THEORIES OF PERSONALITY (3RD LECTURE)

ALFRED ADLER (1870-1937) : INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY

➔ 2nd (middle child) among 7 children of middle-class
Jewish family. He was weak and sickly compared to his
older brother and at age 5, almost died of Pneumonia. His
poor health and the death of a younger brother motivated
him to become a physician.
➔ His younger brother died in bed next to him (neither
terrified nor guilty, but was challenged to overcome death)
➔ Had sibling rivalry and unhappy competition with Sigmund
(older brother) who became very successful but lesser
famous.
➔ He was more engaged in social relationships with other
siblings rather than close attachment to parents.
➔ One of the original members of Freud’s inner circle (Wednesday Psychological
Society), but did not have a warm personal relationship.
➔ He took interest in Psychoanalysis but believed that it should have a broader
sense other than infantile sexuality (Freud). As the president of Vienna
Psychoanalytic Society (1911) he presented his opposition to the strong sexual
proclivities of psychoanalysis and insisted the drive for superiority was more of
a basic motive than of sexuality.
➔ Formed Society for Free Psychoanalytic Study, then changed to Society for
Individual Psychology
➔ Died 3 years ahead of Freud

INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY
➔ Each person is an integrated whole, striving to attain future goals and
attempting to find meaning in life while working harmoniously with others.
➔ It presents an optimistic view of people while resting heavily on the notion of
social interest, that is, feeling of oneness with all humankind.
➔ Adler believed:
a. people are motivated mostly by social influences and by their striving
for superiority or success and that people are largely responsible for
who they are
b. present behavior is shaped by people’s view of the future and thus
psychologically healthy people are usually aware of what they are
doing and why they are doing it.

Main Tenets
1. Striving for success or superiority as one dynamic force behind people’s
behavior
2. Subjective perceptions shape behaviors and personality
3. Personality is unified and self-consistent
4. Social interest embody the value of all human activity
5. Style of life shows the self-consistent personality
6. Creative power results to the style of life
1. STRIVING FOR SUCCESS OR SUPERIORITY
➔ The soul dynamic force behind all our action
Transformation of drive:

➔ People strive for success or superiority as a means of compensation for

feelings of inferiority or weakness.
➔ The striving force is innate, but its nature and direction are due both to feelings
of inferiority and to the goal of superiority.
➔ Without the innate movement toward perfection, children would never feel
inferior; but without feelings of inferiority, they would never set a goal of
superiority or success. The goal provides guidelines for motivation, shaping
psychological development and giving it an aim.
➔ Success is an individualized concept and all people formulate their own
definition of it.
PSYCHOLOGICALLY HEALTHY PSYCHOLOGICALLY UNHEALTHY
PERSON PERSON

Seeks success for all humanity Seeks Personal Superiority

2. SUBJECTIVE PERCEPTIONS
➔ People’s subjective view of the world (not reality) that shapes their behavior
Fictional Finalism
➔ the fictional future goal which a person aspires or the ‘Guiding self-ideal’. It
guides our style of life, gives unity to our personality and motivates us to our
final goal.
➔ People are motivated not by what is true but by their subjective perceptions of
what is true.
➔ Reason: Style of life and Birth order
Physical Inferiorities
➔ people develop a fiction or belief system about how to overcome these physical
deficiencies and become big, strong and superior. But even after conquering
all these inferiorities, they still act as if they are still small, weak and inferior.
However, to Adler, physical deficiencies provide present motivation for reaching
future goals.

“AS IF”
“Men are superior to women” (Freud) - others view it as if it was true.
PSYCHOLOGICALLY HEALTHY PSYCHOLOGICALLY UNHEALTHY
PERSON PERSON

➔ A means of living a more ➔ Become ends in themselves,

effective and constructive life retained even when already
➔ Never loses sight of reality ineffective
➔ Fictional life plan becomes a
 reality

3. UNITY AND SELF-CONSISTENCY OF PERSONALITY

➔ Each person is unique and indivisible. There is a fundamental unity of
personality and inconsistent behavior does not exist.
Organ dialect
➔ the disturbance of one part of the body cannot be viewed in isolation, it affects
the entire person. The parts of the body speaks for the unexpressive parts of
the person.
➔ the disturbance of 1 part that affects the entirety
Conscious and Unconscious
➔ there is no dichotomy, as both are cooperating parts of the same unified system.
Conscious are helpful, unconscious are not helpful

4. SOCIAL INTEREST
➔ Gemeinschaftsgefühl = “social feeling", "community feeling”. Yet, roughly it
means a feeling of oneness with all humanity.
➔ A gauge to be used in judging the worth of a person, a barometer for
determining the usefulness of a life.
➔ The innate need of all human beings to live in harmony and friendship with
others and to aspire for the development of the perfect society
TYPES:
Ruling - Dominant Type Dominate other people (bully)

Getting - Learning Type Opportunistic, takers

Avoiding Type Engage in things that doesn’t have a lot of responsibility

Socially Useful Type Do not take interest for oneself but for everyone
(best)

“Hurt people hurt other people” - Hurt people hurt others because they themselves have
been hurt.
5. STYLE OF LIFE
➔ The flavor of a person’s life; goal, self-concept, feelings for others, and attitude
toward the world.
➔ Determines which aspects of life are focused on and how it gives a person
individual identity. It determines what is perceived and ignored, specifies a
person’s goals and how they are to be attained.
➔ This is crystalized by age 4 or 5, what lifestyle a child develops, depend on
his/her personal circumstances.
 Lifestyle of Compensating Lifestyle of Overcompensating

➔ What is needed, it will be given ➔ Excessive overcompensation

(become fixated)
Delay Gratification
➔ Deprived by something you need
➔ Ex: a student is deprived of shoes, when he finally had money, he bought shoes
in every color instead.

Pampered Style of Life Neglected Style of Life

➔ “Helicopter parenting” ➔ The childhood years affect the

➔ Will do everything for you, in
return you have no private life
➔ Not received too much love;
rather, they feel unloved.
present
➔ Neglected children have many
of the characteristics of
pampered ones, but they are
more suspicious and more likely
to be dangerous to others.

6. CREATIVE POWER/CREATIVE SELF

➔ Places people in control of their lives, is responsible for their final goal,
determines their method of striving for that goal and contributes to the
development of social interest.
➔ All individuals have a biological heritage and an array of past experiences, but
is it the creative self acting upon these variables and interpreting them that will
determine the individual’s personality

THE LAW OF LOW DOORWAY

If you are trying to walk through a doorway four feet high, you have two basic choices.
1. use your creative power to bend (acknowledge difficulty) down as you approach
the doorway, thereby successfully solving the problem. This is the manner in
which the psychologically healthy individual solves most of life's problems.
2. if you bump your head and fall back, you must still solve the problem correctly
or continue bumping your head. Neurotics often choose to bump their head on
the realities of life.
When approaching the low doorway, you are neither compelled to stoop nor forced to
bump your head. You have a creative power that permits you to follow either course.
❖ Over Complacent = Overconfident

THREE ENTRANCE GATES TO MENTAL LIFE

➔ To discern the origins of lifestyle and approach to problem solving

1. BIRTH ORDER/FAMILY CONSTELLATION

First Born focus of attention until the next child is born and he is ‘dethroned’.
Now he has to share the attention of the parents
 Second Born extremely ambitious since he is constantly attempting to catch up
and surpass the older sibling

Youngest usually spoiled and can never be independent. Easily loses courage
to succeed by his own effort.

Only child never dethroned but experiences shock when he learns that he
cannot remain the center of attention in other circumstances
❖ Children acquire the disposition of parents
POSITIVE TRAITS NEGATIVE TRAITS

OLDEST CHILD

● Nurturing and protective of ● Highly anxious

others ● Exaggerated feelings of power
● Good organizer ● Unconscious hostility
● Fights for acceptance
● Must always be “right”, others
are always “wrong”
● Highly critical of others
● Uncooperative

SECOND CHILD

● Highly motivated ● Highly competitive

● Cooperative ● Easily discouraged
● Moderately competitive

YOUNGEST CHILD

● Realistically ambitious ● Pampered style of life

● Dependent on others
● Wants to excel on everything
● Unrealistically ambitious

ONLY CHILD

● Socially mature ● Exaggerated feelings of

inferiority
● Low feelings of cooperation
● Inflated sense of self
● Pampered style of life
If the first born will die, parents might transfer the responsibilities to the 2nd born thus
the 2nd born now holds the “oldest child” role.
 2. FIRST MEMORIES/EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
➔ Description of one’s earliest recollections which can give evidence to the origins
of one’s lifestyle.
➔ Are always consistent with people’s present style of life and that their subjective
account of these experiences yields clues to understanding both the final goal
and their present style of life.

3. DREAM ANALYSIS
➔ Dreams are used to provide a way of dealing with the person’s life problems.
By analyzing how to confront problems and how to plan future events through
dream analysis, a great deal could be learned about the person’s style of life.
➔ You should be the one to first interpret you dream since you know yourself
better than others.
Golden rule of dream work in Individual Psychology:
“Everything can be different”
➔ If one dream interpretation doesn’t feel right, try another. Any dream
interpretation must be tentative and open to reinterpretation.

PSYCHOTHERAPY
➔ Use the tenets of Individual Psych
➔ Adlerian theory postulates that psychopathology results from:
a. lack of courage
b. exaggerated feelings of inferiority
c. underdeveloped social interest
➔ He believed that “Everybody can accomplish everything”. What people do
with what they have is more important with what they have.
➔ He used humor and warmth to help increase the patient’s courage, self-
esteem and social interest.
➔ Treats children with audiences of parents, teachers, health professionals to
point out that the problems of the children are community problems.
➔ Was careful not to blame parents for a child’s misbehavior but worked to win
the parents’ confidence and persuades them to change their attitudes towards
the child. (If a child is out of control, their parents let them)

EVALUATION OF ADLERIAN THEORY

➔ For Adler, the person is primarily a social creature rather than a sexual creature
(Freud). We are motivated by social interests and our primary problems in life
are social in nature.
➔ Adler’s view provided a welcome contrast to the pessimistic and conflict-ridden
picture of human nature as shown by Freud’s psychoanalysis.
➔ However, his assumption that present lifestyle determines early memories
rather than vice versa is difficult to verify or falsify.
➔ Adlerian theory is a model for self-consistency but suffers from a lack of precise
operational definitions. Terms such as goal of superiority, creative power have
no scientific definition.
➔ The creative power is very appealing as a concept but is simply a fiction and
cannot be scientifically studied.