Name: Hazel A.

Yebes Section: PSYCH 2A

Comparative Presentation of Theories of Personality

Author Sigmund Freud Carl Jung Alfred Adler

Title Psychoanalysis Analytical Psychology Individual Psychology
Year Founded 1896 1913 1912
Principles or Instincts: The Propelling Forces of the Principles of Psychic Energy Inferiority Feelings: The Source of All Human
Concepts Personality  Three basic principles that explain the Striving
functioning of psychic energy:  The Inferiority Complex
 Instincts – mental representations of
1. Principle of opposites - The normal condition of all
internal stimuli (hunger), that drive a
- conflict between opposing processes people; the source of all human
person to take certain actions.
or tendencies is necessary to generate striving.

 2 Types of Instincts: psychic energy.  Compensation:

2. Principle of equivalence
1. Life Instincts - The continuing redistribution of
 The drive for ensuring of survival of energy within a personality
the individual and species by - If the energy expended on certain
satisfying the needs (food, water, air, conditions or activities weakens or
and sex). disappears, that energy is transferred
 Psychic energy manifested: elsewhere in the personality.
o Libido 3. Principle of entropy
– drives a person toward - A tendency toward balance or
pleasurable behaviors and equilibrium within the personality
thoughts. - The ideal is an equal distribution of
psychic energy overall structures of
- A motivation to overcome inferiority, to
strive for higher levels of development.
 Inferiority Complexes
- A condition that develops when a person is
unable to compensate for normal inferiority
feelings.
 Causes:
1. Organic Inferiority
- Defective parts or organs of the
body shape personality through
the person’s efforts to compensate
2. Death Instincts the personality. for the weakness.
 The unconscious drive toward decay, Aspects of Personality - Can result in striking artistic,
destruction, and aggression. Total personality (psyche), is composed of several athletic, and social
 One component: aspects that can influence one another: accomplishments, but if those
o Aggressive Drive  Ego efforts fail, can lead to an
- the compulsion to destroy, - part of the psyche concerned with inferiority complex.
conquer, and kill. perceiving, thinking, feeling, and 2. Spoiling
remembering. - Spoiled children their every need
The Level of Personality
- It is our awareness of ourselves and is satisfied, and little is denied to
 Conscious
responsible for carrying out all the them.
 Sensation and experiences of which
normal everyday activities of waking - When confronted with obstacles
we are aware at any given moment.
life. to gratification, spoiled children
 Preconscious
 The Attitudes: come to believe that they must
 Storehouse of all our memories,
o Extraversion have some personal deficiency
perceptions, and thoughts, which we
- an orientation toward the external that is thwarting them; hence, an
are not consciously aware of at the
world and other people. inferiority complex develops.
moment, but can easily summon into
o Introversion 3. Neglecting
consciousness.
- an orientation toward one’s own - Their infancy and childhood are
 Unconscious
thoughts and feelings. characterized by a lack of love
 Focus on psychoanalytic theory
 Psychological Functions and security because their parents
 Home of instincts, wishes, and desires
- different and opposing ways of are indifferent or hostile.
that direct our behavior.
perceiving both the external real - As a result: develop feelings of
The Structure of Personality
world and our subjective inner world. worthlessness, or even anger, and
 Id
- four functions of the psyche: sensing, view others with distrust.
 Reservoir for the instincts
intuiting, thinking, and feeling  The Superiority Complex
 and libido (the psychic energy
 manifested by the instincts).
 Operates according to:
o Pleasure principle
- id functions to avoid pain and
maximize pleasure.
 Ego
 Rational aspect of the personality,
responsible for directing and
controlling the id instincts.
 Operates according to:
o Reality principle
- ego functions to provide
appropriate constraints on the
expression of the id
instincts
 Superego
 The moral aspect of personality; the
internalization of parental and societal
values and standards.
 Operates according to:
o Moral Principle
- what a person should do or
- eight personality types based on interactions of the
the right thing to do.
attitudes and functions:
Anxiety: A Threat to the Ego
o Sensing and Intuiting (non- rational functions)
- Do not use the processes of reason
and accept experiences and do not
evaluate them.
 Sensing:
reproduces an experience through the senses the
way a photograph copies an object.
 Intuiting:
does not arise directly from an external stimulus.
o Thinking and Feeling (rational functions)
- involve making judgments and
evaluations about our experiences.
- Thinking: involves a conscious
judgment of whether an experience is
true or false.
- Feeling: expressed in terms of like or
dislike, pleasantness or
unpleasantness, stimulation or
dullness.
 Psychological Types
1. Extraverted thinking:
Logical, objective, dogmatic
- A condition that develops when a person
overcompensates for normal inferiority
feelings
Striving for Superiority, or Perfection
- The urge toward perfection or completion or
wholeness that motivates each of us.
 Fictional Finalism
- The idea that there is an imagined or
potential goal that guides our behavior.
 Two additional points about striving for
superiority
1. It increases rather than reduces tension:
Striving for perfection requires great
expenditures of energy and effort, a
condition quite different from a tension-free
state.
2. The striving for superiority is manifested
both by the individual and by society as a
whole: We strive for superiority or
perfection not only as individuals but also as
members of a group.
 Anxiety
 A feeling of fear and dread without an
obvious cause
 3 different types of anxiety
1. Reality Anxiety
 a fear of tangible dangers.
2. Neurotic Anxiety
 fear of being punished for impulsively
displaying id-dominated behavior.
 conflict between id and
ego
3. Moral Anxiety
 fear of one’s conscience.
 conflict between the id and the
superego
 Purpose of Anxiety:
 serves as a warning
 induces tension in the organism, and
becomes a drive that the individual is
motivated to satisfy.
 The tension must be reduced if not,
the ego might be overthrown.
Defenses against Anxiety
2. Extraverted feeling:
Emotional, sensitive, sociable; more typical of
women than men
3. Extraverted sensing:
Outgoing, pleasure-seeking, adaptable
4. Extraverted intuiting:
Creative, able to motivate others, and seize
opportunities
5. Introverted thinking:
More interested in ideas than in people
6. Introverted feeling:
Reserved, undemonstrative, yet capable of deep
emotion
7. Introverted sensing:
Outwardly detached, expressing themselves in
aesthetic pursuits
8. Introverted intuiting:
Concerned with the unconscious more than
everyday reality
 The Personal Unconscious
- The reservoir of material that was
once conscious but has been
forgotten or suppressed.
 Complexes
- a core or pattern of emotions,
The Style of Life
- A unique character structure or pattern of personal
behaviors and characteristics by which each of us
strives for perfection.
 The Creative Power of the Self
- The ability to create an appropriate style of life.
 Four Basic Styles of Life
1. Dominant Type
- Dominant or ruling attitude with little social
awareness.
- More extreme: attack others and become
sadists, delinquents, or sociopaths.
- Less virulent: alcoholics, drug addicts, or
suicides (believe they hurt others by
attacking themselves).
2. Getting Type
- the most common human type
- expects to receive satisfaction from other
people and so becomes dependent on them.
3. Avoiding Type
- makes no attempt to face life’s problems.
 These three types are not prepared to cope
with the problems of everyday life: They are
unable to cooperate with other people

 Defense Mechanisms
 Strategies the ego uses to defend itself
against the anxiety provoked by
conflicts of everyday life.
 Involve denials of reality and all
operate unconsciously.
o Repression
 Unconscious denial of the existence of
something that causes anxiety
o Denial
 denying the existence of an external
threat or traumatic event
o Reaction Formation
 expressing an id impulse that is the
opposite of the one truly driving the
person
o Projection
 attributing a disturbing impulse to
someone else
memories, perceptions, and wishes in
the personal unconscious organized
around a common theme (power or
status).
- Some may be harmful, but others can
be useful
- Originate: not only from our
childhood and adult experiences
but also from our ancestral
experiences.
 The Collective Unconscious
- The deepest level of the psyche
- Containing the accumulation of
inherited experiences of human and
pre-human species.
 Archetypes
- Images of universal experiences
contained in the collective
unconscious.
- Major Archetypes:
o Persona Archetype (mask)
- The public face or role a person
presents to others.
o Anima and Animus
- humans are essentially bisexual
4. Socially Useful Type
- Cooperates with others and acts in
accordance with their needs.
- Cope with problems within a well-developed
framework of social interest.
Social Interest
- Our innate potential to cooperate with other people
to achieve personal and societal goals
 The Role of the Mother in Developing
Social Interest
 Mother: The first person with whom a baby
comes in contact. Can either foster social
interest or thwart its development.
- Must teach the child cooperation,
companionship, and courage. So that
children will feel a kinship with others and
they be able to act with courage in
attempting to cope with life’s demands.
Birth Order
- Being older or younger than one’s siblings and
being exposed to different parental attitudes create
different childhood conditions that help determine
different kinds of personalities.

o Regression
 retreating to an earlier, less frustrating
period of life and displaying the
childish and dependent behaviors
characteristic of that more secure time
o Rationalization
 reinterpreting behavior to make it
more acceptable and less threatening
o Displacement
 shifting id impulses from a threatening
or unavailable object to a substitute
object that is available
o Sublimation
 altering id impulses by diverting
instinctual energy into socially
acceptable behaviors
- Animus archetype:
Masculine aspects of the female
psyche
- Anima archetype:
Feminine aspects of the male psyche
o Shadow Archetype
- The dark side of the personality; the
archetype that contains primitive
animal instincts.
o Self Archetype
- the archetype that represents the
unity, integration, and harmony of the
total personality
 The First-Born Child
- a unique and enviable situation, until the
second-born child appears.
- Dethronement: firstborns feel a sense of
being dethroned (no longer the focus of
attention, no longer receiving constant love
and care).
 Characteristics of First-Borns
- Positive Outcome: unusual interest in
maintaining order and authority (good
organizers, conscientious and scrupulous
about detail, authoritarian and conservative
in attitude).
- Negative Outcome: may also grow up to feel
insecure and hostile toward others. (Often
neurotics, perverts, and criminals).
 The Second-Born Child
- also in a unique situation; never experience
the powerful, even if another child is brought
into the family, second-borns do not suffer
the sense of dethronement felt by the first-
borns.
 Characteristics of Second-Borns:
- Positive Outcome: more optimistic about the
future and are likely to be competitive and
ambitious.
- Negative Outcome: competitiveness would
not become part of the lifestyles, and may
become underachievers, performing below
their abilities in many facets of life.
 The Youngest Child
- Never face the shock of dethronement and
often become the pet of the family.
- Positive Outcome (Driven by the need to
surpass older siblings): Often develop at a
remarkably fast rate. High achievers in
whatever work they undertake as adults.
- Negative Outcome (excessively pampered):
Unaccustomed to striving and struggling,
used to being cared for, these people find it
difficult to adjust to adulthood.
 The Only Child
- never lose the position of primacy and power
they hold in the family.
- Positive Outcome (Spending more time in
the company of adults): often mature early
and manifest adult behaviors and attitudes.
- Negative Outcome (outside home): If their
abilities do not bring them sufficient
recognition and attention, they are likely to
feel keenly disappointed.
 Stages of Psychosexual Stages of Development
Development - In these stages, the gratification of the
id instincts depends on the stimulation
of corresponding areas of the body.
- Fixation a portion of libido remains
invested in one of the psychosexual
stages because of excessive frustration
or gratification.
1. Oral Stage (Birth–1)
- the principal source of pleasure is the
mouth (sucking, biting, and
swallowing).
- Two ways of behaving:
1. Oral incorporative Behavior
- occurs first and involves the
pleasurable stimulation of the mouth
by other people and by food.
Fixated: excessively concerned
with oral activities (eating,
drinking, smoking, and kissing).
Excessively Gratified: oral
passive personality types
(predisposed to a high degree of
optimism and dependency).
Developmental stages
Two general periods in the overall developmental
process:
1. Childhood to Young Adulthood
- Childhood: Ego development begins when the
child distinguishes between self and others.
- Puberty to young adulthood:
Adolescents must adapt to the growing
demands of reality. The focus is external, on
education, career, and family. The conscious is
dominant.
2. Middle age
- A period of transition when the focus of the
personality shifts from external to internal in an
attempt to balance the unconscious with the
conscious or;
- a time of transition, when one’s focus and
interests change.
Individuation: How to Reach Fulfillment
 Individuation
- involves becoming an individual, fulfilling
one’s capacities, and developing one’s self.
 Stages we must proceed before we can
reach Jung’s ideal of self-fulfillment:
 2. Oral aggressive or sadistic
behavior 1. Confront the Unconscious

- occurs during the painful, frustrating - middle-aged people must abandon the

eruption of teeth. Infants come to view behaviors and values that guided the first

the mother with hatred as well as love. half of their lives and confront their

Fixated: excessive pessimism, unconscious, bringing it into conscious

hostility, and aggressiveness (envious awareness and accepting what it tells them to

of other people and trying to exploit do.

and manipulate them to dominate 2. Dethrone the Persona

them). - must recognize that our public personality

may not represent our true nature and to
accept the genuine self that the persona has
2. Anal Stage (1–3)
been covering.
- Toilet training (external reality)
3. Accept Our Dark Sides
interferes with gratification received
- Accept the existence of destructive forces of
from defecation.
the shadow and acknowledge that dark side
- may react in one of two ways:
of our nature with its primitive impulses.
1. Defecate whenever and wherever
4. Accept Our Anima and Animus
the parents don’t want them to.
- come to terms with our psychological
- May develop an anal aggressive
bisexuality. A man must be able to express
personality (cruelty,
his traditionally feminine traits, and a woman
destructiveness, and temper
must come to express her traditionally
tantrums).
masculine traits.
- Likely to be disorderly and to
5. Transcend
consider other people as objects to
- an innate tendency toward unity or
be possessed.
 2. Hold back or retain the feces. wholeness in the personality, uniting all the
- The basis for the development of an opposing aspects within the psyche.
anal retentive personality (stubborn
and stingy, and hoards or retains
things).
- Likely to be rigid, compulsively
neat, obstinate, and overly
conscientious.
3. Phallic (4–5)
- Focus of pleasure genitals.
- Incestuous fantasies; Oedipus
complex; anxiety; superego
development.
- Oedipus complex: male phallic
conflict (unconscious desire of a boy
for his mother, accompanied by a
desire to replace or destroy his father).
Castration Anxiety boy fears his penis
will be cut off.
Resolved: identifying with his father.
- Electra complex: the unconscious
desire of a girl for her father,
accompanied by a desire to replace or
destroy her mother.
Penis Envy: envy the female feels
 toward the male because the male
possesses a penis; accompanied by a
sense of loss.
Resolved: comes to identify with the
mother and repress her love for her
father.
- Fixated: Difficulty establishing
mature heterosexual relationships (feel
inferior).

4. Latency (5 to puberty)
- The sex instinct is dormant,
sublimated in school activities, sports,
and hobbies, and in developing
friendships with members of the same
sex.
5. Genital (Adolescence–Adulthood)
- Development of sex-role identity and
adult social relationships.
Methods of Study Two Methods of Assessment Three formal techniques Jung used to evaluate Early recollections
Treatment 1. Free association personality - A personality assessment technique in which
- A technique in which the patient says 1. Word Association test our earliest memories, whether of real events
whatever comes to mind. - A projective technique in which a person or fantasies, are assumed to reveal the
2. Dream analysis responds to a stimulus word with whatever primary interest of our life.
- Represent, in symbolic form, word comes to mind. Dream Analysis
 repressed desires, fears, and conflicts. 2. Symptom analysis
These feelings have been repressed - Focuses on the symptoms reported by the
that can surface only during sleep. patient and attempts to interpret the patient’s
- Two aspects: free associations to those symptoms.
1. Manifest Content 3. Dream analysis
- actual events in the dream - A technique involving the interpretation of
2. Latent Content dreams to uncover unconscious conflicts.
- hidden symbolic meaning of the The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
dream. - An assessment test based on Jung’s psychological
types and the attitudes of introversion and extraversion.
Life-History Reconstruction
- Jung’s type of case study involves examining a
person’s past experiences to identify developmental
patterns that may explain present neuroses.
Criticisms Criticisms of Freud’s Research Jung’s theory was not received enthusiastically by
psychologists because:
Case Study: A detailed history of an individual 1. Difficulty in understanding Jungian concepts.
that contains data from a variety of sources. - Reading his work can be frustrating, because
- The dream is a manifestation of a person’s
style of life and so is unique to the
individual.
- Adler did find common interpretations for
some dreams, such as dream of falling: a
demotion or loss, flying dream: striving
upward, an ambitious style of life. Flying
and falling: fear of being too ambitious and
thus failing, and a lot more.
Measures of Social Interest
- Adler had no desire to use personality test
instead he thought therapists should develop
their intuition.
- The five personality dimensions measured
are:
1. Social Interest
2. Going along
3. Taking charge
4. Wanting recognition
5. Being cautious
Freud Critics:
 Adler’s psychology was oversimplified
 No difficult concepts, and ignored the
problems of sex.
 - Freud’s major research method
- Has several limitations:
1. Does not rely on objective
observation
2. The data are not gathered in
systematic fashion
3. The Psychoanalytic Session is not
amenable to duplication and
verification.
Fundamental Criticism:
1. Nature of his data
o Did not keep verbatim records of the
therapy sessions
o It’s possible that his data were
incomplete resulting from Freud’s
technique for recording his patients (made
notes several hours after seeing each
patient).
2. Freud’s patients did not actually reveal
childhood sexual experiences
o Oedipus and Electra Complex: do not
show that any patient ever claimed that
this had occurred.
3. Based on a small and unrepresentative
his books contain many inconsistencies and
contradictions.
- Applied to many of Jung’s writings. Difficult
to comprehend and lack internal consistency
and systematization
2. Jung’s embrace of the occult and the
supernatural:
- The source of most of the criticism directed
at his theory
- Evidence from mythology and religion is not
in favor in an era when reason and science
are considered the most legitimate
approaches to knowledge and understanding.
Other Critics:
 Rely heavily on commonsense observations
from everyday life.
 Adler was inconsistent and unsystematic in
his thinking and that his theory contains gaps
and unanswered questions:
o Are inferiority feelings the only
problem we face in life?
o Do all people strive primarily for
perfection?
o Can we become reconciled to a
degree of inferiority and no longer try
to compensate for it?
 Some psychologists dispute Adler’s position
on the issue of determinism versus free will:
o Adler did not oppose the notion of
determinism at first but he felt the
need to grant more autonomy to the
self, and his final formulation
rejected determinism resulted:
 sample of people;
o Restricted to himself and those who
sought psychoanalysis with him and it is
difficult to generalize from this limited
sample to the population at large.
4. There may be discrepancies between
Freud’s notes on his therapy sessions and
the case histories he published;
o An incorrect sequence of events disclosed
by the patient, and unsubstantiated claims
that the analysis resulted in a cure.
5. None of Freud’s of his published case
histories provides compelling evidence
for his theory.

Freud’s Negative Views on Experimental

Research
- Freud had little confidence in the experimental
method, believing that “scientific research and
psychoanalysis are inherently incompatible”
- Have no way of knowing exactly what he did in
collecting his data and in translating his
observations into hypotheses and generalizations.

Scientific Testing of Freudian Concepts

- In 1939, many of his ideas have been submitted
for experimental testing. In this evaluation, case
histories were not considered;
o The researchers found that some Freudian
concepts (could not be tested by the
experimental method) - notably the id,
ego, superego, death wish, libido, and
anxiety.
o Concepts that could be tested (evidence
appeared to support slightly): the oral and
anal, the basic concept of the Oedipal
Dilemma, castration anxiety, and penis
envy.
o Concepts not supported by research
evidence: dreams as disguised
expressions of repressed wishes,
resolution of the male Oedipus complex,
and the idea that women have
inadequately developed superegos.

o Researchers found no evidence to

support: the psychosexual stages of
development or a relationship between
Oedipal variables and sexual problems
later in life.
 Criticisms of Psychoanalysis
o Some argue that Freud placed too great an
emphasis on instinctual biological
forces as determinants of personality.
o Others challenge Freud’s focus on sex
and aggression as major motivating
forces and believe that we are shaped
more by social experiences than by sexual
ones.
o Some theorists disagree with Freud’s
deterministic view of human nature,
suggesting that we have more free will
than Freud acknowledged and that we can
choose to act and grow, and to be in at
least partial control of our fate.
o Another criticism focuses on Freud’s
emphasis on past behavior to the
exclusion of our goals and aspirations.
These theorists argue that we are also
influenced by the future, by our hopes and
plans, as much as or more than by our
experiences before age 5.
o Still other personality theorists think
Freud paid too much attention to the
 emotionally disturbed, to the exclusion
of the psychologically healthy and
emotionally mature.
o Critics point to confusion and
contradiction in id, ego, and superego.
Are they distinct physical structures in the
brain? Are they fluid processes?