt
- Children may be made to feel guilty for harbouring resentment or
rebelliousness towards their parents.
- They may repress their hostility, as they are made to believe that
expressing such feelings is sinful or unworthy.
- All this repressed hostility undermines a child’s need for safety leading to
BASIC ANXIETY

Basic anxiety

A pervasive feeling of loneliness and helplessness in a hostile world

- Basic anxiety serves as the foundation upon which later neuroses develop and is closely
connected to feelings of hostility.
- People with basic anxiety tend to feel "small, insignificant, helpless, deserted,
endangered, in a world that is out to abuse, cheat, attack, humiliate, betray."
- In childhood we try to protect ourselves against basic anxiety in four ways:
- These mechanisms include:
 1. Securing affection and love: Seeking love and affection as a way to prevent
harm by believing that if others love them, they won't be hurt.
2. Being submissive: Complying; to avoid antagonizing them. Submissive
individuals repress their personal desires and cannot defend themselves against
abuse.
3. Attaining power: Seeking power over others as a means to compensate for
helplessness and achieve security through success or superiority.
4. Withdrawing: Withdrawing from social situations or interactions as a means of
self-protection, avoiding potential harm by isolating themselves.
- The single goal of these 4 self-protective mechanisms is to defend against basic anxiety
- Incompatibilities between the 4 coping mechanisms lead to neuroticism.
- For instance, a person may simultaneously seek to attain power and gain
affection or desire to submit to others while also desiring power over them,
leading to conflicts that cannot be easily resolved.

Neurotic needs

- Neurosis is an inability to adapt and a tendency to experience excessive negative or

obsessive thoughts and behaviors
- She believed that neurosis resulted from basic anxiety caused by interpersonal
relationships
- They are strategies individuals develop to cope with anxiety and insecurity
- 10 irrational defences against anxiety that become a permanent part of personality and
that affect behaviour.

1. The neurotic need for affection and approval: They try to live up to the expectations of
others and attempt indiscriminately to please others
2. The neurotic need for a powerful partner: Lacking self-confidence, neurotics try to
attach themselves to a powerful partner
3. The neurotic need to restrict one's life within narrow borders
4. The neurotic need for power: Power and affection are perhaps the two greatest neurotic
needs
5. The neurotic need to exploit others
6. The neurotic need for social recognition or prestige: Trying to be first
 7. The neurotic need for personal admiration: Their inflated self-esteem must be
continually fed by the admiration and approval of others.
8. The neurotic need for ambition and personal achievement: They must defeat other
people in order to confirm their superiority.
9. The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence: Many neurotics have a
strong need to move away from people
10. The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability: By striving relentlessly for
perfection, neurotics receive "proof" of their self-esteem and personal superiority.

Neurotic trends and the behavior associated with Psychoanalytic social theory

Introduction
- Difficulty in childhood can lead to neurotic tendency (basic anxiety and hostility)
- To cope with this basic anxiety and hostility people adopt defenses
- 10 neurotic needs discussed. She grouped into 3 categories
○ Moving away from people
○ Moving Toward people
○ Moving Against people

Basic anxiety
Flowchart

Ideal situation Unhealthy situation

Birth of child Birth Of child

Warm and loving environment Parents inability or unwilling to love because

of their neurotic needs

Child experiences genuine love and healthy Parents dominate, neglect, overprotect, reject
discipline

Provides safety, satisfaction and permits to Parents don't satisfy child’s need for safety
grow as real self and satisfaction

Child develops hostility towards

parents/openly express or repress hostility

Basic anxiety → neurosis

Overtly express this hostility as rage - basic

hostility
Repressed hostility (fear of parent reaction)
then leads to profound feelings of insecurity
and a vague sense of apprehension

Nature of basic anxiety (164 schultz)

- Every young child has basic anxiety
- It does not always need to neurosis
- It is the nutrient soil out of which a definite neurosis may develop at any time
- Basic anxiety is constant
- Horney defined basic anxiety as an “insidiously increasing, all-pervading feeling of
being lonely and helpless in a hostile world”
- It is tied to feelings of hostility, hopelessness and fear.
- We feel small, insignificant, helpless, deserted, endangered, in a world that is out to
abuse, cheat, attack, humiliate, betray”.
 - In childhood we try to protect ourselves against basic anxiety in four ways:
○ Securing affection and love/ Affection strategy
○ Being submissive
○ Attaining power
○ Withdrawing

4 defenses against basic anxiety

Affection/love In their search for affection there are several ways by which we may
gain affection, such as trying to do whatever the other person wants,
trying to bribe others, or threatening others into providing the desired
affection.

Submissive Neurotics may submit themselves either to people or to institutions

such as an org or a religion. Neurotics who submit to another person
often do so in order to gain affection. This describes horney’s
childhood behaviour from 8-9 years of age

Power a person can compensate for helplessness and achieve security

through success or through a sense of superiority. Such persons seem
to believe that if they have power no one will harm them.

Withdrawal develops an independence from others by becoming emotionally

detached from them. They can't be hurt by other people

Neurotic needs

- 10 irrational defenses against anxiety and hostility that become a permanent part of
personality and that affect behavior

NN Underlying need Behavior

Affection and approval Quest for affection and Indiscriminately please others, live
approval expectations of others, uncomfortable
with hostility of others and feeling within
 themselves

Powerful partner Lacking Overvaluation of love and a dread of

self-confidence, try to being alone or deserted
attach themselves to
powerful partner

To restrict one's life They take 2nd place Downgrade their own abilities and
within narrow borders and to be content with dreads making demands on others
very little

For power Need to control others Need for power + prestige + possession
and to avoid feeling of combined
weakness and stupidity

Exploit others Fear of exploited by Frequently evaluate others based on

others how they can be used or exploited at the
same time afraid of others exploiting
them.

For social recognition or Combat with basic Trying to be first, to be important, to

Prestige anxiety attract attention to themselves

For personal admiration Basic anxiety Need for admiration for what they are
than for what they possess. Seek more
admiration to maintain their inflated
self-esteem

For personal Defame others in order Strong drive to be best in all

achievement or ambition to confirm their
superiority

Self-sufficiency & To attain autonomy and Strong need to move away from people
independence separateness thereby proving that they can get along
without others

Perfection Feeling of low By being perfection they get proof of

 self-esteem their self-esteem and personal
superiority dread making mistake having
personal flaws they attempt to hide their
weakness from other

Neurotic trends

10 needs are grouped into 3 groups

Neurotic trend Underlying need Behaviour

Moving towards people Neurotic need to protect 2 needs are (morbid dependency)
oneself against feelings of - Strive for affection and
helplessness approval of others, or
- They seek a powerful partner
Assume everyone is nice who will take responsibility
Compliant people need for their lives
others to satisfy/protect their Behavior pattern -
feelings of helplessness ● Themselves as loving
● generous
● Unselfish
● Humble and sensitive to
other people feelings
 ● They are willing to
subordinate themselves to
others
● See others as more
intelligent or attractive
● Rate themselves acc to what
others think of them

Moving against people A strong need to exploit Needs

others and to use them for - Need to be powerful
their own benefit - To exploit others
- To receive recognition and
Assume everyone is hostile prestige
- To be admired and to
Use others as a protection achieve
against real or imagined Behaviour
hostility - Aggressive people play to
win rather than for enjoyment
of the contest
- They may appear to be hard
working and resourceful on
the job, they take little
pleasure in the work itself
- Basic motivation is power
prestige and personal
ambition
- They seldom admit their
mistake and are
compulsively driven .
- They lack love, affection, and
the capacity for friendship

Moving away from Solve the basic conflict of 2 needs are

people isolation, some people - Needs for privacy
 behave in a detached - Independence and
manner and adopt this self-sufficiency
Behavior pattern
They are compulsively - They frequently build a world
driven to move away from of their own refuse to allow
people, to attain autonomy anyone else in
and separateness - They value freedom and self
sufficiency and often appear
to be aloof and
unapproachable
- They shun social commit but
their greatest fear is to need
other people
- There is an intensified need
to be strong and powerful

Compulsive drive
(flowchart)

Normal people Neurotic

Challenge (rejection/hostility/competition) Challenge (rejection/hostility/competition)

Don't get affected much Extremely get affected

Able to use variety of defense strategies Unable to use variety of strategy repeat same
NN to protect against anxiety

Low self-esteem, generalize hostility,

inappropriate striving for power, inflated
feeling of superiority, apprehension

More basic anxiety and hostility

● Conscious of their strategies towards ● Unaware of their basic attitude

 other people ● Are forced to act
● Free to choose their action ● Severe conflict
● Mild conflicts ● Limited to a single trend
● Can choose from variety of strategies ● Incompatible
● Compatible

Conclusion (pic)
Early childhood condition
Basic anxiety and hostility
Defense mechanism (neurotic needs )

Intrapsychic conflicts (seminar ppt) (181 - feist)

- As her theory evolved - greater emphasis on inner conflicts experienced by both normal
& neurotic; rooted in interpersonal experiences but manifest within mind
- Intrapsychic processes originate from interpersonal experiences but, as they become
part of a person’s belief system, they develop a life of their own—an existence separate
from the interpersonal conflicts that gave them life.
2 types of intrapsychic conflicts

1. Idealised self-image - an attempt to solve conflicts by painting a godlike picture of

oneself

● Development
- Horney believed that an environment of discipline and warmth, will develop
feelings of security and self-confidence and a tendency to move toward
self-realization.
- Unfortunately, early negative influences often impede people’s natural tendency
toward self-realization, a situation that leaves them with feelings of isolation and
inferiority and a growing sense of alienation from themselves.
- In order to make up for this alienation they feel the need acquire a stable sense
of identity.
- Which they do by creating an idealized self-image, an extravagantly positive view
of themselves that exists only in their personal belief system.
- These people endow themselves with infinite powers and unlimited capabilities;
they see themselves as “a hero, a genius, a supreme lover, a saint, a god”
 - The idealized self-image is not a global construction. Neurotics glorify and
worship themselves in different ways. 3 types are
1. Compliant people see themselves as good and saintly
2. Aggressive people see themselves as strong, heroic, and omnipotent
3. Detached neurotics see themselves as wise, self-sufficient, and
independent
- As the idealized self-image becomes solidified, neurotics begin to believe in the
reality of that image. They lose touch with their real self and use the idealized
self as the standard for self-evaluation.
- Rather than growing toward self-realization, they move toward actualizing their
idealized self.

● 3 aspects
○ Neurotic search for glory - Neurotics integrate their idealized self into every
aspect - goals, self-concept, relationships. Comprehensive drive towards
actualizing the ideal self
■ Need for perfection
● Drive to mold entire personality into ideal self
● Absolute perfection
● Tyranny of the shoulds - An attempt to realize an unattainable
idealized self-image by denying the true self and behaving in
terms of what we think we should be doing.
● “Forget about the disgraceful creature you actually are; this is how
you should be”
● They use externalisation as a defense mechamism to project the
conflict (b/w real and idealised self-image) onto the outside world
to temporarily alleviate the anxiety. However, it does not help
reduce the gap b/w idealised self-image and reality
■ Neurotic ambition
● Compulsive drive toward superiority
● Need to excel in everything; but partake in activities of high
success %
● Different forms. E.g. - aim to be the top student, later in business;
less materialistic endeavors - being the most charitable person
 ■ Drive toward a vindictive triumph
● Most destructive
● Disguised as a drive for achievement/success
● Goal - to shame or defeat others through one's success or inflict
suffering
● Stems from childhood experiences facing real/perceived
humiliations
● Never lose drive, intensify with each victory
● Each victory fuels their fear of defeat and reinforces need for
further triumphs
○ Neurotic claims
■ Construct a fantasy world - out of sync with reality
■ Believe something is wrong with the world → “I am special” assertion +
deserve to be treated like idealized self-concept
■ Demands seem reasonable because they match their idealized self
■ Stem from ordinary desires but differ significantly when not fulfilled:
● Normal wish - understandable frustration
● Neurotic claims - indignant, bewildered
○ Neurotic pride
■ False pride - Differs from healthy pride or realistic self-esteem.
■ Genuine self-esteem is based on realistic attributes and accomplishments
- expressed with quiet dignity
■ Neurotic pride is based on an idealised self image - loudly proclaimed
self-glorification
■ Neurotic Pride Hurt: When others don't treat them with special
consideration
■ To prevent the hurt, they avoid people who refuse to yield to their neurotic
claims, and instead, they try to become associated with socially prominent
and prestigious institutions and acquisitions.

2. Self-hatred - Self-hatred is an interrelated yet equally irrational and powerful tendency to

despise one’s real self.
- Unable to find contentment within themselves.
- Emerges when → true self unable to meet expectations ideal self
 - Glorified self becomes - phantom to be pursued & measuring rod for actual being
- From this lofty POV - actual self appears painfully embarrassing, leading to
self-contempt
● 6 ways of expression
1. Relentless demands on the self
- Exemplified by Tyranny of the Shoulds.
- Never-ending pursuit of perfection, even after achieving success; “should
be perfect”.
- "I shouldn’t relax. I should always do more, be better, and never make
mistakes. Perfection is the only acceptable standard for me."
2. Merciless self-accusation
- Harsh self-criticism
- Constantly berate themselves
- Believe they are deceitful =>
- Range: grandiose claims (blame for natural disasters) to obsessively
questioning their own motives.
- “If people only knew me, they would realize that I’m pretending to be
knowledgeable, competent, and sincere. I’m really a fraud, but no one
knows it but me.”
3. Self-contempt
- Belittle, doubt, or ridicule themselves
- Hinders personal growth and achievement
- Notice these behaviors, but often don't realize that self-hatred drives
them.
- "You're an arrogant fool! Why do you think you can date the most
attractive woman in town? Or attributing successful career to "luck”.
4. Self-frustration
- Healthy self-discipline: postponing/foregoing pleasures to attain
reasonable goals
- Neurotic self-frustration: stems from self-hatred & to fulfill inflated
self-image
- Restrict enjoyment
- “I don't deserve a new car"; “I shouldn't wear nice clothes when others are
in need"
 5. Self-torment
- Distinct category - when individuals intentionally seek to harm/hurt
themselves.
- Derive masochistic satisfaction - overthinking decisions, magnifying
physical pain, self-harm, starting losing battles, or even inviting physical
abuse.
6. Self-destructive actions and impulses
- Physical/psychological, conscious/unconscious, happening suddenly/over
time, acted out/only imagined
- Physical - Overeating, substance abuse, overworking, reckless
driving, and suicide
- Psychological - quitting a fulfilling job, replacing healthy
relationships with unhealthy ones, or promiscuous sexual
behaviour.

Feminine psychology

- Differences between men and women were primarily a result of cultural and social
expectations, rather than biological factors.
- Horney acknowledged the existence of the Oedipus complex but attributed it to
environmental conditions, not biology.
- Horney criticised Freud’s view of penis envy by saying that he did not have adequate
proof to support his argument
- Womb envy which is described as the envy a male feels toward a female because she
can bear children and he cannot.
- Masculine protest, i.e, they have a pathological belief that men are superior to women;
leads to the neurotic desire to be a man.
- Concluded , that it’s not an expression of penis envy but rather a wish for all those
qualities or privileges which in our culture are regarded as masculine"

Contributions

- Horney’s contributions, although impressive, are not as well known or recognized within
psychology as those of Freud, Jung, and Adler.
- Her self-help books were popular
- Horney’s typology is considered useful to categorise deviant behaviour.
 - She impacted Maslow and Erikson (Horney’s basic anxiety → Erikson’s basic mistrust)
- Horney’s theory of personality is not as complete and consistent as Freud’s
- She notes cultural influences but does not use available data to describe how culture
influences personality.
- Her most lasting contribution may be to feminine psychology, the women’s movement
and her ideas on gender role conflicts and sex.

OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY

History
- Mother of object relations theory.
- Born: March 30, 1882 in Vienna, Austria.
- Youngest of 4 children
- Believed that her birth was unplanned - a belief that led to feelings of being rejected by
her parents.
- She had a troubled relationship as a daughter and as a mother.

Intro to object relations theory

- Built on careful observations of young children.
- Infants drive’s are directed to an object- a breast, a penis, a vagina etc.
- The child's reaction to the breast is fundamental and serves as a prototype for later
relations to whole objects,such as mother and father.
- The very early tendency of infants to relate to partial objects gives their experiences an
unrealistic or fantasy-like quality that affects all later interpersonal relations.
- Basic assumption of this theory is based on Freud’s idea that an object of the drive is
any person, part of person or thing through which the aim is satisfied.
- Focuses more on interpersonal relationship with objects than they do on instinctual
drives.
- Social and environmental factors have influences on personality.
- Important portion of relationship - internal psychic representations of early significant
objects,that have been introjected,or taken into the infant's psychic structure,and then
projected onto one's partner.
- Place particular emphasis on mother-child relationship.
 - Core of personality is found in infancy.
- Crucial Issue in personality development is the child’s growing ability to become
increasingly independent of its primary object: mother.
- Other critical factors are the emergence of strong sense of self and maturing of relations
with other objects than the mother.

Psychic life of the infant

- Emphasized on the first 4- 6 months.

- Life begins with an inherited predisposition to reduce anxiety they experience as a result
of the conflicts produced by the force of life instinct and the power of the death instinct.
- The infant's innate readiness to act or react presupposes the existence of phylogenetic
endowment. (inherited experiences that lie beyond an individual’s personal experience).

PHantasies
- Are psychic representations of unconscious id instincts.
- Infant, at birth possess an active fantasy life.
- Unconscious images of “good” and “bad””. e.g. a fullstomach - good, and an empty one
is bad.
- Infant who fall asleep while sucking on their fingers are fantasizing about having
their mother’s good breast inside themselves and a hungry child who is kicking
their leg is fantasizing of destroying the bad breast.
- As the infant matures, unconscious fantasies connected with the breast continue to exert
an impact on psychic life, but newer ones emerge as well.
- These later unconscious fantasies are shaped by both reality and by inherited
predispositions.
- One of these fantasies- Oedipus complex.
- Since these fantasies are unconscious it can be contradictory.
- e.g. a little boy can fantasize both beating his mother and having babies with her.
(spring partly from boy’s experience with his mother and partly from universal
predisposition to destroy the bad breast and to incorporate the good one).
Objects
- Humans have innate drives/ instincts, which must have an object. e.g: hunger drive has
good breast as its object.
- Klein(1948) - from early infancy children relate to these external objects, both in fantasy
and in reality.
- Earliest object relations are with mother’s breast, but very soon interest develops in the
face and in the hands which attend to his needs and gratify them.
- In their active fantasy life infants introject or take into their psychic structure, these
external structure like mother’s breast, hand etc.
- Introjected objects are more than internal thoughts about external objects; they are
fantasies of internalizing the object in concrete and physical from.
- e.g. children who introjected their mother believe that she is constantly inside
their own body.

Positions
- Klein (1946) saw infants constantly engaging in a basic conflict between life instinct and
death instinct.
- Infant’s naturally prefer gratifying sensations over frustrating ones.
- In order to deal with this dichotomy infant’s organize their experience into positions/
ways of dealing with both internal and external objects.
- Positions alternate back and forth; they are not periods of time or phases of
development through which a person passes.
- Positions represent normal social growth and development.
- 2 basic positions- paranoid-schizoid position and depressive position.

● Paranoid schizoid position

- It is the way of organising experiences that include both paranoid feelings of
being persecuted and a splitting of the internal and external objects into good and
bad
○ Infant comes into contact with good breast and bad breast (gratification and
frustration)
○ This threatens the existence of the infant’s vulnerable ego
○ The ego splits as the infant has the urge to devour and harbour it and at the
same time to destroy the bad breast
 ○ Infant fears the persecutory breast but has a relationship with the ideal breast
that provides love, comfort and gratification
○ To control the good breast and to fight off its persecutors the infant adopts the
paranoid-schizoid position
- 3-4 months - ego perception is subjective and fantastic rather than objective and real.
- Child must keep good and bad breast separate- or annihilate the good breast and lose it
as a safe harbour.
- In the infants schizoid world, rage and destructive feelings are directed toward the bad
breast, while feelings of love and comfort associated with good breast.
- This splitting serve as a prototype for the development of ambivalent feelings towards a
single person; Klein compare the infantile paranoid-schizoid position to transference
feelings that therapy patients often develop.

● Depressive position
- This occurs in during the 5-6 months of the infant’s life and is characterised by
the infant’s anxiety over losing a loved object and experiencing guilt for wanting
to destroy the object
○ The infant begins to view external objects as whole and to see that good and bad
exist in the same person
○ They develop a more realistic image of the mother and recognise that she is an
independent person who can be both good and bad
○ Ego begins to mature - can tolerate some of its destructive feelings rather than
project it outwards.
○ The mother might go away and can be lost forever and so the infant tries to
protect her
○ The infant’s ego realises that it cannot protect the mother and experiences guilt
for previous destructive urges towards the mother
- They reproach themselves for the previous destructive urges and decide to make
reparations and feel empathy for her.
- The depressive position resolves when they feels like they have made reparations and
that their mother will not leave permanently but will come back after each departure.
- Now they are able to experience love and is able to give back love.
Psychic defense mechanisms

- To protect their ego against the anxiety aroused by their own destructive fantasies.
- These intense destructive feelings originate with oral-sadistic anxieties concerning the
breast- the dreaded, destructive bad breast on the one hand and the satisfying, helpful
breast on the other.

1. Introjection
- Infants fantasize taking into their body those perceptions and experiences that
they have had with the external object.
- Begins with the 1st feeding.
- Originally tries to incorporate good objects to protect against anxiety.
- Sometime they introjects bad objects in order to gain control over them- internal
persecutors.
- Internal persecutors- terrify & leave frightening residues - expressed in dreams/
an interest in fairy tales.
- Introjected objects are not accurate representation of real objects.
- Eg: infants will fantasize that their mother is constantly present; always inside
their body. The real mother of course, is not perpetually present, but infants
nevertheless devour her in fantasy so that she become a constant internal object.

2. Projection
- Fantasy that one’s own feelings and impulses actually reside in another person
and not within one’s body.
- By projecting un-manageable destructive impulses onto external objects, infants
alleviate the unbearable anxiety of being destroyed
- Eg: A young boy who desires to castrate his father may instead project these
castration fantasies onto his father, thus turning his castration wishes around and
blaming his father for wanting to castrate him.
- Can also project good impulse.
- Adults sometime project their own feelings of love onto another person & become
convinced that the other person loves them.
- Projection thus allows people to believe that their own subjective opinions are
true.
 3. Splitting
- Infants manage good and bad aspect of themselves and of external objects by
keeping apart incompatible impulses.
- Develop pic of both “good me” & “bad me”. (ego must split)
- Not extreme & rigid splitting- enables people to see both + & -ve aspects of
themselves, evaluate their behavior, differentiate between likable & unlikable
acquaintances.
- Excessive & inflexible splitting- pathological repression.
- If children’s ego’s are too rigid to be split, then they cannot introject bad
experiences into the good ego.
- When children cannot accept their own bad behavior, they must then deal with
destructive & terrifying impulses in the only way they can- by repressing them.

4. Projective identification
- Infant splits off unacceptable parts of themselves, projects them onto another
object & finally introject them back into themselves in a changed or distorted
form.
- By taking the object back- they identify with the object.
- Powerful influence on adult interpersonal relations.
- Eg: infants typically split off parts of their destructive impulses and project them
onto the bad breast. Next, they identify with the breast by introjecting it , a
process that permit them to gain control over the dreaded and wonderful breast.
- For example, if a man feels weak and incompetent, he might see his partner as
far more capable, and defer to his partner. This forces his partner to step up and
become strong and competent, which in turn reinforces the man's own feeling of
weakness and incompetence.

Internalisations

Ego
- One’s sense of self reaches maturity much earlier than Freud assumed.
- Early ability to sense both destructive and loving forces and to manage them through
splitting, projection and introjection.
 - Mostly unorganized at birth but strong enough to feel anxiety, to use defense mech, and
to form early object relations in fantasy and reality.
- Begins to evolve with 1st feeding- good breast fill the infant with milk, love and security,
bad breast with the opposite.
- Introjects both good breast and bad breast, and these images provide a focal point for
further expansion of ego.
- All experiences, even those not connected with feeding, are evaluated by the ego in
terms of how they relate to the good breast and the bad breast.
- First ego must split before an unified ego can emerge.
- Dual image of self allows them to manage the good and bad aspects of external objects.
- As infants mature, their perceptions become more realistic, they no longer see the world
in terms of partial objects, and their egos become more integrated.

Superego
- Different from Freud‘s
1. emerges much earlier in life.
2. not outgrowth of Oedipus complex (grows along)
3. Much more harsh and cruel.
- Mature superego produces feeling of inferiority and guilt. Early superego produces terror.
- Young children fears of being devoured, cut up, and torn into pieces- fears out of
proportion from reality.
- Infant has their own destructive instinct- experienced as anxiety
- To manage this, child‘s ego mobilizes libido against death instinct
- Life & death instinct cannot be completely separated.
- Ego is forced to defend itself against its own actions.
- This early ego defense lays the foundation for the development of the superego, whose
extreme violence is a reaction to the ego’s aggressive self defense against its own
destructive tendencies.
- This harsh & cruel superego is responsible for many antisocial and criminal tendencies
in adults.

Oedipus complex

- ‘”Different from Freud‘s-

 - Emerges much earlier in life (overlaps with oral and anal stage and climax at
Genital stage at 3/4 yrs). [Klein preferred term “genital” over “phallic”]
- Significant part of it is children's fear of retaliation from their parent for their
fantasy of emptying the parent’s body.
- She stressed the importance of children retaining +ve feelings toward both
parents during Oedipal years.
- Oedipus complex serves the same need for both genders, to establish a positive attitude
with the good/gratifying object and to avoid the bad/terrifying object.
- Children are capable of both homosexual and heterosexual relations with both parents.
- For both girl and boy, a healthy resolution of oedipus complex dependes on their ability
to allow their mother and father to come together and to have sexual intercouse with
each other.

Female oedipal complex Male oedipal complex

First months-Girl sees mother’s breast as Mother’s breast as good and bad.
both good and bad.

6 month-she begins to view the breast as Early months boy shifts some of his oral
more positive . desires from breast to his father’s penis.- boy
in his FEMININE POSITION (passive
homosexual attitude towards his father)

Later she see whole mother as full of good Next he moves to a heterosexual relation with
things- this attitude leads her to imagine how mother, because of previous homosexual
babies are made. feeling for his father, he has no fear that his
father will castrate him.

Fantasizes that her father’s penis feeds her As boy matures-develops ORAL-SADISTIC
mother with riches and babies. IMPULSE towards his father and wants to
bite off his penis and to murder him.

Father’s penis as the giver of children- These feelings arouse castration anxiety,
develop a +ve relationship to it and fantasizes fears his father will bite off his penis- he
that her father will give her babies. convinces himself that sexual intercourse with
 mother is dangerous.

If this stage proceeds smoothly- the little girl Complex is resolved partially by castration
adopts a “ feminine” position and has a anxiety and his ability to establish positive
positive relationship with both parents. relation with both parents.

If not ,see mother as rival and fantasize At that point he sees them as whole objects,
robbing her mother of her father’s penis and a condition that enables him to work though
stealing her mother’s babies. his depressive position.

To rob feeling - produces paranoia fear that

her mother will retaliate against her by
injuring her or taking away her babies.

Principal anxiety comes from a fear that the

inside of her body has been injured by her
mother, an anxiety that can only be
alleviated when she later gives birth to
healthy baby.

Klein(1945)- PENIS ENVY stems from the

little girl’s wish to internalize her father’s penis
and to receive a baby from him.

HEINZ KOHUT

- Emphasized process by which self evolves from a vague and undifferentiated image to a
clear and precise sense of individual identity.
- Focused on the early mother- child relationship as the key to understanding later
development.
- Believed that human relatedness, not innate instinctual drives are at the core of
personality.
- Infants require adult caregivers not only to gratify physical needs but also to satisfy
psychological needs.
- Children develop a sense of self during early infancy when parents and others treat them
as if they had an individualized sense of identity.
 - People, things or events that satisfy both physical and psychological needs are called
SELF OBJECTS.
- Parents must act as a mirror to the child-reflecting back on the child a sense of
uniqueness, importance, and greatness.
- Through empathetic interaction, the infant takes in the self-object responses as pride,
guilt,shame or envy- all attitudes that eventually form the building blocks of the self.
- Kohut (1977) defined self as “ the Centre of the individual’s psychological universe”.
- It is also the child’s focus of interpersonal relations, shaping how he or she will
relate to parents and other selfobjects.
- Infants-naturally narcissistic -self-centered
- Looking out exclusively for their own welfare and wishing to be admired for who
they are and what they do.

2 basic narcissistic needs

● Need to exhibit grandiose self
○ Established when infant relates to a “mirroring” self object who reflects approval
of its behavior.
○ “if others see me as perfect, i am perfect.”
○ Must change into realistic view of self
● Idealised parent image
○ Someone else is perfect.
○ “you are perfect, but i am part of you.”
○ Must grow into a realistic picture of parents
- Both are necessary for healthy personality development but must change as the child
grows older.
- If unaltered= narcissistic adult personality.
- 2 self images should not entirely disappear; healthy adult continues to have positive
attitudes towards self and continues to see good qualities in parents.

MARGARET MAHLER’S VIEW

- Concerned with the psychological birth of the individual that takes place during the first 3
years of life.
- Individuals psychological birth begins during the first weeks of postnatal life and
continues for the next 3 years.
- Psychological birth- child becomes an individual separate from his or her primary
caregiver to a sense of identity.
- Errors in the 3yrs- time of psychological birth-result in later regressions to a stage when
a person had not yet achieved separation from the mother and thus a sense of personal
identity.
- 3 major developmental stages and 4 substages.
1. Normal autism
- Birth till 3-4 weeks
- Bird is able to satisfy its nutritional needs autistically (no regard for external
reality) as food is enclosed within the shell (Freud’s analogy)
- A newborn infant satisfies its needs within the powerful protective orbit of a
mother’s care.
- Neonates have a sense of omnipotence- having unlimited power.
- Klein- infant is terrified, Mahler- long periods of sleep and general lack of tension.
- This stage is a period of absolute primary narcissism.
- Also called “objectless” stage.
- Naturally search for mother’s breast.
- Disagreed with Klein’s notion of incorporating good breast and other objects to
their ego.
2. Normal symbiosis
- Begins in 4-5 weeks and reaches its zenith at 4th-5th month.
- Infant realizes that they cannot satisfy their own needs → recognize primary
caregiver → seek symbiotic relationship.
- Infant behaves and functions as though he and his mother were an omnipotent
system- a dual unity within one common boundary.
- Not true symbiosis.
- Infant sends cues and mother responds.
- Can recognize mother’s face and can perceive her pleasure or distress.
- Object relations have not begun- mother and others are “preobjects”
3. Separation-individuation
- 4th-5th month till 30th-36th month.
- No longer experience dual unity with mother- must surrender delusion of
omnipotence and face their vulnerability to external threats.
- Psychologically separated from mother
- Sense of individuation
- Feelings of personal identity
- External world more dangerous.
- 4 overlapping substages.

a. Differentiation
- 5th month till 7-10th
- Bodily breaking away from the mother infant symbiotic orbit.
- Infant smile to their own mother.
- Psy healthy infant will be curious about strangers and expand their world.
- Unhealthy will fear strangers and recoil from them.
b. Practicing
- 7/10 month- 15/16
- Physically move away from mother.
- Easily distinguish their body from mother‘s, establish specific bond,
begins to develop autonomous ego.
- Early stages they do not like to lose sight of their mother.
- Later they begin to walk and to take in the outside world.
c. Rapprochement
- 16-25 months.
- Desire to bring mother and themselves back together- physically and
psychologically.
- Share every new acquisition & skill.
- Separation anxiety more.
- Various ploys to regain dual unity.
- Attempts unsuccessful rapprochement crisis
d. Libidinal object constancy
- 3rd year.
- Must develop a constant inner representation of mother so that they can
tolerate being separated.
- Not developed- depend on their mother’s physical presence.
- Consolidate their individuality- learn to function without mother and to
develop object relations.
CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF NEO-FREUDIANS

Who are the neo-freudians?

- Thinkers who agreed with many of the fundamental tenets of Freud's psychoanalytic
theory but changed and adapted the approach to incorporate their own beliefs, ideas,
and opinions.

What were the major areas of conflict with freud?

- Personality was shaped almost entirely by childhood events.
- Emphasis on sexual urges as a primary motivator
- Freud's lack of emphasis on social and cultural influences on behavior and personality
- Freud's negative view of human nature
- Neo-freudians focused their theories on more positive aspects of human nature and the
social influences that contribute to personality and behavior.

Domains of critical analysis

● Verification and falsifiablity: whether the concepts of the theory can be empirically tested
or not
● Research generation
● Organise knowledge - into meaningful framework, and how it explains human behaviour
● Applicability - practical application of theoretical concepts
● Internal consistency - whether the terms and definitions align with each other; whether
various concepts of their theory align with each other
● Simplicity - ease of understanding the theory

JUNG
● Vs freud
○ Higher emphasis on collective unconscious rather than personal unconscious
○ Focused less on sex than Freud in his work
● Significant contributions
○ Collective unconscious - new aspect of personality.
○ Broad scope of human activity within a single theoretical framework
○ WAT - standard projective test
○ Concepts of complexes and psychological types are accepted and used widely
 ○ Personality scales that measure introversion and extroversion

Verification and Low Evidence for archetypes and collective unconscious

falsifiability → Jung’s own inner experiences

Only few concepts can be empirically tested

Research Moderate Only few can generate research - MBTI

generation

Organising Moderate Collective unconscious - new aspect of personality.

knowledge Broad scope of human activity within a single
theoretical framework

Applicability Low Psychological types and attitudes as well as MBTI

have practical applications,
Collective unconscious and archetypes have low
practical application

Internal consistency Low No precise operational definitions

Different terms to explain same concept
(self-realisation and individuation)

Simplicity Low Including data from various disciplines, explaining

multiple dimensions of personality made the theory
more complex

Broad scope of human activity - attitudes and types

of personality
- dimensions of personality (collective unconscious,
archetypes, personal unconscious)
- development of personality - middle age,
individuation
ADLER
● Vs freud
○ Lesser emphasis on role of the unconscious
○ Focused on interpersonal and social influences
● Significant contributions
○ Emphasis on social forces in personality - Karen Horney’s theory.
○ Focus on the whole person and the unity of personality - Gordon Allport.
○ Creative power of the individual in shaping his or her style of life, insistence that
future goals are more important than past events - Abraham Maslow.
○ Early work on organic inferiority - influenced the study of psychosomatic
disorders; the inferiority complex; compensation; birth order

Verification and Low Early recollections and style of life

falsifiability

Research Above average Early recollections with personality factors, clinical

generation disorders, vocational choice, psychotherapy
outcomes etc
It also has been used to construct Social interest
scale - Social interest Scale (Crandall, 1975) and
Social Interest Index (Greever, Tseng, & Friedland)

Organising High Broad to encompass possible explanations for much

knowledge of what is known about human behavior and
development. Practical view of life’s problems

Applicability High Reports collected through birth order, dreams, early

recollections, childhood difficulties, and any
deficiencies are used to understand the style of life,
and how to increase individual responsibility and
broaden his/her freedom of choice

Internal consistency Low No precise operational definitions (terms like

superiority and creative power)

Simplicity Above Average

HORNEY
● Vs freud
○ Criticized Freud's depictions of women as inferior to men.
○ Objected to Freud's portrayal of women as suffering from "penis envy."
○ Suggested that men experience "womb envy" because they are unable to bear
children.
● Significant contributions
○ The depth of explanation of neuroses
○ Comprehensive description of neurotic personalities - excellent framework for
understanding unhealthy people
● Major criticisms
○ Lack of emphasis on healthy/normal personalities is not well explained.
○ Her observations and interpretations were too greatly influenced by middle-class
American culture

Verification and Low Most of her theory is based on clinical experiences

falsifiability (more people with neurotic personalities)
Cannot be entirely verified or falsified
Notes the impact of social and cultural forces on
personality, BUT makes little use of research data
from sociology and anthropology to detail precisely
how social forces shape personality.

Research Low
generation

Organising High
knowledge

Applicability Low Based on her concerns about the development of

neurotic trends, parents, therapists, and teachers
can aim to provide a warm, safe and accepting
environment for their children, patients and students
BUT
 Does not provide enough information to guide a
practitioner's course of action with a client, only mere
understanding

Internal consistency Above average Concepts and formulations are precise, consistent,
and unambiguous. Different terms used
interchangeably without explaining how they are
different (neurotic needs & neurotic trends; basic
anxiety & basic conflict)

Simplicity High

KLEIN
● Vs Freud
○ Emphasized the first 5 to 6 months of a child’s life, in contrast to Freud’s stress
on the first 5 years
○ Primary emphasis on personal relations, over instinctual needs
○ Focus on social and environmental factors as influences on personality
● Signifiicant contributions
○ The ability to organise information about infant’s behaviour by observing
mother-child interactions

Verification and Low Most of the tenets are based on the inner workings
falsifiability of the infant’s psyche and cannot be verified or
falisified through experimental testing.

Research Low Attachment theory generates research but other

generation areas have not been able to generate much research

Organising Moderate Explains childhood behaviour and personality in

knowledge detail but there isnt much information about adult
personality and behaviour

Applicability High Parenting strategies can be taught

Understanding early development of their client
 Working with transference

Internal consistency High

Simplicity Low Unnecessary use of complex phrases and concepts

MURRAY
● Vs freud
○ Murray suggested environmental press.
○ Pointed out that the outside influences also affect people's personality.
● Theory concepts
○ Only limited portions of his theory have been experimentally tested.
● Research Generation
○ Need for affiliation and Need for achievement were heavily researched
● Significant contributions
○ The development of TAT as a projective test to assess personality
○ List of needs, which is of continuing value for research, clinical diagnosis, and
employee selection
● Major criticisms
○ Only some portions of it have been published.
○ Full range of thought not widely revealed
○ Classification of needs - overly complex with lots of overlap.
○ Lack of clarity on
■ Relation of needs to other aspects of personality
■ How they develop
 DISPOSITIONAL THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

GORDON ALLPORT - Motivation & Personality

- Gordon allport was a pioneering psychologist often referred to as one of the founders of
personality psychology
- He rejected 2 of the dominant schools of thought in psychology at the time
psychoanalysis and behaviorism in favor of his own approach that stresses imp of
individual differences and situational variables

● Meeting freud (pg 244 - schultz)

- He suspected that psychoanalysis probed the unconscious too deeply, as Freud
tried to do with him.
- Psychology, Allport decided, should pay more attention to conscious or
visible motivations.
- This was the path he chose for his study of personality.

Overview
- Allport considered personality to be discrete or discontinuous
- Not only is each person distinct from all others, but each adult is also divorced from his
or her past
- He found no continuum of personality b/w childhood and adulthood
- Primitive biological urges and reflexes drive infant behavior whereas adult functioning is
more psychological in nature

Brief bio
- Gordon allport was a longtime and influential member of the faculty at harvard university
from 1930-1967
- In 1931, he severed on the faculty committee that established Harvard’s social and
psychological society
- Received the APA distinguished scientific contribution award
- Died on oct 9 , 1967- lung cancer
- 70 yrs old
- Criticized psychoanalysis and behavior model
 - His contribution was mainly human welfare

Definition of personality
- “Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical
systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment “
- An extended version of this definition included psychophysical systems that determine
characteristic behavior and thought
- “Personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical
systems that determine his characteristic behavior and thought”
- The term dynamic organisation → personality is constantly changing, growth is
organised and not random.
- Psychophysical → personality is composed of mind and body functioning together as a
unit
- determine, → all facets of personality activate or direct specific behaviors and thoughts.
- Characteristic behavior and thought → everything we think and do is characteristic, or
typical of us. Thus, each person is unique.

Contribution
- First psychologists to conduct on study of personality traits
- Developed list of 4500 trait-like words
- Focused on uniqueness of each individual and importance of the present context and
opposed to past history
- Began developing his theory by going through dictionary and noting ….
- Cardinal
- Central
- Secondary

Trait
- The characteristics of one's behavior is known as TRAIT.
- These traits are helpful in describing one’s personality and also distinguish a man's
personality from others
- Allport believed that psychologically healthy humans are motivated by present, most
conscious drives and that they not only seek to reduce tension but to establish new ones
(tension is a drive)
Personality traits

- Considered to be predispositions to respond in the same or similar manner, to different

kinds of stimuli
- Traits are consistent and enduring ways of reacting to our environment
- Characteristics
1. Personality traits are real and exist within each of us. They are not theoretical
constructs or labels made up to account for behavior.
2. Traits determine or cause behavior. They do not arise only in response to
certain stimuli. They motivate us to seek appropriate stimuli, and they interact
with the environment to produce behavior.
3. Traits can be demonstrated empirically. By observing behavior over time, we
can infer the existence of traits in the consistency of a person’s responses to the
same or similar stimuli.
4. Traits are interrelated; they may overlap, even though they represent different
characteristics. For example, aggressiveness and hostility are distinct but related
traits and are frequently observed to occur together in a person’s behavior.
5. Traits vary with the situation. For example, a person may display the trait of
neatness in one situation and the trait of disorderliness in another situation.

- Initially, Allport proposed two types of traits: individual and common.

- Individual traits are unique to a person and define his or her character.
- Common traits are shared traits by a number of people, such as the members of a
culture.
- It follows that people in different cultures will have different common traits.
- Common traits are also likely to change over time as social standards and values
change

Personal dispositions (seminar - priyanka)

- He relabeled the common traits as traits

- Individual traits as personal dispositions
- Our personal dispositions don't all have the same intensity or significance
- They mabe cardinal, central or secondary traits.
 ● Personal dispositions - traits that are peculiar to an individual as opposed to traits shared
by a number of people
○ Cardinal traits
■ most pervasive and powerful human traits
■ Not everyone has it and may not display it in every situation.
■ Eg: Sadism and chauvinism.
○ Central traits
■ The handful of outstanding traits that describe a person’s behavior.
■ Likely to be mentioned while talking of a friend’s personality or writing a
letter of recommendation.
■ Eg: Aggressiveness, self-pity and cynicism
○ Secondary traits
■ least important traits, which a person may display inconspicuously and
inconsistently.
■ Most only a close friend would notice the evidence of them.
■ Eg: Minor preference for a type of music or a certain kind of food

Psychologically healthy personality

- Allport believed that people are motivated by both the need to adjust to their
environment and to grow.
- The healthy personality changes from being a biologically dominated organism in infancy
to a mature psychological organism in adulthood.
- Our motivations become separated from childhood and are oriented toward the future.
- Engage in proactive behaviours
- Criteria of psychological health
- Extension of sense of self - to people and activities beyond oneself
- Warm relationships with others - exhibiting intimacy, compassion, and tolerance
- Emotional security or self-acceptance (self-acceptance helps them reach
emotional security)
- A realistic view of world - develops personal skills, commitment to some type of
work
- Insight, humor - sense of humor and self-objectification
- A unifying philosophy of life which is responsible for directing personality towards
future goals
Theory of motivation (seminar - apoorva)

- According to allport, motives change as we mature. We tend to be driven by motives that

reflect our present drives and wants
- An adequate theory of motivation should
- Focus on the present drives
- Be pluralistic in nature
- Have both reactive and proactive perspectives
- Allow for concrete uniqueness of motives
- Ascribe dynamic force to cognitive processes

Allport’s view on the relationship b/w personality and motivation

- Allport believed that the central problems for any personality theory is how it treats the
concept of motivation
- Allport emphasized the influence of a person’s present situation not only in his
personality theory but also in his view of motivation
- Current state that is imp not what happened in past
- Cognitive processes - that is our conscious plans and intentions - are a vital aspect of
our personality
- Deliberate intentions are an essential part of our personality. What we want and what
we strive for are the keys to understanding our behavior

Functional autonomy of motives

- Motives of mature, emotionally healthy adults are not functionally connected to the prior
experiences in which they initially appeared.
- Forces that motivated us early in life become autonomous, or independent, of their
original circumstances
- Idea that motives in normal mature adults are independent of the childhood experiences
in which they originally appeared.
- Preservative and Propriate Functional Autonomy
● Perseverative functional autonomy
○ Relates to low-level and routine behavior that continues without the presence of
external reward.
○ It invovles the feedback mechanisms in the nervous system that are ruled by
simple neurological principles. Over time these mechanisms become
self-maintaining and keep the organism on track.
○ Example
■ A rat continues to run through the maze despite satiation.
■ A patient continues substance use despite the lack of “physiological
hunger”

● Propriate functional autonomy

○ Propriate motives are unique to the individual.
○ The ego determines which motives will be maintained and which will be
discarded.
○ We retain motives that enhance our self-esteem or self-image.
○ Thus, a direct relationship exists between our interests and our abilities

● Values
○ Theoretical - a scientist values truth
○ Economic - a businessman values usefulness
○ Aesthetic - an artist values beauty
○ Social - a nurse values compassion
○ Political - a politician values power
○ Religious - a monk values unity

- Example: In childhood, we may be forced to take piano lessons and practice. As we

become proficient, we may become more committed to playing the piano. The original
motive (fear of parental displeasure) has disappeared, and the continued behavior of
playing the piano becomes necessary to our self-image.
- Our propriate functioning is an organizing process that maintains our sense of self. It
determines how we perceive the world, what we remember from our experiences, and
how our thoughts are directed.
- These perceptual and cognitive processes are selective
 - This organizing process is governed by the following three principles:
● Organizing the energy level
- How we acquire new motives. These motives arise from the necessity to
help consume excess energy that we might otherwise express in
destructive and harmful ways.
● Mastery and competence
- The level at which we choose to satisfy motives. It is not enough for us to
achieve at an adequate level.
- Healthy, mature adults are motivated to perform better and more
efficiently, to master new skills, and to increase their degree of
competence.
● Propriate patterning
- A striving for consistency and integration of the personality.
- We organize our perceptual and cognitive processes around the self,
keeping what enhances our self-image and rejecting the rest.

● Limitations
○ Not all behaviors and motives could be explained by the principles of functional
autonomy.
○ Some behaviors—such as reflexes, fixations, neuroses, and behaviors arising
from biological drives—are not under the control of functionally autonomous
motives

Development of proprium

Proprium
1. Word for self/ego: Allport didn’t use these words because it was used by other theorists.
2. Appropriate: It is aspects of personality that are distinctive and hence, appropriate to our
emotional life.
3. Unique & Unite: These aspects are unique to each of us and unite our attitudes,
aperceptions, and intentions
4. Propriate Functioning: Functioning in a manner expressive of the self. Most of what we
do in life is a matter of who we are. Doing things in keeping with who you are is propriate
functioning.
Development

Stage Age Development

1. Bodily self 0-2 years Infants become aware of their own existence and
distinguish their own bodies from objects in the
environment

2. Self identity 0-2 years Children realize that their identity remains intact
despite the many changes taking place
We recognize ourselves as continuing, as having a
past, present, and future. We see ourselves as
individual entities, separate and different from others

3. Self-esteem 2-4 years Children learn to take pride in their accomplishments.

We recognize that we have value, to others and to
ourselves

4. Extension of 4-6 years Children recognise the objects and people that are
self part of their own world. Certain things, people,
and events around us also come to be thought of as
central and warm, essential to my existence. Some
people define themselves in terms of their parents,
spouse, or children etc.

5. Self-image 4-6 years Children develop actual and idealized images of

themselves and their behavior and become aware of
satisfying (or failing to satisfy) parental expectations.
It is the beginning of conscience, ideal self, and
persona

6. Self as rational 6-12 years Children begin to apply reason and logic to the
coper solution of everyday problems

7. Propriate 12+ Develops during adolescence. Young people begin to

striving formulate long-range goals and plans
 Adulthood Normal, mature adults are functionally autonomous,
independent of childhood motives. They function
rationally in the present and consciously create their
own lifestyles.

Similarity to Freud’s theory?

- One can't help but notice the time periods Allport uses – they are very close to the time
periods of Freud's stages
- But please understand that Allport's scheme is not a stage theory – just a description of
the usual way people develop.

Social interaction with parents

- If the mother or primary caregiver provides sufficient affection and security
- proprium will develop gradually and steadily
- child will achieve positive psychological growth
- Childhood motives will be free → propriate strivings of adulthood
- Pattern of personal dispositions will form
- If childhood needs are frustrated
- Self will not mature properly
- Child becomes insecure, aggressive, demanding, jealous, self-centered
- Psychological growth is stunted
- Result: neurotic child who functions at level of childhood drives
- Traits and personal dispositions do not develop
- Personality remains undifferentiated

CATTELL’S 16PF TRAIT THEORY

Assessment in Cattell’s theory

- Cattle’s objective measurements of personality sourced from three types of data he
called
- L-Data: Life-record ratings of behaviours observed in real-life situations, such as the
classroom or office
- Q-Data: Self-report questionnaire ratings of our characteristics, attitudes and interests
- T-Data: “objective” tests, in which a person responds without knowing what aspect of
behaviour is being evaluated.
- Cattell used factor analysis to identify common characteristics from a wide array of traits.
- He collected trait data, applied factor analysis to find underlying dimensions, rotated
factors for clarity, and named them based on traits.
- Factor analysis steps
- Collect data from a large number of subjects on multiple variables.
- Calculate correlations between all variables.
- Extract factors from the correlation matrix.
- Determine the factor loadings of item measures on the factors.
- Interpret and name the factors.
Classification of traits

Stability & Permanence traits

- Surface Traits
- Surface traits are personality characteristics that are inferred from and
manifested in a series of observable behaviors that are related to each other.
- These traits are readily apparent in casual observation.
- For example, suppose someone consistently exhibits behaviors such as easily
becoming angry, being brusque in speech, and frequently putting others down. In
that case, they might be categorized as having the surface trait of "hostility."
- Surface traits do not provide insight into the underlying structure of
personality but are patterns of observable behaviors.

- Source Traits
- These are fundamental dimensions of personality that underlie surface
traits.
- Cattell identified 16 source traits, and all individuals possess these same traits,
but to varying degrees.
- Source traits are objectively derived using statistical techniques surface traits
are not.
- Each source trait has two opposing poles.
- For instance, one source trait is assertiveness, where individuals can score high
(dominant) or low (submissive) on this dimension.
 - Source traits are categorized as constitutional traits and environmental mold
traits.
- Constitutional Traits
- Originating in biological conditions.
- Not necessarily innate.
- Example: Alcohol intake leads to behaviors like carelessness,
talkativeness, and slurred speech.
- Identified as source traits through factor analysis.
- Environmental-Mold Traits
- Shaped by influences in social and physical environments.
- Learned characteristics and behaviors that create personality
patterns.
- Example: Behavior differences between individuals raised in
impoverished inner-city neighborhoods and those in upper-class
environments.
- Another Example is distinct patterns of behavior for a career
military officer compared to a jazz musician.

Common and Unique traits

- Common traits
- Possessed by everyone to some degree
- Examples: Intelligence, extraversion, gregariousness
- Vary in intensity among individuals
- Rooted in hereditary potential and cultural influences
- Unique traits
- Aspects of personality shared by few others
- Evident in interests and attitudes
- Examples: Genealogy, Civil War battles, baseball, Chinese martial arts
- Reflect individual differences and passions

Ability, temperament, and dynamic traits- DAT

- Ability traits
- Efficiency and Skill: Ability traits determine how efficiently we can perform tasks
and work toward our goals.
 - For example, intelligence
- Temperament traits
- Emotional Style: Temperament traits describe our general emotional style and
how we tend to behave in various situations.
- For instance, someone who is naturally easy-going may remain calm and
composed in stressful situations, while an irritable person might react more
negatively.
- Dynamic traits- MIA
- Dynamic traits are the driving forces behind our behavior. They include our
motivations, interests, and ambitions.
- Motivation: For example, a person with a strong interest in environmental
conservation may be motivated to take action to protect the environment, such as
volunteering for conservation projects or advocating for eco-friendly practices.
- Ambitions: For example- A person with the ambition to become a successful
entrepreneur may be driven to start their own business, invest in their skills, and
take calculated risks to achieve their goals.
- Interests: For example- an individual with a deep interest in art may dedicate
their time to creating, studying, or appreciating art in various forms.
- Further divided into Ergs, Sentiments, and Attitudes
● Ergs
○ The term "erg" is derived from the Greek word "Ergon", meaning
work or energy.
○ It is a constitutional trait.
○ Cattell used "erg " to represent the concept of instinct or drive.
○ Ergs are the innate energy sources or driving forces behind all
behaviors.
○ They serve as the fundamental units of motivation, directing
individuals toward specific goals. There are 11 ergs as per
Cattell.Eg- hunger, sex, curiosity
● Sentiments
○ An environmental-mold source trait.
○ Arises from external social and physical influences.
○ Represents learned patterns of attitudes.
 ○ Focused on significant aspects of life, such as a person's
community, spouse, occupation, religion, or hobby.
● Attitudes- ibe
○ Cattell defined attitudes as encompassing our interests in and our
emotions and behaviors toward a person, object, or event.
○ It extends beyond the common usage of the word "attitude" as
merely an opinion for or against something.
○ In Cattell's interpretation, attitudes include all of our emotions and
actions directed toward an object or situation.

Stages of personality development

● Infancy (birth to age 6)

○ A major formative period for personality.
○ Influenced by parents, siblings, weaning, and toilet training experiences.
○ Development of social attitudes, ego, superego, feelings of security or insecurity,
attitudes toward authority, and potential tendencies toward neuroticism.

● Childhood (6-14)
○ Between ages 6 and 14, the childhood stage of personality formation, there are
few psychological problems.
○ This stage marks the beginning of a trend toward independence from parents
and an increasing identification with peers.

● Adolescence (14-23)
○ Characterized by increased trouble and stress compared to childhood.
○ Adolescents may exhibit emotional disorders and delinquent behavior.
○ This stage involves conflicts centered around the drives for independence,
self-assertion, and sexual development.
○ It' s a period of significant psychological and emotional changes as individuals
strive to establish their identities and assert their independence.

● Maturity stage (23-50)

○ This phase typically spans from around age 23 to age 50.
 ○ Generally characterized as a productive and satisfying period in terms of career,
marriage, and family situations.
○ Personality becomes less flexible compared to earlier stages, leading to
increased emotional stability.
○ It's a stage where individuals often focus on establishing themselves in their
careers and families.

● Late maturity (50-65)

○ Involves personality developments in response to physical, social, and
psychological changes.
○ May experience declines in health, vigor, and physical attractiveness, with the
end of life approaching.
○ Individuals in this phase often engage in reevaluating their values and embark on
a search for a new sense of self.
○ Similar to Carl Jung's view of the midlife period, this stage reflects a period of
introspection and transition as individuals confront the realities of aging and seek
new meaning and identity in their lives.

● Old age (65+)

○ Adjustments to various losses, including the death of loved ones and retirement.
○ Sense of loneliness and insecurity.
○ Marks the challenges of aging and changing life circumstances.
Clinical contributions

- Differentiation between states and traits in human personality.

- Recognized that an individual's behavior is influenced by both stable traits and
situational states.
- Concepts of ergs (innate tendencies or instincts) and sentiments (learned tendencies).
This differentiation can help clinicians understand the interplay between biological and
environmental factors in shaping behavior and personality.
- Introduced term "syntality" to emphasize the trait structure of groups, similar to how
personality traits describe individuals. This concept can be applied to understand group
dynamics and behaviors.
- Use of multivariate techniques in his research had a significant impact on the field of
psychology, providing clinicians with advanced tools for analyzing and understanding
complex personality data.
- Several personality tests such as the Motivation Analysis Test (MAT) and Nonverbal
Personality Questionnaire (NVPQ)

Allport vs Cattell

Allport Cattell

Emphasizes the uniqueness and individuality Emphasizes identification and measurement

of each person of personality traits

Focuses on understanding and describing Identifies a large number of trait factors using
individual traits and characteristics factor analyses

Central traits are the most significant in Distinguishes between surface and source
shaping individual personality traits

Emphasizes idiographic methods for studying Focused on generalisable traits that apply
the individual across individuals

Believes that personality is influenced by Incorporates stages of personality

early experiences development but not as central to theory
Primarily addresses healthy development and Considered both normal and abnormal
adjustment behaviour in his theory

Does not incorporate psychoanalysis and the Recognises influence of psychoanalysis and
unconscious to a significant extent unconscious

Relatively less concerned with measurement Places greater importance on the

and quantification of personality measurement and quantification of
personality

BIG FIVE MODEL- OCEAN

- McCrae and Costa identified 5 major personality factors
- OCEAN
- The factors were confirmed through a variety of assessment techniques including
self-ratings, objective tests, and observers’ reports.
- Developed NEO Personality Inventory, using an acronym derived from the initials of the
first three factors.

- Similarity between extraversion and neuroticism factors of McCrae & Pasta and Eysenck
- A & C (big5) → low end of psychoticism (eysenck)
- O - +ve correlation with intelligence
- A → adler’s social interest

● Cross-cultural consistency
○ Observed in eastern and western cultures
 ○ Transcends cultural differences
○ Found in 50 diverse nations
○ Differences recognised in relative importance and social desirability
■ Australians - more importance to E & A than other factors
■ Japanese - more importance to C than other factors
■ Hong Kong & India - more importance to A
■ Singapore - more importance N (emotional stability)
■ Venezuela - more importance to E
○ Europeans and Americans tended to score higher in extraversion and openness
to experience and lower in agreeableness than did Asians and Africans

● Stability of factors
○ Factors detected in children as well as adults
○ Consistency across lifespan - Persons high in agreeableness as children were
likely to remain so as adults.
■ More than 3,000 men and women college graduates were tested for
extraversion when they were students and again 20 years later. The
researchers found a significant positive correlation between the test
scores at the two ages, suggesting that those who were extraverted in
college remained so at midlife
■ Changes in personality over a shorter time period, from adolescence to
adulthood, as studied in the Czech Republic and in Russia, showed that
neuroticism, extraversion, and openness to experience declined during
those years, whereas agreeableness and conscientiousness rose

● Emotional correlates
○ Extraversion +ve related to emotional well being;
○ Neuroticism -vely relate; genetic predisposition
○ ^E
■ better coping with everyday stressors
■ More likely to seek social support (to cope with stress)
■ Positive emotions in E are predictor of life satisfaction and emotional
well-being
■ Higher status among peers
 ■ More likely to experience more +ve events; good grades; pay raise;
marriage
○ ^N
■ Predisposed to -ve events like illness, weight gain, traffic tickets, etc
■ Everyday life stressors lead to higher -ve emotional effects
■ More physical illness and psychological disress
■ Prone to depression, anxiety, self-blame

● Behavioural correlates
○ ^O
■ wide range intellectual interests
■ More likely to seek challenges, change jobs, find different careers, expect
varied life exp
○ ^C
■ Reliable, responsible, punctual, efficient, dependable, better grades in
school
■ Healthier, live longer, more likely to maintain contact with parents and
siblings
■ british uni student study - more organised, self-disciplined,
achievement-oriented, future goals
■ Workplace study - initiate desirable work beh, high performance ratings
■ 5-8th grade study - more accepted by peers, better quality friendships,
less likely to be a target of aggression
■ Smokers - less likely to smoke at home, more aware of health risk
○ ^A
■ Cooperative, helpful, altruistic, honest, selfless, less conflict with opposite
sex
■ Finland study - better grades, less alcoholism, lesser depression levels,
lesser arrest records, greater career stability
○ ^E
■ more friends
■ more likely to fall in love
■ desire for higher economic, social and political status
 ● Factor analyses
■ factor A - agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability
● Factor B - extraversion & intellect

CRITICAL EVALUATION OF TRAIT THEORIES

- Allport v/s Big 5 v/s Cattell

Allport
● Overview
○ Traits
○ Cardinal Traits
○ Central Traits
○ Secondary Traits
○ Functional Autonomy of Motives
○ Perseverative Functional Autonomy
○ Propriate Functional Autonomy
○ Proprium

● Clinical contribution
○ 11 major methods to evaluate personality
■ Constitutional and physiological diagnosis
■ Cultural setting, membership, role
■ Personal documents and case studies
■ Self-appraisal
■ Conduct analysis
■ Ratings
■ Tests and scales
■ Projective techniques
■ Depth analysis
■ Expressive behavior
■ Synoptic procedures
○ Allport relied heavily on the Personal-Document, the Study of Values and
Observed, Expressive Behaviour Techniques
■ Personal-document technique
 ● Involves examining diaries, autobiographies, letters, literary
compositions, and other samples of a person’s written or spoken
records to determine the number and kinds of personality traits.
● Analysed letters from Jenny
● A group of judges would read the autobiographical or biographical
material and record the traits they found in it.
● 36 judges listed nearly 200 traits.
● Allport was able to reduce them to eight categories.
● One of Allport’s students performed a computer analysis on the
letters to find categories of words that might indicate the existence
of a particular trait
■ Study of values
● Personal values are the basis of our unifying philosophy of life,
which is one of the six criteria for a mature, healthy personality.
● Our values are personality traits and represent strongly held
interests and motivations.
● Allport believed that everyone possesses some degree of each
type of value, but one or two of these will be dominant in the
personality.
● The categories of values are as follows.
○ Theoretical values - Discovery of truth, empirical,
intellectual, and rational approach to life
○ Economic values - Useful and practical.
○ Aesthetic values - Artistic experiences and to form,
harmony, and grace
○ Social values - human relationships, altruism, and
philanthropy.
○ Political values - personal power, influence, and prestige in
all endeavours
○ Religious values - mystical and with understanding the
universe as a whole.
■ Expressive behaviour
● described as behaviour that expresses our personality traits.
 ● Coping behaviour - determined by needs inspired by the situation
and is ordinarily directed toward bringing about some change in
our environment.
● Research on Expressive Behaviour

● Critical analysis
○ Strengths
■ One of the first psychologists to bring humanistic values and concerns to
the field.
■ His approach is reflected in the work of the humanistic psychologists Carl
Rogers and Abraham Maslow.
■ His books are written in a readable style and his concepts have a
commonsense appeal.
■ The emphasis on conscious, rational determinants of behavior.
■ Allport’s view that people are shaped more by future expectations than by
past events.
■ Making the study of personality academically respectable.
■ Emphasizing the role of genetic factors within a trait approach to
personality.
■ Allport’s major work on the expression of emotions has been of vital
importance in the development of the field of cognitive neuroscience.
■ Allport’s work has been revived recently as part of the current focus on
personality traits.
○ Weaknesses
■ Has stimulated little research to test its propositions.
■ His idiographic research approach ran counter to the main current of
thought in contemporary psychology.
■ Allport’s focus on emotionally healthy adults was also at variance with the
then prevalent position in clinical psychology, which dealt with the neurotic
and psychotic.
■ Difficult to translate Allport’s concepts into specific terms and propositions
suitable for study by the experimental method.
■ Criticism against functional autonomy.
■ Allport’s emphasis on the uniqueness of personality has been challenged.
Cattel
● Overview
○ Traits
○ Common Traits
○ Unique Traits
○ Ability Traits
○ Temperament Traits
○ Dynamic Traits

● Clinical contribution
○ 16 PF test
○ Three primary assessment techniques
■ Life records - Ldata
■ Questionnaires - Q data
■ Personality tests - T data
○ Cattell listed three ways to study personality: bivariate, clinical, and multivariate
approaches.
○ The bivariate, or two-variable, approach is the standard laboratory experimental
method.
○ The clinical approach, which includes case studies, dream analysis, free
association, and similar techniques, is highly subjective
○ The multivariate approach, yields highly specific data. It involves the
sophisticated statistical procedure of factor analysis. Cattell chose to study
personality through the multivariate approach

● Critical analysis
○ Strengths
■ The trait approach has the capability to differentiate the behaviours based
on observation.
■ This approach uses unbiased paradigms to classify and calculate the
behaviors of individuals.
■ Potential role of biological influences in personality development.
■ It acknowledges that although most traits are stable that there can be
some variation in behaviour dependent upon the situation.
 ○ Weaknesses
■ Subjective error in the factor-analytic approach.
■ Cattell’s work and the complexity of the factor-analytic method are among
the reasons for a general lack of acceptance of his theory.
■ It cannot predict an individual’s behaviour; research shows that even if
someone scores highly for a particular trait, they may not actually behave
that way in real life.
■ Much of the research is based on the findings from self-reports, which are
open to bias.

Big-5 theory
● Overview
○ Hierarchical organization of personality traits in terms of five basic dimensions:
Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness,
○ Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience.
○ Big 5 personality traits emerged and are used to describe the broad traits that
serve as building blocks of personality.

● Clinical contribution
○ NEO-PI tests
○ Trait and academics
■ Study done by Erik Noftle and Richard Robins measured the traits and
academic outcomes of more than 10,000 students.
○ Traits and emotions
■ Traits can affect the mood a person experiences on a daily basis.
■ Study done by Murray McNiel and William Fleeson

● Critical analysis
○ Strengths
■ Provide important taxonomies that organize personality into meaningful
classifications. Rated high on their ability to organize knowledge.
■ Generated large amounts of empirical research.
■ Not limited to Western nations - myriad translations of the revised
NEO-PI.
 ■ Lends itself to falsification - traits other than the Big Five may be needed
to explain personality in Asian countries.
■ Parsimony - high
○ Weaknesses
■ Lacks power to guide the actions of practitioners.
■ NEO PI - social desirability bias.
■ Descriptor Rather Than a Theory.
■ Cross-Cultural Validity.
■ Gender Differences.
 HUMANISTIC AND EXISTENTIAL THEORIES

MASLOW
Humanistic approach
- Humanistic psychology is a perspective that emphasizes looking at the whole person,
and the uniqueness of each individual.
- Humanistic psychology begins with the existential assumptions that people have free will
and are motivated to acheive their potential and self-actualize.

Transpersonal approach
- Where the humanistic approach stops at the individual’s subjective experiences,
transpersonal psychology goes a step further by including the influences of transcendent
or spiritual experiences.
- The term 'transpersonal' means 'beyond the personal', and this reflects the core aim of
the therapy to explore human growth and help people to discover a deep and more
enduring essential self that exists beyond the conditioned ego.
- Maslow referred to it as a “Holistic dynamic theory” because it assumes that the whole
person is constantly being motivated by one need or another and that people have the
potential to grow towards psychological health that's self actualization.

Maslow’s view on motivation

- Adopted a holistic approach to motivation that is the whole person not any single part or
function is motivated.
- Motivation is usually complex, meaning that a person’s behavior may spring from several
motives.
- People are continually motivated by one need or another.
- All people everywhere are motivated by the same needs.
- Needs can be arranged in a hierarchy.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

- Maslow proposed a hierarchy of five innate needs that activate and direct human
behavior
- The 5 needs are conative needs ie. they have striving and motivational character.
 - Maslow described these needs as instinctoid, by which he meant that they have a
hereditary component.
- These needs can be affected or overridden by learning, social expectations, and
fear of disapproval. Although we come equipped with these needs at birth, the
behaviors we use to satisfy them are learned and therefore subject to variation from
one person to another.
- This hierarchy consists of 5 levels in which 4 levels of deficiency motivation and a final
highly developed level called being motivation or self actualization.

Characteristics of needs
1. The lower the need is in the hierarchy, the greater are its strength, potency, and priority.
The higher needs are weaker needs.
2. Higher needs appear later in life.
3. Failure to satisfy a lower need does produce a crisis. For this reason, he called lower
needs deficit, or deficiency needs.
4. Satisfaction of higher needs leads to improved health and longevity. For this reason,
Maslow called higher needs growth, or being needs.
5. Satisfaction of higher needs is also beneficial psychologically. Satisfaction of higher
needs leads to contentment, happiness, and fulfillment.
6. Gratification of higher needs requires better external circumstances than does
gratification of lower needs.
7. A need does not have to be satisfied fully before the next need in the hierarchy becomes
important.

Deficiency motivation
- The first 4 levels of the need hierarchy can be understood as motivation to overcome the
feeling of a deficiency and are collectively called deficiency motivation.

● Physiological needs
○ These needs are essential to human and animal survival.
○ If unmet they dominate motivation regardless whether other higher order needs
are also unmet.
○ According to Maslow needs that are dominant at a particular time are called
prepotent.
 ○ Physiological needs differ from other needs by two aspects :
■ They are the only needs that can be completely satisfied or overly
satisfied.
■ As a recurrent nature.

● Safety needs
○ A person’s predominant motivation is to ensure a safe situation.
○ The safety needs of adults are met in a ordered society but safety is threatened
by emergencies such as war, disease etc.
○ Maslow believed that the needs for safety and security typically are important
drive for infants and neurotic adults.
○ He interpreted some neuroses as attempts to ensure a feeling of safety.
○ Emotionally healthy adults have usually satisfied their safety needs a condition
that requires stability security and freedom from fear and anxiety.
○ Many of us choose the predictable over the unknown.

● Belongingness and love needs

○ He emphasized on the need to give love as well as to receive it .
○ He suggested that the failure to satisfy the need of love is a fundamental cause
of emotional maladjustment.
○ Maslow did not equate love with sex, which is a physiological need, but he
recognized that sex is one way of expressing the love need.
○ He described sexual dissatisfaction as an important “deficiency need”.
○ The need to belong has grown more difficult to satisfy in our increasingly mobile
society.
○ Children need love in order to grow psychologically and their attempts to satisfy
is straigthfoward and direct whereas for adults its sometimes cleverly
disguised.

● Esteem needs
○ To the extent that people satisfy their love and belongingness needs, they are
free to pursue esteem needs which includes self respect, confidence and the
knowledge that others hold them in higher esteem.
○ Esteem should be stable and firmly based.
 ○ Maslow identified two levels of esteem
○ Reputation - Perception of the prestige, recognition or fame a person has
achieved in the eyes of others.
○ Self esteem - it is a person’s own feeling of worth and confidence.
○ When we lack self esteem we feel inferior, helpless and discouraged with little
confidence in our ability to cope.

Being motivation
- Once the deficiency needs are more or less adequately met the person functions at a
higher level which Maslow called being motivation. This level is the pinnacle of
development.

● Self-actualisation
○ At this highest stage, the person is no longer motivated by deficiencies but rather
by the need to actualize or fulfill his or her potential.
○ Self actualization depends on the maximum realization and fulfillment of
one’s potential, talents and abilities.
○ Although a person may satisfy all other needs, if that person is not self
actualizing he or she will be frustrated and discontent.
○ Self actualizing people maintain their feeling of self esteem even when
dismissed and rejected by others.
○ Self actualization is “idiosyncratic” since every person is different.

- The following conditions are necessary in order for us to satisfy the self-actualisation
need
1. We must be free of constraints imposed by society and by ourselves.
2. We must not be distracted by the lower-order needs.
3. We must be secure in our self-image and in our relationships with other
people,we must be able to love and be loved in return.
4. We must have a realistic knowledge of our strengths and weaknesses, virtues
and vices

- Although the hierarchy of needs maslow proposed applies to most of us, there can be
exceptions
 - Some people dedicate their lives to an ideal and willingly sacrifice everything
for their cause.
- Religious figures may abandon worldly goods to fulfill a vow of poverty.
- Artists throughout history have imperiled health and security for the sake of
their work.
- A more common reversal in the hierarchy occurs when people place a greater
importance on esteem than on love, believing that the belongingness and love
needs can be satisfied only if they first feel self-confidence

● Aesthetic needs
○ Unlike conative needs, aesthetic needs are not universal, but at least some
people in every culture seem to be motivated by the need for beauty and
aesthetically pleasing experiences.
○ People with strong aesthetic needs desire beautiful and orderly surroundings,
and when these needs are not met, they become sick in the same way that they
become sick when their conative needs are frustrated.
○ People prefer beauty to ugliness, and they may even become physically and
spiritually ill when forced to live in squalid, disorderly environments.

● Cognitive needs
○ Most people have a desire to know, to solve mysteries, to understand, and to be
curious Maslow called these desires cognitive needs.
○ When cognitive needs are blocked, all needs on Maslow’s hierarchy are
threatened that is, knowledge is necessary to satisfy each of the five
conative needs.
○ Maslow believed that healthy people desire to know more, to theorize, to test
hypotheses, to uncover mysteries, or to find out how something works just for
the satisfaction of knowing.
○ However, people who have not satisfied their cognitive needs, become
pathological, a pathology that takes the form of skepticism, disillusionment,
and cynicism.

● Neurotic needs
○ Neurotic needs lead only to stagnation and pathology
 ○ Neurotic needs are nonproductive.
○ They perpetuate an unhealthy style of life and have no value in the striving
for self-actualization.
○ Neurotic needs are usually reactive that is, they serve as compensation for
unsatisfied basic needs.
○ For example, a person who does not satisfy safety needs may develop a strong
desire to hoard money or property. The hoarding drive is a neurotic need that
leads to pathology whether or not it is satisfied.

● Transcendence needs
○ A person is motivated by values that transcend beyond the personal self.
○ Beyond self-actualization, they represent the human desire to connect with a
higher reality, purpose, or the universe.
○ This level emphasizes altruism, spiritual connection, and helping others achieve
their potential.
○ Examples of transcendence needs include mystical experiences and certain
experiences with nature, aesthetic experiences, sexual experiences, service to
others, the pursuit of science, religious faith, etc.).

B-values
- Maslow held that self-actualizing people are motivated by the “eternal verities,” what he
called B-values.
- Maslow termed B-values “metaneeds” to indicate that they are the ultimate level of
needs.
- He distinguished between ordinary need motivation and the motives of self actualizing
people, which he called metamotivation.
- Metamotivation is characterized by expressive rather than coping behavior and is
associated with the B-values.
- Deprivation of any of the B-values results in metapathology, or the lack of a meaningful
philosophy of life

Difference b/w D-motivation and B- motivation

- Maslow described people at the level of self actualization as metamotivated.
 - At this level they are motivated by meta needs or B-value such as beauty , truth and
justice.
- They are not motivated by the traditional sense of the term that is seeking to reduce a
need to restore homeostasis.
- At this highest level there is less determinism and more psychological freedom.
- Perception is no longer focused, looking for objects to satisfy needs it can be more
passive and receptive.
- Maslow described B- love as nonpossessive and enjoyable, whereas D-love is often
contaminated by jealousy and anxiety.
- B-love allows the partner more independence and autonomy and it facilitates the growth
of each person.

Applications
- Psychotherapy - the aim of therapy would be for clients to embrace the Being values,
that is, to value truth, justice, goodness, simplicity, and so forth.
- Growth Centers - devoted to the development of human potential are using Maslow’s
ideas.
- Workplace - The workplace is a major area for the development of self actualization and
workers are more effective when they function at the level of the higher needs, while
avoiding dissatisfaction based on unmet lower needs.
- Consumerism - Maslow’s theory provided a framework for reaching potential
customers.
- Education - He believed that goal of education to be “self actualization of a person “.
Humanistic education should foster rather than sedate the natural curiosity

Theory on self-actualizers

● Self actualisation - full development of human potential, based on biological nature. It is

human nature for one to try and attain their highest potential
- Instead of “illness”, Maslow speaks of “human diminution” or “stunting” in psychology.
- This occurs when a person denies his/her inner potential and goes against one’s own
nature
- Maslow believed that it is necessary to study the “healthiest, most developed people” in
order to learn about human potential.
 - Healthy people are very different from average people not just in degree but in kind as
well.
- Study of “crippled, immature, stunted & unhealthy specimens” “crippled psychology”
- Study of SA people basis for universal science of psychology
- In a study conducted on 3000 college students, only ONE was found to be SA.
Conclusion: > 1% of all people are SA.
- But his decision on SA is obviously subjective.
- He used rorscharch tests
- Moreover, subjects became self-conscious, or froze up when they knew the
purpose of the research. So subject studied → indirectly
- Easier to understand concepts through prototypes than abstract concepts.
- But some traits like humility & equitableness were overlooked study on SA is tricky.
- Usually psychologists just label successful people as SA, but that is NOT always the
case.

Taoist science
- Maslow described his view as “Taoist science” or resacralized science, which contrasted
with “Controlling science” or descralized science.
- SHIFU values
1. Taoist science subjective & experiential.
2. It would honor & love the topics and the people being studied than being coolly
indifferent like in objective studies
3. It would be interpersonal, engaging in a meaningful interaction w/ participants.
Psychologists → healthy, accept ambiguity, uncertainty
4. Would not insist on false separation of subject & observer. Could be described as
“fusion knowledge”.
5. Would be explicitly concerned with values.
- Limitation
- Limited development of scientists as humans.
- When studying higher human potentials, scientists are likely to experience
resistance against truths → challenges them personally
- Resacralized: psychologists must not only study science, but must do so with
excitement, awe and enjoyment
- Desacralized: science that lacks emotion, joy, wonder, and amusement
Values of SA
- He gave 14 B values (ultimate levels of needs of self-actualizers, which contrast w/
needs of non-SA).
- People who haven’t satisfied 4 lower level needs in the hierarchy, lack B-values.
- These needs differentiate SA from people w/ stunted psychological growth.
1. They are free from psychopathology.
2. They have progressed through hierarchy of needs: safety & esteem not
threatened
3. Embrace B-values
4. Full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities, etc even after
they have fulfilled the need to grow and develop

Characteristics of self-actualisers
RASP PIA PHIKE HED CR
1. Efficient perception of reality
- Unusual ability to detect the fake and the dishonest, not just in personality, but
also in art, music, and literature.
- Judge people efficiently & likely to be misled by own defense mechanisms,
expectations of the world, stereotypes.
- This accuracy develops because they are less threatened by the unknown.
- They have a high tolerance for ambiguity, uncertainty and seek unchartered
paths confidently

2. Acceptance
- Accepting of themselves, of others, and of nature.
- Acceptance of animal level (eat well, sleep well, enjoy sex)
- Acceptance of self
- Lower fear of death
- Lesser discrepancies b/w real and ideal self
- Do not expect perfection from themselves
- Dont display defensiveness and self-defeating guilt
- Acceptance of others
- Feel no need to convert or instruct others
- Do not expect perfection from others
 - Are not threatened by others’ strengths

3. Spontaneity
- Behave spontaneously, simply and naturally.
- They do not hide behind a social mask
- Are unpretentious
- Not ashamed to express joy, awe, elation
- Not outwardly unconventional because the issue is unimportant or out of
deference for others. This comes from being in touch with their impulses

4. Problem-centered
- SA focus on problems outside themselves.
- They are problem-centred and not self-centred. So, the work they do is not just
any job, but a calling, an end in itself.
- They understand that problems come from a sense of social obligation and not
due to themselves.
- Even though they are problem-centred, they don’t waste time on trivial problems.

5. Need for privacy

- Like privacy and do not feel lonely.
- They are comfortable w/ or w/o people because need for belonging has already
been met.
- Endure sensory deprivation more easily than others.
- Global concern for welfare w/o getting involved in trivial problems.
- Better decision makers. They make their own minds rather than letting others
decide for them

6. Independence of culture and environment

- SA depend on others for need satisfaction.
- Self-contained
- Resilient
- motivated by internal needs, so respond to the external world , and feel
“psychological freedom”
- Unperturbed by criticism and unmoved by flattery.
7. Freshness of appreciation
- Retain their constant sense of awe & wonder at life, and have gratitude for their
good fortune.
- This sense of awe and wonder may come from aesthetic experiences, social
encounters or other sources
- They have appreciation for all their possessions.
- Do NOT waste time complaining about living a boring & uninteresting life.

8. Peak experiences
- Capacity for mystical experiences, feelings of limitless horizons opening up to the
vision, feeling of being powerful & humbled at the same time, and ecstatic.
- How - religious experiences, meditation, responses to nature (sunsets), sexual
encounters, psychoactive drugs
- Subject’s experiences
- Subject feels transformed & strengthened even in daily life by such
- experiences.
- Become more loving & accepting, and lose their anxiety.
- Often experience disorientation in time & space, loss of consciousness,
etc
- Nature of peakers
- Transitory but has long-lasting effects.
- Not about simply doing things well. Peak experiences and peak
performance are very different.
- Can occur in childhood, even among developmentally delayed.
- Peakers (transcending) - poetic, musical, religious
- Non-peakers (merely healthy) - practical work for reform, politics
- Not all SAs are peakers and not all peakers are SA; but it is most common in SA,
which opens door to transcendence of ego, which is life-transforming.

9. Humility and respect

- Humble - Feel they can learn from other people, even those of a different
race/class.
- Democratic rather than authoritarian
- Do not insist on maintaining status over others.
 - Unaware of superficial differences among people

10. Interpersonal relationship

- Capable of higher fusion, greater love
- Greater obliteration of ego boundaries than others.
- Discriminating (choosy) and seek out other SA to have deeper relationships >
superficial ones.
- Tend to attract admirers who are devoted to them, but SA encourage this
reverence and prefer mutual bonds > one-sided.

11. Human kinship

- Identify with human beings and feel a sense of oneness with human race.
- Caring & affectionate towards other humans.
- Are not prejudiced as they identify themselves with the entire human race and
not just with one group.

12. Ethics and values

- Strong ethical standards, but not always “cOnVeNtioNaL” right and wrongs
- Are not concerned with “trivial ethical issues” like playing cards, partying,
drinking, wearing short dresses, etc
- Follow conventions instead of wasting time
- Their values emerge from acceptance of human nature including unique
potentials.

13. Resistance to enculturation

- Do not adjust to society at expense of own character
- Maintain a certain inner detachment from culture in which they are immersed.
- Conventional when easier but are not easily influenced.
- For non-trivial issues they resist society’s attempts to enculturate seek social
change

14. Sense of humour

- Nonhostile sense of humor laugh → do not laugh at others’ expense
- Philosophical sense of humor → laugh at human condition & spontaneous
 - More serious > humorous in general.

15. Discrimination between means and goals

- Clearly focused on the ends or goals of efforts & subordinated means/ ways to
reach those goals.
- However, they also appreciate the pleasure of means.
- What others see as means to an end, is an end within itself for SA → Enjoy doing
something for its own sake rather than for some other end

16. Creativity
- Present in all SA w/o exception.
- Does not necessarily involve product of creativity (art, music, literature → special
talent creativness)
- Expression of these talents fosters ‘self-actualizing creativity’
- Self-actualizing creativity emerges naturally from other characteristics such as
spontaneity, resistance to enculturation, efficiency of perception
- Research → artistic activities foster openness & self-acceptance
- It is a capacity in all children but lost due to neurosis and secondary process that
replace earlier creativity

17. Resolution of dichotomies

- Do not see in either-or terms
- Research: gave dichotomies like active-passive, masculine-feminine, etc.
- Findings: Rather than seeing conflict between what suits them and what
suits others, the two operate together with “synergy”
- Fusion of self-interest and social interest can occur at a cultural level (resolution
of dichotomies) and can foster a better society (Eupsychia)

● Despite so many admirable qualities, they still have problems of their own
● Because of autonomy, they are capable of “extraordinary & unexpected ruthlessness”
● Eg: when terminating a friendship, recovering from death too quickly
Measurement and research

- Maslow preferred to observe people holistically, keeping with his concept of Taoist
science, than creating measuring instruments
- Maslow Art Test - test for holistic perception & intuition by testing ability to detect style of
artist
- Time Competence: degree to which subject lives in the present
- Inner Directed Support: degree to which subject provides his/her own support

● Personal Orientation Inventory (POI)

- 150 item MCQ inventory (shortened version -15 item)
- Provides 2 primary scores
- There are subscales also measuring self-actualizing values, existentiality, feeling
reactivity, spontaneity, synergy, self-acceptance, etc.
- Scale validated through criterion group studies
- SA on POI is correlated with spirituality.
- Greater SA among married people correlated w/ greater sexual enjoyment

Obstacles to self-actualisation

● Intrapsychic pull against self-actualisation

○ We often confront situations where we either need to choose: growth (leads to
SA) or safety (appealing)
■ Safety > growth - approval is better than danger
■ Growth > safety - delight is better than boredom
○ Parents need to avoid both - overprotectiveness and excessive approval
■ Overprotectiveness → orients child towards safety and overly inhibited
adults
■ Excessive approval → anxiety & insecurity → focuses child on others’
opinions > own experience
○ Authoritative parenting child finds growth delightful and safety choice boring

● Satisfaction of lower needs

 ○ Higher order needs emerge only if favourable conditions allow satisfaction of
earlier needs.
○ Higher order needs are weaker than lower order needs. (The higher the need,
the less potent it is)
○ Eg: If parents are hostile/overprotective/permissive need for belonging

● Jonah complex
○ Fear of being one’s best/doubts about one’s own abilities
○ Why?
■ Human body strong enough to endure ecstacy of fulfillment for any length
of time (like sexual orgasms & peak experiences taxing for too long)
■ Intense emotion of fulfillment carries with it the shattering sensation of
“this is too much”
○ Convinced that it is impossible to do anything very important and so avoid
developing to their full potential.
○ Their fears about the dangers which may arise from moving towards SA, take
precedence over possible growth
○ Maslow himself had Jonah complex (IQ 195 Average college student)
○ The self-actualizing process takes courage, effort, discipline, and self-control. It
may seem easier and safer to accept life as it is rather than seek new challenges.
○ But only constantly testing by abandoning secure routines and familiar behaviors
and attitudes can bring us close to SA.

● Self-determination theory
○ Maslow → fundamental motivation within all individuals that is healthy
○ 3 important psychological needs
■ Competence - the need to feel that one can master difficult tasks
■ Autonomy - the freedom to base one’s course of action on one’s own
interests, needs, and values
■ Relatedness - the need to feel a close connection with other people
○ If all three needs are satisfied, the individual thrives and has higher persistent
work, performance, creativeness, self-esteem, and mental health
○ If not satisfied → lowered motivation, mental health, and well-being
 ○ Edward Deci gave a more refined theoretical model on this which inspired
empirical work
○ Intrinsic Motivation → “doing an activity for the inherent satisfaction of doing the
activity itself”
○ Maslow’s SA and Deci’s intrinsic motivation are both concerned with realizing
one’s talents and abilities for the goal of inner satisfaction > some external
reward.
○ Rewards can either increase intrinsic motivation or override a person’s inner
motives

Positive psychology
- Similarities between Positive psych & SA: emphasis on immediate experiences as an
aspect of healthy functioning.
- +ve psych incorporates humanistic themes of proactive personality, seeking growth.
- Health does not come from avoiding causes of illness; it must be fostered & nourished
- Happiness is not the absence of unhappiness → +ve and -ve emotions diff brain
pathways

Components of mental health

● Marie Jahoda
1. Self-acceptance
2. Personal growth
3. Autonomy
4. Environmental mastery
5. Personality integration
6. Accurate perception of reality
● Richard Coan
1. Efficiency
2. Relatedness
3. Inner harmony
4. Creativity
5. Self-transcendence
● Carolyn Ryff (combined both of the above components)
1. Personal growth
 2. Autonomy
3. Self-acceptance
4. Environmental mastery
5. +ve personal relationship
6. Sense of meaning & purpose in life

ROGERS
Contribution of carl rogers - SDL

Overview
- Carl Rogers originated a popular approach to psychotherapy known initially as
nondirective or client-centred therapy and later as person-centred therapy
- Rogers developed his theory not from experimental laboratory research but from his
experiences working with clients. Thus, his formulations on the structure and dynamics
of personality derive from his therapeutic approach.
- This ultimate goal is to actualize the self, to become what Rogers called a fully
functioning person.

The Self and the Tendency toward Actualization

- His early research reinforced the importance of the self in the formation of the
personality. In the 1930s, he developed a method for determining whether a child’s
behaviour was healthy and constructive or unhealthy and destructive.
- He investigated the child’s background and had the child rated on factors he believed
would influence behaviour. He studied several internal and external factors that could’ve
influenced delinquent behaviour.
- Research revealed that self-insight was the most accurate source in predicting a child’s
behaviour
- Rogers believed people are motivated by an innate tendency to actualize, maintain, and
enhance the self.
- This drive toward self-actualization is part of a larger actualization tendency, which
encompasses all physiological and psychological needs.
 - By attending to basic requirements—such as the needs for food, water, and safety—the
actualization tendency serves to maintain the organism, providing for sustenance and
survival.
- Even though such changes are genetically determined, progress toward full human
development is neither automatic nor effortless. To Rogers, the process involved
struggle and pain. It is one’s drive to self-actualise that keeps them going through the
pain
- Organismic valuing process: The process by which we judge experiences in terms of
their value for fostering or hindering our actualization and growth.
- Experiences that we perceive as promoting actualization are evaluated as good
and desirable; we assign them a positive value.
- Experiences perceived as hindering actualization are undesirable and, thus, earn
a negative value.
- These perceptions influence behaviour because we prefer to avoid undesirable
experiences and repeat desirable experiences.

The Experiential World

- On a daily basis, we are exposed to countless sources of stimulation, some trivial and
some important, some threatening and others rewarding. Rogers wanted to know how
we perceive and react to this multifaceted world of experience.
- Rogers said that what matters is not reality itself, but our perception of it.
- As the actualization tendency in infancy leads us to grow and develop, our experiential
world broadens.
- Infants are exposed to more and more sources of stimulation and respond to them as
they are subjectively perceived.
- Higher levels of development sharpen our experiential world and ultimately lead to the
formation of the self.

The Development of the Self in Childhood

- As infants gradually develop a more complex experiential field from widening social
encounters, one part of their experience becomes differentiated from the rest.
- This separate part, defined by the words I, me, and myself, is the self or self-concept.
 - The self-concept is also our image of what we are, what we should be, and what we
would like to be.
- Ideally, the self is a consistent pattern, an organized whole. All aspects of the self strive
for consistency.

Positive regard

- As the self emerges, infants develop a need for what Rogers called positive regard.
- Positive regard: Acceptance, love, and approval from others. This is a need that
emerges in infancy.
- If the infant’s need for positive regard is thwarted, so will the development of the self; the
infant will strive for positive regard in ways inconsistent with the self.

- Even though infants may receive sufficient acceptance, love, and approval, some
specific behaviours may bring punishment. However, if positive regard for the infant
persists despite the infant’s undesirable behaviours, the condition is called unconditional
positive regard.
- Unconditional positive regard is the basic approval of a person regardless of his/her
behaviour. E.g. even though a parent may punish some of a child’s behaviours, the child
still feels accepted as a whole by the parent.

- It feels satisfying to satisfy someone else’s need for positive regard. By interpreting the
feedback we receive from them (either approval or disapproval), we refine our
self-concept.
- In time, positive regard will come more from within us than from other people, a condition
Rogers called positive self-regard.
- Positive self-regard becomes as strong as our need for positive regard from others, and
it may be satisfied in the same way.

- Conditions of Worth: To Rogers, it is a belief that we are worthy of approval only when
we express desirable behaviours and attitudes and refrain from expressing those that
bring disapproval from others; similar to the Freudian superego.
- Conditional positive regard: Approval, love, or acceptance is granted only when a
person expresses desirable behaviours and attitudes.
 - Parents may not react to everything their infant does with positive regard. Some
behaviours annoy, frighten, or bore them and for those behaviours, they may not provide
affection or approval. Thus, infants learn that parental affection has a price; it depends
on behaving in certain acceptable ways. They come to understand that sometimes they
are prized, and sometimes they are not.
- Children believe they are worthy only under certain conditions, the ones that brought
parental positive regard and then personal positive self-regard.
- Having internalized their parents’ norms and standards, they view themselves as worthy
or unworthy, good or bad, according to the terms their parents defined.
- Children thus learn to avoid behaviours that otherwise might be personally satisfying.
Therefore, they no longer function freely.

- Incongruence: A discrepancy between a person’s self-concept and aspects of his or her

experience.
- We come to evaluate experiences and accept or reject them, not in terms of how they
contribute to the overall actualization tendency, but in terms of whether they bring
positive regard from others
- Experiences that are incongruent or incompatible with our self-concept become
threatening and are manifested as anxiety

- Psychologically healthy people are able to perceive themselves, other people, and
events in their world much as they really are.
- Psychologically healthy people are open to new experiences because nothing threatens
their self-concept. They have no need to deny or distort their perceptions because as
children they received unconditional positive regard and did not have to internalize any
conditions of worth.
- They feel worthy under all conditions and situations and are able to use all their
experiences

Reflections on Rogers’ ToP

- Criticisms of Rogers’ exclusive focus on conscious, reported experiences
- As a therapeutic approach, person-centred therapy gained popularity, post-WW2. The
need for therapy was large, especially an easy-to-learn technique
- Widely used today across multiple applications including training managers
 - His personality theory, although less influential than his psychotherapy, has also
received wide recognition, particularly for its emphasis on the self-concept.
- His theory and therapy have stimulated research on the nature of psychotherapy, the
client-therapist interaction, and the self-concept. His ideas have had a significant impact
on psychology’s theoretical and empirical definitions of the self.

Barriers to psychological health & rogerian perspective

● Clinical nature of the diagnosis i.e cases of schizophrenia where cognition is impaired
● Low self-esteem and self-worth → motivation might be low (as required in rogerian
therapy)
● Lack of social support → isolation
● Caregiver burden i.e no unconditional positive regard; added emotional strains on the
family of the client. Need for psychoeducation
● Suicidal ideation (real self will never align with ideal self → loss of self-worth)
● More discrepancy between real and ideal self → more vulnerability
● Conditions of worth
● External evaluations

Vulnerability
● The greater the incongruence between perceived self (self- concept) and organismic
experience, the more vulnerable the patient is.
● Unaware of the discrepancy between their organismic self and their significant
experience resulting in behaviours that are incomprehensible not only to others but also
to themselves.

Defensiveness
● To prevent this inconsistency between our organismic experience and our perceived self,
we react in a defensive manner.
● Defensiveness is the protection of the self-concept against anxiety and threat by denying
or distorting experiences inconsistent with it (Rogers, 1959).
● Two chief defences are:
○ Distortion: misinterpret an experience in order to fit it into some aspect of our
self-concept.
 ○ Denial: refuse to perceive an experience in awareness, or at least we keep some
aspect of it from reaching symbolization.
● To ignore or block out experiences that otherwise would cause unpleasant anxiety or
threat

Incongruence
● A discrepancy between a person’s self-concept and aspects of his or her experience
leads to discrepant and seemingly inconsistent behaviours.
● This capacity is coupled with the ability to modify one’s self-concept so that it becomes,
in fact, in line with reality.
● Rogers concluded that individuals have the capacity to experience and become aware of
their own maladjustments.

Conditions of worth
● Instead of receiving unconditional positive regard, most people receive conditions of
worth; they perceive that their parents, peers, or partners love and accept them only if
they meet those people’s expectations and approval.
● External evaluations
○ Our perceptions of other people’s view of us.
○ These evaluations, whether positive or negative, do not foster psychological
health but, instead, prevent us from being completely open to our own
experiences.

- Therapeutic efforts would therefore involve reducing the gap between the real and ideal
self and a possible redefinition of the “ideal self” to achieve the same.

Conditions
- Rogers suggested that in order for therapeutic growth to take place, the following
conditions are necessary and sufficient:
1. An anxious or vulnerable client must come into contact with a congruent therapist
who also possesses empathy and unconditional positive regard for that client.
2. The client must perceive these characteristics in the therapist.
3. The contact between client and therapist must be of some duration
 - Even though all three conditions are necessary for psychological growth, Rogers
believed that congruence is more basic than either unconditional positive regard or
empathic listening
- Congruence is a general quality possessed by the therapist, whereas the other two
conditions are specific feelings or attitudes that the therapist has for an individual client

Addressing barriers from a rogerian perspective

- Creating a therapeutic environment that promotes unconditional positive regard,
empathy, and congruence.

● Congruence
○ Congruence exists when a person’s organismic experiences are matched by an
awareness of them and by an ability and willingness to openly express these
feelings.
○ The therapist should maintain genuineness and congruence in the therapeutic
relationship. By being authentic and transparent, the therapist can create an
atmosphere of trust and honesty.
○ A congruent counselor, then, is not simply a kind and friendly person but rather a
complete human being with feelings of joy, anger, frustration, confusion, and so
on. When these feelings are experienced, they are neither denied nor distorted
but flow easily into awareness and are freely expressed.
○ Congruent therapists are not static. Like most other people, they are constantly
exposed to new organismic experiences, but unlike most people, they accept
these experiences into awareness, which contributes to their psychological
growth.
○ They are able to match feelings with awareness and both with honest expression.
Because congruence involves (1) feelings, (2) awareness, and (3) expression.
○ Incongruence can arise from either of the two sources dividing these three
experiences
■ There can be a breakdown between feelings and awareness.
● Example: A person may be feeling angry, and the anger may be
obvious to others; but the angry person is unaware of the feeling.
“I’m not angry. How dare you say I’m angry!”
 ■ Discrepancy between awareness of an experience and the ability or
willingness to express it to another.
● Example: “I know I’m feeling bored by what is being said, but I
don’t dare verbalize my disinterest because my client will think that
I am not a good therapist.
○ Rogers stated that therapists will be more effective if they communicate genuine
feelings, even when those feelings are negative or threatening. To do otherwise
would be dishonest, and clients will detect—though not necessarily
consciously—any significant indicators of incongruence

● Unconditional positive regard

○ Conditional positive regard - approval, love, or acceptance granted only when a
person expresses desirable behaviors and attitudes.
○ Unconditional positive regard also means that therapists do not evaluate
clients, nor do they accept one action and reject another.
○ External evaluation, whether positive or negative, leads to clients’
defensiveness and prevents psychological growth.
○ A therapist with unconditional positive regard toward a client will show a
non-possessive warmth and acceptance, not an effusive, effervescent persona.
○ To have non-possessive warmth means to care about another without suffocating
or owning that person.
○ “Regard” - means that there is a close relationship and that the therapist sees
the client as an important person;
○ “positive” - indicates that the direction of the relationship is toward warm and
caring feelings;
○ “unconditional” - suggests that the positive regard is no longer dependent on
specific client behaviors and does not have to be continually earned.

● Empathy listening
○ Empathy exists when therapists accurately sense the feelings of their clients and
are able to communicate these perceptions so that clients know that another
person has entered their world of feelings without prejudice, projection, or
evaluation.
 ○ Client-centered therapists do not take empathy for granted; they check the
accuracy of their sensings by trying them out on the client.
○ “You seem to be telling me that you feel a great deal of resentment toward your
father.”
○ Valid empathic understanding is often followed by an exclamation from the client
along these lines: “Yes, that’s it exactly! I really do feel resentful”
○ Empathic listening is a powerful tool, which along with genuineness and caring,
facilitates personal growth within the client.
○ Empathy should not be confused with sympathy.
■ Sympathy - feeling for a client,
■ Empathy - feeling with a client.
○ Sympathy is never therapeutic, because it stems from external evaluation and
usually leads to clients’ feeling sorry for themselves.
○ A therapist has an emotional as well as a cognitive reaction to a client’s feelings,
but the feelings belong to the client, not the therapist.
○ A therapist does not take ownership of a client’s experiences but is able to
convey to the client an understanding of what it means to be the client at that
particular moment.
● Self-actualisation
● Redefined ideal self
● Psychological support

Stages of therapeutic change

● Stage 1
- An unwillingness to communicate anything about oneself.
- People at this stage ordinarily do not seek help, but if for some reason they come
to therapy.
- Extremely rigid and resistant to change.
- Do not recognize any problems and refuse to own any personal feelings or
emotions.

● Stage 2
- Clients become slightly less rigid.
 - Discuss external events and other people but they still disown or fail to recognize
their own feelings.
- They may talk about personal feelings as if such feelings were objective
phenomena.

● Stage 3
- Clients more freely talk about self, although still as an object.
- “I’m doing the best I can at work, but my boss still doesn’t like me”
- Talk about feelings and emotions in the past or future tense and avoid present
feelings.
- Refuse to accept their emotions, keep personal feelings at a distance from the
here-and-now situation,
- Only vaguely perceive that they can make personal choices
- Deny individual responsibility for most of their decisions.

● Stage 4
- Begin to talk of deep feelings but not ones presently felt.
- “I was really burned up when my teacher accused me of cheating.”
- When clients do express present feelings, they are usually surprised by this
expression.
- Deny or distort those experiences,
- May have some dim recognition that they are capable of feeling emotions in the
present.
- Begin to question some values that have been introjected from others, and they
start to see the incongruence between the ideal self and the real self.
- Accept more freedom and responsibility than they did in Stage 3
- Begin to tentatively allow themselves to become involved in a relationship with
the therapist.

● Stage 5
- Begun to undergo significant change and growth.
- Can express feelings in the present
- Although they have not yet accurately symbolized those feelings.
 - Beginning to rely on an internal locus of evaluation for their feelings and to make
fresh and new discoveries about themselves.
- Experience a greater differentiation of feelings and develop more
- Appreciation for differences among them.
- Begin to make their own decisions and to accept responsibility for their choices.

● Stage 6
- Experience dramatic growth and an irreversible movement toward becoming fully
functioning or self-actualizing.
- Freely allow into awareness those experiences that they had previously denied or
distorted.
- Become more congruent
- Able to match their present experiences with awareness and with open
expression.
- No longer evaluate their own behavior from an external viewpoint
- Begin to develop unconditional self-regard, which means that they have a feeling
of genuine caring and affection for the person they are becoming.
- Also experience physiological loosening. They experience their whole organismic
self, as their muscles relax, tears flow, circulation improves, and physical
symptoms disappear.
- In many ways, Stage 6 signals an end to therapy. Indeed, if therapy were to be
terminated at this point, clients would still progress to the next level.
● Stage 7
- Can occur outside the therapeutic encounter, because growth at Stage 6 seems
to be irreversible.
- Become fully functioning person.
- Able to generalize their in-therapy experiences to their world beyond therapy.
- Possess the confidence to be themselves at all times, to own and to feel deeply
the totality of their experiences, and to live those experiences in the present.
- Their organismic self, now unified with the self-concept, becomes the locus for
evaluating their experiences.
- Receive pleasure in knowing that these evaluations are fluid and that change and
growth will continue.
 - They become congruent, possess unconditional positive self-regard, and are able
to be loving and empathic toward others

Humanistic perspective of personality development (seminar - abira)

Maslow
- Individual differences - individuals differ in their position in the need heirarchy
- adaptation/adjustment - reaching highest stage of self-actualisation
- Cognitive processes - self-actualised people perceive the world accurately
- Society - a better society can be imagined
- Biological influences - foundation of personality
- Child and adult development - child’s needs should be met, few adults develop to their
full potential

Rogers
- Individual differences - individuals differ in their level of development
- adaptation/adjustment - individual and group therapy
- Cognitive processes - thought and feeling may be impeded by acceptance
- Society - implications for improvement of society
 - Biological influences - his actualising process is based on biological metaphor
- Child and adult development - parents should raise children with unconditional positive
regard. People change in adulthood becoming freer

● Development of self
○ Positive regard
○ Conditions of worth
○ Incongruence

Characteristics of Fully Functioning Persons

- Fully functioning person: Rogers’s term for self-actualization, for developing all facets of
the self.
- A person who pays attention to the organismic valuing process is self-actualising or fully
functioning.​
- Such a person does not lose the use of some human functions through adverse
socialisation messages.​
- A potentially creative person may lose touch with that capacity.

1. Fully functioning persons are aware of all experiences without denial or distortion.
No defensiveness or anxiety; open to negative & positive experiences.
- No experience is distorted or denied; all of it filters through to the self. ​
- There is no defensiveness because there is nothing to defend against,
nothing to threaten the self-concept. ​
- Fully functioning persons are open to positive feelings such as courage
and tenderness, and to negative feelings such as fear and pain.​
- They are more emotional in the sense that they accept a wider range of
positive and negative emotions and feel them more intensely.​

2. Fully functioning persons live fully and richly in every moment. Participates in life
rather than merely observing.
- All experiences are potentially fresh and new.​
- Experiences cannot be predicted or anticipated but are participated in
fully rather than merely observed.​
- They experience a constant state of fluidity and change.​
 - Rogers (1961) referred to this tendency to live in the moment as
existential living.​
- They would discover what an experience means to them by living that
experience. ​

3. Fully functioning persons trust in their own organism

- They allow themselves to have their own intellectual, emotional, &
physiological responses, rather than being dependent on others’ opinions.
- Behaving in a way that feels right is a good guide to behaving in a way
that is satisfying. ​
- All data are accepted as congruent with the fully functioning person’s
self-concept and considers experiential data.​

- Because of the congruence between their self-concept and experience,

so their decisions appear to be more intuitive and emotional than
intellectual.

4. Fully functioning persons feel free to make choices without constraints or

inhibitions. Are flexible and courageous
- This brings a sense of power because they know their future depends on
their own actions and not by present circumstances, past events, or other
people. ​
- They would seek meaning beyond themselves and would yearn for the
spiritual life and inner peace.​
- They would seek intimacy with another person who is probably equally
healthy and such a relationship itself would contribute to the continual
growth of each partner.​

5. Fully functioning persons are creative and live constructively and adaptively as
environmental conditions change. Seek new experiences; respond to new
challenges.
- Allied with creativity is spontaneity. Fully functioning persons are flexible
and seek new experiences and challenges. They do not require
predictability, security, or freedom from tension.​
 - “Persons of tomorrow”- they are more likely to survive from an
evolutionary perspective.​
- They would not merely adjust to a static environment. ​

6. Fully functioning persons may face difficulties. May not always be happy or
content; are always seeking new challenges. Actualising, not actualised.
- The condition involves continually testing, growing, striving, and using all
of one’s potential, a way of life that brings complexity and challenge. ​
- Rogers did not describe fully functioning persons as happy, blissful, or
contented, although at times they may be. ​
- More appropriately their personality may be described as enriching,
exciting, and meaningful.​

Research evidences
● Ancient greek and early humanistic psychologists
○ Despite some recent support for Rogers’ initial conceptualization (Proctor et al.
2016), typical developments in the study of fully functioning persons have
operationalized the concept in ways more suitable for empirical investigations.​
● ​Ryff’s model of psychological well-Being
○ Ryff’s (1989) model of psychological well-being includes a self-report scale to
measure the concepts important to lead a good life. Ryff’s student Corey Keyes
continued within these frames in his work on mental health and flourishing and
designed a self-report scale on “social well-being” (Keyes 2002). To be fully
functioning, i.e., flourishing, individuals must experience emotional,
psychological, and social well-being.
● SDT
○ Some psychological needs must be satisfied in order for humans to function
optimally (Ryan et al. 2013). Fulfilling the needs for competence, relatedness and
autonomy are prerequisites for a fully functioning person. These needs enable us
to master our environment, connecting and belonging, and act intrinsically
consistent with our interests and values, which again are considered to be the
hallmark of a happy life.
● VIA classification
 ○ The idea of acting congruent with deeply held values is at the core of the
classification system of strengths and virtues developed by Peterson and
Seligman (2004). These virtues and strengths are universally valued as important
contributions to living fulfilled and good lives. Fulfillment in this sense does not
refer to momentary pleasure or happiness per se but reflects effort and pursuit
over time,
● Concept of wisdom
○ The study of wisdom offers another virtue-based understanding of the concept of
a fully functioning person. In the influential work of Ursula Staudinger (Law and
Staudinger 2016), wisdom is considered to be the end point of human
development, the most significant indicator of optimal functioning. The theory
makes a distinction between two kinds of functioning, referred to as adjustment
and growth.

Criticisms of Humanistic theories

Maslow’s theory

Basic themes
- Optimism and growth: have free-will in how we satisfy our needs and actualise our
potential’ personal responsibility, favour the uniqueness of personality
- Heredity and environment - personality is determined by the interaction of the two; needs
are innate while behaviours are learned
- Problem-centered - supplemented traditional scientific methods of enquiry with
experiential knowledge

Strengths of Maslow’s theory

- Research generation - tests of self-actualisation
- Guiding practice - highly useful; guiding managers
- Knowledge organisation - well organised and consistent with common sense
- Internal-consistency - maslow’s theory ranks high on the criterion of internal consistency,
low in some cases
- Healthy population - emphasis on study of healthy population in contrast to basing his
theory solely on clinical data
 - Nature and nurture - acknowledged the influence of both, needs in Maslow’s hierarchies
are innate but behaviours by which we satisfy them are learned

Weaknesses
- Falsifiability - low; elaborated little on the research guidelines he followed
- Parismony - rated moderate; superficially simplistic
- Optimistic - overly optimistic view of human nature
- Empirical basis of research - subjective definitions, limited sample size, exclusion of
important variables, lack of scientific rigour, indirect methods
- Vague concepts - constructs were inconsistent and ambiguous, innateness of
self-actualisation
- Metaneeds
- Metapathology
- Peak experiences
- Cross-cultural applicability

Carl rogers

Basic themes
- Phenomenological approach - understanding personality based on our subjective
experiences, focus on the present and consciousness
- Ability to change - ability to change and improve personality is centered within the
person
- Solution-oriented - focused on the betterment of his clients; reduced importance to
theory building

Strengths
- Falsification - rated high, precise language, if-then format
- Broad application - highly useful, emotional disturbances, enhancing self-image;
accepted by other schools
- Knowledge organisation - rated high
- Internal consistency - rated high
- Guiding practice - rated very high
Weaknesses
- Inadequate explanation of self-actualisation
- Physiological and psychological components, individual differences
- Self-reports
- Ignored influencing factors that the client may be unaware of; distortion and
maintaining idealised self-image
- Research generation
- Rated moderate; limited research generated
- Parsimony
- Overall theory well-explianed but some concepts are too broad and imprecise
- Becoming
- Positive self-regard
- Unconditional self-regard
- Fully functioning

ROLLO MAY (feist 347)

Overview of existential psychology

- Rooted in european philosophy
- Post WW2 - existential - europe to US
- US -Rollo may - Spokesperson for existential psychology
- Based in clinical experience
- People live in present and are responsible for experiences
- People lack courage to face destiny and flee from freedom
- Healthy people challenge destiny and live authentically

Biography (349 - feist)

- Born in Ada Ohio in 1909
- College - BA
- Lived as itinerant artist in europe after college where he heard adler speak
- Returned you USA- 1933
- Graduate from union theological seminary with masters in divinity
- Served as pastor for 2 years, then quit, began to study psychoanalysis]
 - PhD in clinical psych
- Served as a visiting professor at inst including harvard and princeton
- Died in tiburon california 1994

Existentialism
● Soren Kierkegaard - father of existentialism
○ Emphasized balance b/w freedom and responsibility
○ Concerned with the struggle to work through life’s experiences and to grow
toward becoming more fully human
○ People acquire freedom of action through expanding their self awareness and
then by assuming responsibility for their actions.
○ The acquisition of freedom and responsibility, however, is achieved only at the
expense of anxiety.
○ As people realize that, ultimately, they are in charge of their own destiny, they
experience the burden of freedom and the pain of responsibility.

Common elements found in existential thinkers

1. Existence (emerge/ process/ growth/change) takes precedence over essence (static
substance/product/stagnation).
2. Existentialism opposes the split between subject and object
3. People search for some meaning to their lives.
4. Existentialists hold that ultimately each of us is responsible for who we are and what we
become.
5. Existentialists are basically antitheoretical.

Basic concepts

Being-in-the-world
- German word - Daesin - to exist in the world
- Many people suffer from anxiety and despair brought on by their alienation from
themselves or from their world.
- They either have no clear image of themselves or they feel isolated from a world that
seems distant and foreign. They have no sense of Dasein, no unity of self and world.
- This feeling of isolation and alienation of self from the world is suffered not only by
pathologically disturbed individuals but also by most individuals in modern societies.

● Manifestation of alienation
- It manifests itself in three areas:
1. Separation from nature
2. Lack of meaningful interpersonal relations
3. Alienation from one’s authentic self.
- People experience three simultaneous modes in their being-in-the-world
● Umwelt (environment around us)
○ World of nature and natural law and includes biological drives,
such as hunger and sleep, and such natural phenomena as birth
and death.
○ We cannot escape Umwelt; we must learn to live in the world
around us and to adjust to changes within this world.
● Mitwelt, (our relations with other people)
○ We must relate to people as people, not as things.
○ The difference between Umwelt and Mitwelt can be seen by
contrasting sex with love.
■ Sexual gratification vs Love demands that one make a
commitment to the other person. Love means respect for
the other person’s being-in-the-world, an unconditional
acceptance of that person.
○ Not every Mitwelt relationship, however, necessitates love. The
essential criterion is that the Dasein of the other person is
respected.
● Eigenwelt, (our relationship with our self)
○ Means to be aware of oneself as a human being and to grasp who
we are as we relate to the world of things and to the world of
people
 - Healthy people live in Umwelt, Mitwelt, and Eigenwelt simultaneously. They adapt to the
natural world, relate to others as humans, and have a keen awareness of what all these
experiences mean to them

Non-being
- Nothingness
- Dread of not being
- Death is not the only avenue for nonbeing, but it is the most obvious one
- The fear of death or nonbeing often provokes us to live defensively and to receive less
from life than if we would confront the issue of our nonexistence.
- Dread of nonbeing can take form of
- Isolation
- Alienation
- Hostility to others
- Conformity to society’s expectations

Case of philip (356 feist)

Anxiety

- Philip was suffering from neurotic anxiety. Like others who experience neurotic anxiety,
he behaved in a nonproductive, self-defeating manner
- People experience anxiety when they become aware that their existence or some value
identified with it might be destroyed
 - Human behaviour is motivated by sense of dread and anxiety
- Normal anxiety
- that “which is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and can be
confronted constructively on the conscious level”
- Neurotic anxiety
- as “a reaction which is disproportionate to the threat, involves repression and
other forms of intrapsychic conflict, and is managed by various kinds of
blocking-off of activity and awareness”

Guilt

- Anxiety arises when people are faced with the problem of fulfilling their potentialities.
- Guilt arises when
- people deny their potentialities
- fail to accurately perceive the needs of fellow humans
- remain oblivious to their dependence on the natural world
- Three forms of guilt
- Umwelt - guilt that can arise from a lack of awareness of one’s being-in-the-world
(separation guilt).
- Mitwelt - inability to perceive accurately the world of others
- Eigenwelt - guilt is associated with our denial of our own potentialities or with our
failure to fulfill them.

Intentionality

- Structure that gives meaning to experience and allows people to make decisions about
the future
- Bridges the gap b/w subject and object
- Can be unconscious

Care, love, will

Care
- To care for someone means to recognize that person as a fellow human being, to identify
with that person’s pain or joy, guilt or pity.
- Care is an active process, the opposite of apathy.
 - Care is a state in which something does matter
- Source of love and will
Love
- To have an active regard for that person’s development.
- Delight in the presence of the other person and
- An affirming of [that person’s] value and development as much as one’s own
Will
- The capacity to organize one’s self so that movement in a certain direction or toward a
certain goal may take place

Union of love and will

- Modern society suffers from an unhealthy division of love and will. Love has become
associated with sensual love or sex, whereas will has come to mean a dogged
determination or will power.

● Sex
○ Biological function that can be satisfied through sexual intercourse or some other
release of sexual tension
○ Source at once of the human being’s most intense pleasure and his [or her] most
pervasive anxiety”.
● Eros
○ Psychological desire that seeks procreation or creation through an enduring
union with a loved one.
○ Eros is making love; sex is manipulating organs.
○ Wish to establish a lasting union;
○ Built on care and tenderness.
○ Can be regarded as the salvation of sex.
● Philia
○ Intimate nonsexual friendship between two people.
○ Cannot be rushed; it takes time to grow, to develop, to sink its roots
○ Friendship
● Agape
○ Esteem for the other, the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain that
one can get out of it; disinterested love
 ○ Altruistic love
○ Spiritual love

Freedom and destiny

● Freedom is the individual’s capacity to know that he is the determined one”

● Forms
○ Existential freedom - freedom of action—the freedom of doing (freedom to pursue
tangible goals)
○ Essential freedom - freedom of being (freedom to think, plan and hope)
● Destiny
○ the design of the universe speaking through the design of each one of us
○ As we challenge destiny we gain freedom, and as we achieve freedom, we push
at the boundaries of destiny
○ Within the boundaries of our destiny, we have the power to choose, and this
power allows us to confront and challenge our destiny.
○ It does not, however, permit any change we wish. We cannot be successful at
any job, conquer any illness, enjoy a fulfilling relationship with any person.
○ We cannot erase our destiny, “but we can choose how we shall respond, how we
shall live out our talent which confront us”
- Freedom and destiny are thus inexorably intertwined; one cannot exist without the other.

Personality development in 4 stages (read)

Related research
- Sparked almost no direct empirical research
- May - critical of objective and quant measurements; argued that modern science is too
rationalistic, too objective, new science should grasp total and living person
- An existential approach to the study of terror and death has carried over into “terror
management,” a modern experimental offshoot of existential psychology.
- Many of these thinkers see human creativity, culture, and meaning as unconscious
defenses against mortality
Psychopathology
- Symptomatology is a by-product of patients attempt to escape their own freedom
- People have become alienated from the world (Umwelt), from others (Mitwelt), and
especially from themselves (Eigenwelt).
- Symptoms can be temporary or permanent
- Psychopathology is a lack of communication
- Inability to know others and share oneself with them

Psychotherapy
- Goal - make people more fully human (eg: expand their consciousness)
- Purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.
- Existential psychotherapy deemphasied techniques while stressing personal qualities of
therapist
- Must establish one-to-one relationship

Critical analysis
- Strengths
- Recognized that human characteristics as uniqueness, personal freedom,
destiny, phenomenological experiences, and especially our capacity to relate to
ourselves as both object and subject should be studied by new scientific
psychology
- Weaknesses
- Existentialism criticised to be anti-intellectual and antitheoretical
- No scientific evidence generated
- Low on falsification
- Average on organising knowledge - his use of certain concepts was at times
inconsistent and confusing. Moreover, he decided to neglect several important
topics in human personality: for example, development, cognition, learning, and
motivation.
- Guiding action - low i.e philosopher more than therapist
- Low internal consistency - variety of definitions for such concepts as anxiety,
guilt, intentionality, will, and destiny. Unfortunately, he never presented
operational definitions of these terms.
Contributions to clinical practice (SGD)
● Maslow’s theory
● Rogers’ theory - Applications; give studies and examples,
○ Education setting
■ Rogers’ ideas have influenced student-centered learning, fostering a
more supportive and individualized approach to teaching.
○ Clinical setting - therapy techniques
■ Concept of client-centered therapy (also known as Rogerian therapy)
● According to Rogers, the client is the one who should lead the
sessions and dictate the course, speed, and duration of the
treatment.
● Initially, this was called non-directive therapy
● Involves congruence, unconditional positive regard and empathy
■ Humanistic psychology movement
● Humanists like Rogers argue that these earlier concepts focused
too much on the scientific study and actions of people as
organisms rather than considering them as individuals with unique
thoughts and feelings.
● Carl Rogers emphasized the principle of unconditional positive
regard from therapist to patient.
● Theory of self-actualization
○ Org setting
■ His humanistic principles have also been applied in leadership
development, promoting empathetic and empowering leadership styles.
■ Moreover, Rogers’ emphasis on authentic communication and
understanding has influenced interpersonal relationships, promoting
empathy, respect, and mutual growth.
 COGNITIVE THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

Personal construct theory (Kelly)

- People propel themselves
- Like Maslow, Kelly was opposed to the behavioral and the psychoanalytic
approaches to the study of personality. He viewed them both as denying the
human ability to take charge of our lives, to make our own decisions, and to
pursue our chosen course of action
- Behaviorism viewed people as merely passive responders to events in their
environment, and that psychoanalysis viewed people as passive responders to
their unconscious forces.
- Self-construct theories → predict and control life events
- Understand personality through personal constructs
- Humans construct own knowledge and understanding of the world through active
cognitive construction and meaning making
- What are the general processes by which people make sense of and navigate their
social world
- “We are the stories we tell ourselves”
- Formulate hypothesis and test them against reality
- Humans have agency to devise and revise templates, construct, interpret, anticipate and
respond to phenomena in the world
- Human beings are believed to function largely on an emotional level, unlikely to use their
cognitive processes to learn, think, evaluate experiences, or solve problems.
- Personal interpreting explaining and constructing experience

- Construct - intellectual hypothesis that we devise and use to interpret/explain life events
- Repertory grid - dichotomous categories
- Sense of agency and autonomy of humans
- Fundamental postulate: a person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the
ways in which he anticipates events
- Develop many construct
- Expand the inventory of constructs with new situations
- Alter/ discard constructs periodically
 - Alternative constructs to apply to a situation- constructive alternativism
- we are not controlled by our constructs but we are free to revise or replace them
with other alternatives
- If inflexible → poor coping

Corollaries of personal construct theory CID- CO- REM- FCS (cid ko rem fasa lia)

- The fundamental postulate states that our psychological processes are directed by the
ways in which we anticipate events.
- Personality was a flowing, moving process.
- Our psychological processes are directed by our constructs, by the way each of us
construes our world.

● Construction
○ A person anticipates events by construing their replications
○ Similarities among repeated events
○ Base behaviour on anticipation of situations similar to prior experiences
○ Phobias, cheating
● Individuality
○ Persons differ from each other in their construction of events
○ Constructs - not objective reality
● Organization
○ Each person characteristically evolves for his convenience in anticipating events
a construction system embracing ordinal relationships
○ We organise our constructs into a heirarchy
○ We equate one construct with another for our ease
○ Relationship among constructs
○ Pretty = good but when insulted by those who are pretty → pretty = bad
● Dichotomy
○ A person’s construction system is composed of a finite number of dichotomous
constructs
○ Eg: failure-sucess
○ A person can be expected to be honest only in contrast to someone who is
expected to be dishonest
● Choice
○ A person chooses for himself, that alternative in a dichotomized construct
through which he anticipates the greater possibility for the elaboration of his
system
○ Choices that promise usefulness (if you want to preserve yourself in the future
you’ll make more choices related to that)
○ High predictive efficiency
○ Define or extend our personal construct system (based on what the person
values more)
○ Eg: low risk, minimal reward, secure option v/s high risk, high reward,
adventurous option
● Range
○ A construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite range of events only
○ No universal utility
○ Focus- convenience- a set of objects with which it works well
○ Tall v/s short - can use to talk about building/ (not) pizza
○ loyal/disloyal - wider range (abstraction increases)
● Experience
○ A person’s construction system varies as he successively construes the
replications of events
 ○ Each construct is then tested against reality by determining how well it predicted
a given event
○ If constructs have not altered through life → sequence of parallel events with no
psychological impact
○ If one invests in self, they can expand their constructs, especially when outcome
differs from expectation and hence enlarges upon it
○ It can also dislodge man’s construction of self
○ Discrepancy b/w what he is and what he was
○ Confirmation or disconformation (similar to accommodation of schemas given by
Piaget)
○ 5 phases of experience- anticipation, investment, encounter, confirmation/
disconfirmation, constructive revision
● Modulation
○ The variation in a person’s construction system is limited by the permeability of
constructs within whose ranges of convenience the variants lie
○ One doesn’t learn certain things from the nature of the stimuli which play upon
him, he only learns what his framework is designed to permit him to see in the
stimuli
○ Permeable construct one allows new elements to penetrate/ be admitted to the
range of convenience
○ Such a construct is open to new events and experiences and is capable of being
revised or extended by them.
○ How much our construct system can be modulated, or adjusted, as a function of
new experience and learning depends on the permeability of the individual
constructs.
○ Else- no coordinated course of action/link formed
○ Confirmation bias
○ Stereotypes/prejudices
● Fragmentation
○ A person may successively employ a variety of construction subsystems which
are inferentially incompatible with each other
○ Irrational conclusions
○ We tolerate subordinate inconsistencies w/o damaging our overall superordinate
features of construct system
 ● Commonality
○ To the extent that one person employs a construction of experience which is
similar to that employed by another, his processes are psychologically similar to
those of the other person
○ If people construe an experience similarly their cognitive processes can be
similar
○ Seen in terms of cultural norms, rituals, attitudes etc
● Sociality
○ To the extent that one person construes the construction processes for another,
he may play a role in social process involving the other person
○ It is not enough for one person to construe or interpret experiences in the same
way as another person.
○ The first person must also construe the other person’s constructs. In other words,
we must understand how another person thinks if we are to anticipate how that
person will predict events.
○ For positive social relationships
○ For anticipating the other’s future behavior - take risk and try to sense what the
other is upto.

Assessments
● Role construct repertory test
Criticisms
- Strengths
- Optimistic - constructing their own personality and behaviours
- Application in therapies like CBT and SFT
- ^ internal consistency - no contradictory corollaries
- Looked at future more than past
- Included other people’s constructs and how we accommodate them
- Weaknesses
- It focuses on intellectual and rational aspects of human functioning to the
exclusion of emotional aspects. How we take decsions based on our emotions.
Our decisions can be irrational and his theory does not account for it
- It only looks at conscious aspects and constructs made consciously and does not
account for any preconscious or unconscious decisions
- Does not look at extreme ends such as abnormal behaviours
- Although Kelly did not deal explicitly with emotions, he recognized them as
personal constructs, similar in their formation to other constructs.
- No clarity in how the choices develop or how constructs develop
- Each of us is able to construe events in a unique way, but why does one person
construe an event in one way while another person construes the same event in
a different way? What process or mechanism accounts for the difference? A
person makes choices about defining or extending the construct system. What
determines whether to opt for security or for adventure, for the safer or the riskier
alternative?
- Does not account for role of childhood experiences in constructing or how
developmentally it varies. Children might not have the cognitive ability to make or
form those constructs themselves
- Did not look at it from a developmental perspective at all
- To Kelly, people live solely in the present, with one eye always on the future. This
view fails to account for developmental and cultural influences on personality
- Kelly’s notion that our behavior is consistent with our current perceptions helps
organize knowledge; but his avoidance of the problems of motivation,
developmental influences, and cultural forces limits his theory’s ability to give
specific meanings to much of what is currently known about the complexity of
personality.
 - Mentioned how all constructs are dichotomous; without acknowledging grey
areas. Thus being a faulty corollary
- Lack of empirical evidence
- Unrepresentative sample - midwestern young adults
- Relationship with trait theory
- Tendency for each person to have these constructs
- But it is not rigid and not everyone needs to have it
- Relationship with psychoanalytic theory
- On opposite ends - completely conscious, completely unconscious

Julian Rotter’s LOC (pg 433 schultz)

Biography
- Julian B. Rotter, born 1916 in Brooklyn.
- Family faced hardship in the Great Depression.
- Experience fueled Rotter's focus on social justice.
- Stressed how situations shape human behavior.
- Found out Adler was a professor and attended his lectures.
- Earned a PhD in clinical psychology from Indiana University in 1941.
- Notable publications include works on social learning theory and clinical psychology.
- Received APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award in 1988.

Internal vs External control of reinforcement

- Rotter studied behavior and personality.
- Introduced "locus of control."
- Some people believe that their reinforcers depend on their own actions and that
other people believe that their reinforcers are controlled by other people and by
outside forces.
- Internal: belief that reinforcement is under control of our own behavior
- External: belied that reinforcement is under control of others or outside forces.
- Influences behavior and attitudes.
- External may lead to exerting less effort.
- Internal linked to higher performance, better mental health.
- Internal individuals feel in control, have higher self-esteem.
Assessment of LoC
- Rotter made inventories for locus of control.
- I-E Scale: 23 items, choose internal or external beliefs.
- Children use Nowicki-Strickland Scale, 40 items.
- Available in many languages, for adults and preschoolers.
- I-E Scale variants explore specific behaviors like dieting.

● Age and gender differences

○ Control tendencies start early, peak in middle age.
○ Norwegian study: Girls at 14-15 more internal than boys.
○ College students generally have internal orientation.
○ People become more internally oriented with age.
○ Cognitive training helps control in 60-75 year-olds.
○ Overall I-E Scale shows no US gender differences.
○ English study (18-29): Women more external than men.
○ After divorce, women more external, later return to internal.
○ Abused women tend to have external control.
○ Chinese research: Men in China more internal than women.

● Cultural differences
○ African-Americans lean towards external control.
○ In Botswana, Black teens prefer external control.
○ Higher status teens favor internal control.
○ Asians lean externally due to cultural beliefs.
○ Contact with Americans makes Asians lean internally.
○ Chinese in Hong Kong lean externally.
○ South African college students lean internally compared to Lebanese.

● Behavioural differences
○ Chinese workers and Swedish athletes thrive with internal control.
○ Internal locus of control at work leads to satisfaction.
○ Internal control helps cope with stress and avoids emotional problems.
○ German nurses with external control face more stress.
 ○ Greek students with internal control adapt well, while Turkish students with
external control struggle.
○ Internal control reduces anxiety.
○ During the Gulf War, teens with internal control had less anxiety.
○ In Korea, internal academic control means more persistence online.
○ Turkish students with internal academic control avoid Internet addiction

● Physical health differences

○ Internally oriented people are healthier.
○ They recover faster from heart issues and cooperate well in hospitals.
○ They're careful about health habits like seat belts and quitting smoking.
○ Overall, feeling in control of life is linked to better health.

Developing LoC in childhood

- Beliefs about control are learned from parents in childhood.
- External control is common in homes without a male role model or with many siblings.
- Kids in single-parent families led by women or with depressed mothers may have
external control.
- Parents supporting internal control are positive, encouraging independence.

Reflection
- Research connects locus of control with self-efficacy.
- Both deal with our beliefs about control and coping.
- Locus of control is general, while self-efficacy is specific.
- Rotter's research on locus of control is widely studied in psychology.

Marvin Zuckerman’s Sensation seeking

- Sensation-seeking: Desire for “varied, novel, complex, and intense sensations and
experience, and the willingness to take physical, social, legal, and financial risks for the
sake of such experience”
- Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS)
 - 4 components of sensation seeking.
- Thrill and adventure seeking
- a desire to engage in physical activities involving speed, danger, novelty,
and defiance of gravity such as parachuting, scuba diving, or bungee
jumping
- Experience seeking
- the search for novel experiences through travel, music, art, or a
nonconformist lifestyle with similarly inclined persons
- Disinhibition
- the need to seek release in uninhibited social activities
- Boredom susceptibility
- an aversion to repetitive experiences, routine work, and predictable
people, and a reaction of restless discontent when exposed to such
situations.
- Some high sensation seekers do prefer a variety of activities but not necessarily
dangerous ones
- Good vs Bad sensation seeking
- The so called good type, or non-impulsive socialized sensation seeking,
involves the thrill and adventure-seeking component.
- The bad kind, impulsive unsocialized sensation seeking, consists of high
scores on the disinhibition, experience seeking, and boredom susceptibility
components as well as high scores on Eysenck’s psychoticism scale

Research points
- Zuckerman suggested that high sensation seekers are egocentrically extraverted.
- High in sensation seeking at age 3 scored 12 points higher on intelligence tests at age
11 than did children who scored low in sensation seeking at age 3
- 61-study meta-analysis found a moderate link between sensation seeking and alcohol
use.

Characteristics of sensation seekers

- Younger people are more inclined to seek adventure, risk, and novel experiences than
are older people
- College students - far more likely to engage in various kinds of reckless behaviors as
well as uncontrolled gambling than were those who scored low on SSS
- Test scores on subjects ranging from adolescents to 60-year-olds showed that sensation
seeking begins to decrease in one’s 20s

● Gender differences
○ Men scored higher on thrill and adventure seeking, disinhibition, and boredom
susceptibility.
○ Women scored higher on experience seeking.
● Racial and cultural differences
○ Asians scored lower on the SSS than did people in Western countries.
○ White subjects scored higher in sensation seeking than did non-Whites
● Behavioural differences
○ Some high sensation seekers do prefer a variety of activities but not necessarily
dangerous ones. These people may opt for encounter groups, meditation
training, and other novel experiences.
○ Once the initial excitement has subsided, however, high sensation seekers
usually discontinue the activities because they no longer provide the optimal level
of stimulation
○ High sensation seekers were more likely than low sensation seekers to
experiment with illicit drugs
○ Relationship between high SSS scores and drug, alcohol, and marijuana use, as
well as the behaviors of drug selling and shoplifting.
○ High sensation seekers were more likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, drive
fast, have more car accidents and convictions for reckless or drunken driving,
and engage in frequent sex
○ Risky sexual behaviour
○ Physical risk-taking behavior has been related to sensation seeking. Skydivers,
firefighters, riot-control police offi
○ B cers, and race-car drivers scored higher on the SSS than did groups not
engaged in these activities
○ High sensation seekers appear more willing than low sensation seekers to
relocate from familiar to unfamiliar surroundings and to travel to exotic places,
even when the journey involves physical hazards
● Personality differences
○ ^ disinhibition = ^ psychoticism
○ Egocentrically extraverted
○ Extraversion
○ ^ autonomy
○ Openly express their emotions, are assertive in relating to others, are
nonconforming, and are confirmed risk takers.
○ They act independently of social conventions and of other people’s needs and
attitudes.
○ Governed primarily by their own needs, they order their lives to maximize
opportunities for self-fulfillment.
○ High scores on the SSS were also positively correlated with the openness to
experience and the agreeableness dimensions
● Cognitive processes
○ high sensation seekers process information more rapidly
○ High sensation seekers preferred greater complexity in visual stimulation,
whereas low sensation seekers preferred stability, simplicity, and symmetry.
○ High sensation seekers can focus their attention better than low sensation
seekers
○ High SSS scorers seem to be attracted to speculative, bizarre, pseudoscientific
ideas.
○ They tended to engage in primary-process thought
■ They may have images, dreams, and daydreams so vivid that the
distinction blurs between these internal stimuli and the real world.
Zuckerman suggested that because high sensation seekers continually
search for novel experiences, if they cannot find them in external
situations they look inward and create a fantasy world.
● Occupational preferences
○ High SSS scores correlated positively with scientific interests and negatively with
clerical interests
○ High sensation seekers of both sexes who were interested in the helping
professions expressed a preference for risky, cutting-edge jobs such as crisis
intervention work or paramedic duty on emergency response teams
● Physiological differences
○ High sensation seekers demonstrated stronger or more highly aroused
physiological responses and higher tolerance thresholds for pain, loud noise, and
other stressful stimuli.
○ Because high sensation seekers are better able to tolerate increases in arousal,
Zuckerman suggested that they should cope better with stress than can low
sensation seekers, who have a lower tolerance for arousal

● Heredity vs environment
○ Sensation seeking is primarily inherited,
○ Zuckerman also recognizes the influence of situational or environmental factors.
○ Parental sensation seeking.
■ Low-sensation-seeking parents may be overly fearful, protective, and
inhibiting of their children, forbidding them to engage in adventurous
behaviors.
■ High-sensation-seeking parents may encourage and reinforce their
children for engaging in unusual activities, thus promoting additional
sensation-seeking behaviors.
○ Birth order
■ First-borns and only-borns of both sexes were higher in sensation seeking
than are later-borns.
■ Because first-borns and only-borns receive more stimulation and attention
from their parents at an early age, they are likely to be exposed to a
greater optimal level of stimulation, which predisposes them to sensation
seeking behavior as adults