PART II.

ALFRED ADLER’S INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY

 
I. OVERVIEW OF INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY
The term individual psychology was used by Adler to stress his belief that 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, a feeling of
oneness with all humankind.
Adler argued that people may become largely aware of their deepest impulses and fictional finalism and, with
conscious intent, create their own personalities and lifestyles that will achieve their highest goals.
In the end, Adler’s position was almost the complete antithesis of Freud’s which emphasized that our behavior
is largely determined by forces of which we are unaware. The following represents the final statement (tenets) of
individual psychology.
1. the one dynamic force behind people’s behavior is the striving for success or superiority.
2. people’s subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality
3. personality is unified and self-consistent
4. the value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest
5. the self-consistent personality structure develops into a person’s style of life
6. style of life is molded by people’s creative power
 
II. ADLER’S CONCEPTS
 
A. Organ Inferiority Theory – people are more vulnerable to disease in organs that are less
developed or “inferior” than other organs.
Organ Dialect “speak a language which is usually more expressive and discloses the
individual’s opinion more clearly than words are able to do”. An example of organ dialect
might be a man suffering from arthritis in his hands. His stiff and deformed joints voice his
whole style of life.
 
B. Feeling of Inferiority – all children start life with feeling of inferiority or feeling of
being weak since they are completely dependent upon adults for survival.
 
This feeling of being weak, inferior and impotent stimulates in the child an intense
desire to seek power, thereby overcoming the feeling of inferiority. For Adler, to become
more powerful meant to become more masculine and less feminine. He referred to this drive
to become more masculine as Masculine Protest.
 
 When a person becomes overwhelmed by feelings of inferiority and he is prevented
from accomplishing anything, the feelings of inferiority acts as barrier for positive
accomplishment. Such person is said to have an Inferiority Complex.
 
C. Striving for Superiority – is a fundamental fact of life. Striving for superiority is
an innate need; “built in” in all human beings at birth. It is the master motive which leads
people in the pursuit of a superior or perfect society.
 
A person who has superiority complex tends to be domineering, vain, boastful, arrogant
and insulting to others. According, to Adler, such a person lacks social interest and is
indeed undesirable.
 
D. Style of Life – is the means by which an individual attempts to gain superiority.
Lifestyle determines which aspects of life are focused on and how it gives a person
individual identity.
 
E. Social Interest – is the innate need of all human beings to live in harmony and
friendship with others and to inspire for the development of the perfect society.
 
Three Major Tasks in Life to me able to Develop Social
Interest:
 

1. Occupational Tasks – through

constructive work, the person helps to
advance society.
2. Social Tasks – this requires cooperation
with fellow humans (division of labor).
3. Love and Marriage Tasks – relationship
between this tasks and the continuance of
Four types of people according to their degree of Social Interest:
 
1. Ruling – Dominant Type – attempts to rule or dominate people;
2. Getting – Learning Type – expects everything from others and
gets everything he/she can from them.
3. Avoiding Type – succeeds in life by avoiding problems. Such a
person avoids failure by never attempting anything.
4. Socially Useful Type – confronts problems and attempts to solve
them in a socially useful way.
The first three types have faulty lifestyles because they lack proper
social interest. Only the socially useful type can cope to live a rich,
purposeful life.
F. Creative power- people’s ability to freely shape their behavior
and create their own personality. This is considered Adler’s
“crowning achievement” as a personality theorist. According to
Adler, human beings are not simply passive recipients of
environmental influences. He is free to act upon these influences
according to how he/she sees fit. Thus, no two people are the same
even if the ingredients of their environment provide the raw
materials from which personality is formed by the creative self. It
is the individual’s attitude toward life which determines his
relationship with the outside world.
G . Adler’s Concept of Abnormal Development
 
According to Adler, the one factor underlying all types of
maladjustments is underdeveloped social interest. Besides
lacking social interest, neurotics tend to 1. set their goals
too high, 2. live in their own private world, and 3. have a
rigid and dogmatic style of life.
Adler also recognized three contributing factors, anyone
of which is sufficient to contribute to abnormality. The
following are the external factors which tend to create a
faulty lifestyle:
 
 
1.Exaggerated Physical Deficiencies- people with exaggerated physical
deficiencies sometimes develop exaggerated feelings of inferiority because
they overcompensate for their inadequacy. They tend to be overly concerned
with themselves and lack consideration for others.
 
2. Pampered Style of Life- pampered people have a weak social interest
but a strong desire to perpetuate the pampered, parasitic relationship they
originally had with one or both of their parents. They expect others to look
after them, overprotect them, and satisfy their needs.
3. Neglected Style of Life- children who feel unloved and unwanted are
likely to borrow heavily from these feelings in creating a neglected style of
life. These children are distrustful of other people and are unable to
cooperate for the common welfare.
 
H. Safeguarding Tendencies- patterns of behavior to protect their exaggerated sense of self-esteem
against public disgrace. These protective devices enable people to hide their inflated self-image and to
maintain their current style of life. The following are the common safeguarding tendencies:
 
. Excuses are typically expresses in the “Yes, but” or “If only” format. Examples of excuses:
 
“Yes, I would like to go to college, but my children demand too much of my attention.”
“Yes, I agree with your proposal, but company policy will not allow it.”
“If only, my husband were more supportive, I would have advanced faster in my profession.”
 
2. Aggression- this protective device is used to safeguard the exaggerated superiority complex, that
is, to protect their fragile self-esteem. Safeguarding through aggression may take the form of
depreciation, accusation, or self-accusation.
Depreciation- this is the tendency to undervalue other people’s achievements and to overvalue one’s
own.
Accusation- this is the tendency to blame others for one’s failure and to seek revenge, thereby
safeguarding one’s own tenuous self-esteem.
Self-accusation- this safeguarding tendency is marked by self-torture, including masochism,
depression, and suicide, as means of hurting people who are close to them.
 
3. Withdrawal-the style of running away from difficulties. This is a safeguarding through
distance. Adler recognized the following four modes of safeguarding through withdrawal:
Moving backward- this is the tendency to safeguard one’s fictional goal or superiority by
psychologically reverting to a more secure period of life.
Standing still- people who stand still simply do not move in any direction; thus, they avoid
all responsibility by ensuring themselves against any threat of failure.
Hesitating- this includes procrastinations which eventually give them the excuse “It’s too
late now.”
Constructing obstacles- people using this safeguarding tendency creates problem and
showing people that they are capable of overcoming the problem or obstacle they created.
 
 
IV. APPLICATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY
The applications of Adler’s individual psychology are divided into the following four areas:
 
1. Family Constellation- this includes birth order, the gender of siblings, and the age spread between them. Although
people’s perception of the situation into which they were born is more important than numerical rank, Adler did form
some general hypotheses about birth order.
 
Firstborn children are most likely to have intensified feelings of power and superiority, high anxiety, and
overprotective tendencies. Firstborn children occupy a unique position, being an only child for a time and then
experiencing a traumatic dethronement when a younger sibling is born. This event dramatically changes the situation
and the child’s view of the world.
 
Second born children begin life in a better situation for developing cooperation and social interest. Typically, the
second born children mature towards moderated competitiveness, having a healthy desire to overtake the older rival.
 
Youngest children are often the most pampered and, consequently, run a high risk of being problem children. They
are likely to have strong feelings of inferiority and to lack a sense of independence. They are often highly motivated to
exceed older siblings and to become the fastest runner, the best musician, the most skilled athlete, or the most ambitious
student.
 
Only children are in a unique position of competing, not against brothers and sisters, but against father and mother.
Living in an adult world, they often develop an exaggerated sense of superiority an inflated self-concept.
 Early Recollections (ERs)- these are the recalled memories which can yield clues for
understanding patients’ style of life. Adler did not consider these memories to have a causal
effect to personality.
3. Dream Analysis- is a method wherein a person’s 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.
4. Psychotherapy- the chief purpose of Adlerian psychotherapy is to enhance courage,
lessen feelings of inferiority, and encourage social interest. Through the use of humor and
warmth, Adler tried to increase the patient’s courage, self-esteem, and social interest. He
believed that a warm, nurturing attitude by the therapist encourages patients to expand their
social interest.
Adler innovated a unique method of therapy with problem children by treating them in
front of an audience of parents, teachers, and health professionals. He believed that this
procedure would enhance children’s social interest by allowing them to feel that they
belong to a community of concerned adults.
 
PART III. CARL JUNG’S ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
 
I. OVERVIEW OF INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY
 
Analytic psychology rests on the assumption that occult phenomena can and do
influence the lives of everyone. Jung believed that each of us is motivated not only by
repressed experiences but also by certain emotionally toned experiences inherited from
our ancestors.
According to Jung, the human personality is imbedded in the past, present and future; it
consists of conscious and unconscious elements, masculine and feminine traits, rational
and irrational impulses, spiritualistic and animalistic tendencies and tendency to bring
all these contradicting behavior into harmony with each other. Self-actualization is
achieved when such harmony exists. But self-actualization must be sought. It does not
happen automatically. Jung also emphasized that religion is a major vehicle in the
journey towards self-actualization
II. JUNG’S PRINCIPLES
 
A. POLARITY PRINCIPLES
After many years of study, Carl Jung became convinced that the entire world and
perhaps the universe exist because of opposition. There is and always must be opposites, and
opposites beget conflict. Without conflict, life is nothing. Conflict strongly generates
progress or movement. Let us now discuss some of the polarities of our personality.

1. Regression vs. Progression

Jung believed that personality either goes forward or goes backward. Progression
obviously connotes movement forward, and such movement further connotes some kind of
change which is beneficial to personality. While in regression or backward movement, a
man attains goals by returning to a previous position, reorienting himself, and possibly
finding a better pathway than the first to attain the hoped- for goal (Bischof, 1970).
 
  
2. Personal unconscious vs. Collective unconscious
The personal unconscious refers to all the previous conscious materials which are now not
available to the conscious mind because it has been forgotten or repressed.
On the other hand, collective unconscious refers to those unconscious materials which were
never repressed out of consciousness. Instead, we were born with this unconscious material, and it is
basically the same for all people (Burger, 1986 
3. Conscious vs. Unconscious
In Jung’s theory, conscious corresponds to our ego- it is concerned with thinking, feeling,
remembering, and perceiving. However, it does not operate alone, for there is much byplay between it
and the two areas of unconscious.
4. Extraversion vs. Introversion
According to Jung, personality moves in two different directions, either extraverted or
introverted. The extraverted personality moves in the direction of people while introverted
personality moves in the opposite direction; an individual who is introvert is quiet and free from
people.
 
5. Anima vs. Animus
Anima is the feminine characteristic of males while animus is the masculine characteristics of females.
 
6. Physical energy vs. Psychic Energy
In Freud’s term, libido is the energy that fuels sex drive but Jung did not consider the term to mean
primarily sexual energy. Instead, this is a wellspring (source) of energy in general. From the libido emerge
two types of energy; psyche and physical. The polarity of physical energy (walking, muscular working, etc.)
to psychic energy (thinking, feeling, perceiving, etc.) creates reciprocal which keeps the individual somewhat
in balance between the poles.
 
7. Organic needs vs. cultural needs
The organic needs are the primary demands to maintain life like eating, sleeping, and eliminating while
cultural needs include reading, creating art forms, pursuing hobbies, worship, etc.
8. Sublimation vs. Repression
Frustration can be expressed into two directions; In upward direction, frustration
can be expressed in a socially acceptable manner and can be pursued openly- this is
the process called sublimation. In the downward direction, it can be expressed into
hidden avenues which are not always acceptable to society- this is called repression.
 
9. Causality vs. Teleology
In causality, the present behavior of an individual can be explained by what he has
been in the past. On the other hand, teleology means that the present can be
explained in terms of the future.
 
B. PRINCIPLES OF EQUIVALENCE & ENTROPY
These two principles are considered as the dynamics of our personality according
to Jung.
The principle of equivalence comes from the field of physics, the first law of
thermodynamics. Sometimes called the conservation of energy principle which states
that energy used to change the condition of some object is not lost but will reappear in
another form in another object. For instance, the energy used in the burning of an
object is not lost but transformed into the energy of heat. In man’s behavior, one’s
desire is not lost entirely it is merely directed to another objective. The desire remains
constant if it is present at all; the goals change.
 
On the other hand, principle of entropy states that the properties of one body
when placed in combination to another body that is similar in kind but different in
degree will tend to assume the characteristics of the more highly charged body.
 
C. PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES
Jung recognized various psychological types that grow out of a union of
two basic attitudes- introversion and extraversion- and four separate
functions- thinking, feeling, seeing, and intuiting.
 
Attitude- it refers to the predisposition to act or react in a characteristic
direction. Carl Jung insisted that each person has both an introverted and an
extraverted attitude. Introverts are tuned into their inner world with all its
biases, fantasies, dreams, and individualized perceptions. On the other
hands, extraverts are more influenced by their surroundings than by their
inner world.
 
Functions-both introversion and extraversion can combine with any one or more of four
functions, forming eight possible orientations, or types. The four functions are all necessary
for man’s mind to perform if he is to know and live in this world. The illogical and
nonrational mental functions are intuition and sensation. The logical and rational functions are
feeling and thinking.
 
1. Intuition- hunches about past or future events when factual information is not available.
Example, a student makes a decision and is unable to give reasons for it, he is often said to
have acted intuitively.
2. Sensation- seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. Sensation detects the presence of
things. It indicates that something there but does not indicate what it is.
3. Feeling- the value an individual places upon a person, place, or event. It tells whether a
thing acceptable or unacceptable. If determined what a thing is worth to the individual. It
pertains to liking and disliking.
4. Thinking- tells what a thing is. It gives names to things that are sensed.
D. Stages of Development
 
Jung grouped the stages of life into four general periods- childhood, youth, middle life,
and old age. He compared the trip through life to the journey of the sun through the sky,
with the brightness of the sun representing consciousness.
Childhood- the early morning sun, full of potential but still lacking in brilliance
(consciousness).
Youth- the morning sun, climbing toward the zenith, but unaware of the impending
decline.
Middle life- early afternoon sun, brilliant like the late morning sun, but obviously
headed for the sunset.
Old age- the evening sun, its once bright consciousness now markedly dimmed.
 
 

E. Other important terms/ concepts in the theory of Jung

 
Archetypes- the name given to the kind of image from his collective unconscious that
man uses frequently. Examples of archetypes are the following:
Great mother- represents two opposing forces- fertility and nourishment on the one
hand and power and destruction on the other.
Wise old man- this is the archetype of wisdom and meaning. The wise old man
archetype is personified in dreams as father, grandfather, teacher, philosopher, guru,
doctor, or priest.
Hero- this archetype is represented in mythology and legends as a powerful person,
sometimes part god, who fights against great odds to conquer or vanquish evil in the
form of dragons, monsters, serpents, or demons.
 
Mandala – is a symbol of the self. It is a Sanskrit word means “circle”. The self is
thought to be at the many polarities that make up the psyche.
Synchronicity – meaningful coincidence, when one fantasizes an event and the event
occurs.
The Persona – is the Greek Word for “mask: or “one’s public self”. The Persona
archetype develops because of one’s need to play a role in society. This is part of our
psyche by which we are known by other people.
The Shadow – is the darkness and deepest part of our personality. It is the part of the
collective unconscious that we inherited from our pre-human ancestors and contains all
animal instincts.
The Self – Is the component of the psyche that attempts to harmonize all the other
components. It is a person striving for unity, wholeness, and integration of the total
personality.
Self-realization (individuation)- the process of becoming an individual or whole
PART IV. ERIK H. ERIKSON’S EGO PSYCHOLOGY/ POST-FREUDIAN
THEORY

I. OVERVIEW OF ERIK ERIKSON’S EGO PSYCHOLOGY/ POST-FREUDIAN

THEORY
 
Same with Freud, Erikson also believed that childhood experiences shape our
personality later in life but the latter holds that personality is still flexible throughout the
adult years. He states that failure at an early stage jeopardizes a full development at a
later stage but fulfillment in any one stage does not automatically guarantee success.
 
The theory was termed ego psychology since Erikson held that ego is a positive force
that creates a self-identity, sense of “I.” As the center of our personality, our ego helps us
adapt to the various conflicts and crises of life and keeps us from losing our individuality
to the leveling forces of society.
 
B . ERIKSON’S PSYCHO-SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTAL
STAGES
 
Erikson presented each of eight psychosocial stages as a
polarity, with a positive pole representing successful
development at that stage and a negative pole representing
unsuccessful development. Erikson did not see these stages as
fixed or rigid. Same with Freud, he also believed on the
assumption that the “The child is the father of the man”. The
table in the next page shows the 8 stages of Erikson’s
psychosocial development.(See page 19)
 
 Stage Age Features
1. Trust vs Birth to 1 Whether children come to trust or mistrust themselves and other people
Mistrust year depends on the social care and comfort the primary caregiver has provided.
(Infancy)  If infants’ needs  If care is inadequate, inconsistent
are met, and are or negative, he approaches the
shown genuine world with fear and suspicion
affection they
think the world is
safe and
dependable.
2. Autonomy 1-3 years During this stage, society creates on children a new conflict, that is whether to
vs Shame assert their will or not.
and Doubt  When parents are  When children are not allowed
(Early patient, accepting such freedom and are over-
childhood) and encouraging, protected, they may doubt their
children acquire a ability to deal with the
sense of environment.
independence and
competence.
3. Initiative vs 3-6 years At this stage, children gain greater freedom in exploring their environment and
Guilt often attempt tasks that parents do not approve.
(Play  Parents who allow  Parents who curtail this freedom
age) their children and make the children feel their
freedom to activities are pointless and a
explore and nuisance, children become passive
master new tasks and feel guilty about doing things
are allowing them on their own.
to develop
initiative

4. Industry vs 6-12 years This period reflects the determination of children to master what they are
Inferiority doing so that they develop a successful sense of modesty industry.
(School  Parents, teachers  Those who ignore, rebuff, deride
age) who support, children’s effort are strengthening
reward and praise feelings of inferiority.
children are
encouraging and
help in developing
children’s sense of
industry.
5. Identity vs 12-20 As young adults, they seek independence from parents, achieve physical
Role years maturity and are concerned about what kind of persons they are becoming.
Confusion  Seeking to find an  When the adolescent fails to
identity, develop a sense of identity, he/she
adolescents try on
1. Identity vs 12-20 As young adults, they seek independence from parents, achieve physical
Role years maturity and are concerned about what kind of persons they are becoming.
Confusion  Seeking to find an  When the adolescent fails to
(Adolesc identity, develop a sense of identity, he/she
ence & adolescents try on experiences role confusion or a
Puberty) many new roles. If ”negative identity.”
they experience
continuity in their
perception of self,
identity develops.
2. Intimacy vs 20-40- Young adults reach out and make contact with other people and to fuse one’s
Isolation years identity with that of others to develop intimate relationship.
(Young  Central to  Failure to establish close and intimate
adulthood) intimacy relationship results to a feeling of isolation.
is the
ability to
share with
and care
for others.
3. Generativity 40-65 This stage involves having a sense of productivity and creativity.
vs  Generativity: Has  Stagnation- condition in which individuals are n
Stagnation to do with parental meaning and purpose in life and have little inter
(Adultho responsibility, improvement or in making contributions to soci
od) interest in
producing, and
guiding the next
generation. Entails
selflessness.
4. Integrity vs Old Age The stage of facing reality, recognizing and accepting other. Individuals in
Despair to Death self-improvement or in making contributions to society taking stock of the
(Old age) years that have gone before.
 Some feel a sense  Others experience despair, feeling
of satisfaction that the time is too short for an
with their life’s attempt to start another life and to
accomplishment, try out alternative roads to
achieving a sense integrity.
of integrity
Erikson’s Eight Basic Virtues
 
The following are the 8 basic virtues in relation to the 8 stages of psychosocial development:
Hope is the enduring belief in the obtainability of fervent wishes, in spite of the dark urges and rages which
mark the beginning of existence.
 
Will is the unbroken determination to exercise free choice as well as self-restraint, in spite of the unavoidable
experience of shame and doubts.

Purpose is the courage to envisage and pursue valued goals uninhibited by the defeat of infantile fantasies, by
guilt and by the foiling fear of punishment.

Competence is the free exercise of dexterity and intelligence in their completion of tasks, unimpaired by
infantile inferiority

Fidelity is the ability to sustain loyalties freely pledged in spite of the inevitable contradictions of value systems

Love is mutuality of devotion forever subduing that antagonism inherent in divided function.
 
Care is the widening concern for what has been generated by love, necessity, or accident; it overcomes the
ambivalence adhering to irreversible obligation.
Wisdom is detached concern with life itself, in the face of death itself. (Erikson, 1963)
 
OVERVIEW OF PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL THEORY
The psychoanalytic social theory of Karen Horney was built on the assumption
that social and cultural conditions, especially childhood experiences, are largely
responsible for shaping personality. People who do not have their needs for love
and affection satisfied during childhood develop basic hostility toward their
parents and, as a consequence, suffer from basic anxiety. Horney theorized that
people combat basic anxiety by adopting one of three fundamental styles of
relating to others: (1) moving toward people, (2) moving against people, or (3)
moving away from people. Normal individuals may use any of these modes of
relating to other people, but neurotics are compelled to rigidly rely on only one.
Although Horney’s writings are concerned mostly with the neurotic personality,
many of her ideas can also be applied to normal individuals. This part looks at
Horney’s basic theory of neurosis, compares her ideas to those of Freud,
examines her views on feminine psychology
II. HORNEY’S PRINCIPLES
 
In her emphasis on social influences, Horney contributed to the psychoanalytic approach in
two key areas: neurosis and feminine psychology.
 
 
A. NEUROSIS
Neurosis is defined as a mild mental disorder that affects one aspect of personality.
According to Horney, neurosis is developed due the disturbed interpersonal relationship during
childhood. Specifically, she believed that parents who fail to provide the proper environment
for their children will create feelings of anxiety, “the feeling a child had of being isolated and
helpless in a potentially hostile world”.
The parent can generate feelings of anxiety that can lead to neurosis by means of the
following: (direct or indirect domination; indifference or lack of reliable warmth erratic
(inconsistent) behavior; lack of respect for the child’s individual needs; lack of real guidance;
disparaging (disapproving) attitude; too much admiration or the absence of it; too much or too
little responsibility; over-protection; isolation from other children; injustice; discrimination;
unkept promises; and hostile atmosphere)
 
Ten Neurotic Needs

The table below illustrates the ten needs from which Horney evolved her three basic
adjustment techniques or styles. These needs are the result of the disturbed interpersonal
relationship specifically the parent-child relationship. All personalities have these needs to some
extent. The neurotic has them to an overpowering degree.

Neurotic Needs Salient Feature Tendency of moving in

relation to people
1.The neurotic need for affection Live to please others and win Toward
and approval love
2. The neurotic need for a Attach themselves to a Toward
powerful partner powerful partner
3. The neurotic need to restrict They tend to be contended Away from
one’s life with very little. They
downgrade their own abilities
and dread making demands
on others
4. The neurotic need for power The need to control others Against
and to avoid feelings of
weakness or stupidity

5. The neurotic need to exploit The need to win at games, Against

others always be dominant
6. The neurotic need for social The need to be recognized Against
recognition or prestige and attract attention to
themselves
7. The neurotic need for personal The need to be admired for Against
admiration what they are rather than for
they possess
8. The neurotic need for ambition Have a consuming desire to Against
in personal achievement be rich, famous, important
regardless of cost to self and
others
9. The neurotic need for self- Go to extreme lengths to Away from
sufficiency and independence avoid being obligated to
anyone
10. The neurotic need for They strive relentlessly for Away from
perfection and unassailability perfection, they dread making
mistakes
The Neurotic Trends
Horney originally identified four general ways that people protect themselves against the
feeling alone in a potentially hostile world. This includes affection, submissiveness, power,
and withdrawal. As her theory evolved, she began to see that the list of 10 neurotic needs
could be grouped into three general categories, each relating to a person’s basic attitude
toward self and others.
In 1945, Horney identified the three basic attitudes, or neurotic trends enumerated and
discussed below.
1. Moving toward People (helplessness)
One approach to dealing with neurotic anxiety is to emphasize one’s helplessness.
People who employ this style become extremely dependent on others, compulsively seeking
affection and acceptance. A person who relies on this style “needs to be liked, wanted,
desired, loved; to feel accepted, welcomed, approved of, appreciated; to be needed, to be of
importance to others, especially to one particular person; to be helped, protected, taken
care of, guided.”
In terms of relationship, people using this style don not love; they cling. They do not
give; they only take. They do not share affection; they demand it. The slogan that best
identifies this style is “If you love me, you will not hurt me”.
2.Moving against people (hostility)
If one way of handling anxiety is to cling to others, another way is to fight. Some children find that aggressiveness
and hostility are the best means of dealing with a poor home environment. This hostility includes need to exploit others,
to take advantage of weaknesses in others, to be in control, to be powerful.
 
This style is characterized by Horney as externalization (similar to Freud’s projection), that is, the belief that all
people are basically hostile and out to get what they can.
 
Relationships with neurotic people who use this style are necessarily shallow, unfulfilling, and ultimately painful.
They regard love and other such emotions as silly and sentimental; they enter into relationships only when there is
something to be gained. The individual who uses this technique says “If I have power, no one can hurt me.”
 
3.Moving away from people (isolation)
Instead of dealing with others in a dependent or hostile manner, the child may choose to reduce anxiety by being self-
sufficient and independent. The desire for privacy is very strong. Such people usually find a job requiring little interaction
with others; in general, they avoid affection, love, sympathy, and friendship.
 
This is certainly the wrong kind of person to fall in love with- affection cannot be returned; it is not even felt. Thus, for
both participants, the relationship will be shallow and unrewarding. People using this style say “If I withdraw, nothing can
hurt me.”
 
 
Intrapsychic Conflicts
The neurotic trends flow from basic anxiety, which in turn, stems from a child’s relationships with other
people. To this point, our emphasis has been on culture and interpersonal conflict. However, Horney did not
neglect the impact of intrapsychic factors in the development of personality. As her theory evolved, she began to
place greater emphasis on the inner conflicts that both normal and neurotic individuals experience.
This section looks at two important intrapsychic conflicts: the idealized self-image and self-hatred.
 
The Idealized Self-Image - an extravagantly positive view of themselves with infinite powers and unlimited
capabilities; they see themselves as “a hero, a genius, a supreme lover, a saint, a god.” Horney recognized the
following three aspects of the idealized image:
1. Neurotic search for glory- it is comprehensive drive toward actualizing the ideal self. As neurotics come
to believe in the reality of their idealized self, they begin to incorporate it into all aspects of their lives- their
goals, their self-concept, and their relations with others. This includes three elements: the need for perfection,
neurotic ambition, and the drive toward a vindictive triumph.
2. Neurotic claims- a belief that something is wrong with the outside world, they proclaim that they are
special and therefore entitled to be treated in accordance with their idealized view of themselves.
3. Neurotic pride- a false pride based not on a realistic view of the true self but on a spurious image of the
idealized self.
 
Self-Hatred- it is the outcome when the neurotics realized that their self does not match
the insatiable demands of their idealized self. Horney (1950) recognized six major ways
in which people express self-hatred as follows: relentless demands on the self, merciless
self-accusation, self-contempt, self-frustration, self-torment, and self-destructive actions
and impulses.

B. FEMININE PSYCHOLOGY
As a psychoanalyst in the 1930s, Horney found herself a woman in a man’s world. Many of her initial
doubts about Freud’s theory began when Horney found she couldn’t agree with some of Freud’s disparaging
views of women.
For an instance, Freud maintained that the essence of female development could be found in the concept
of penis envy, the desire of every young girl to be a boy. Horney countered this male-flattering position with
the concept of womb envy, which maintains that men are jealous of women’s ability to bear and nurse
children. Horney did not suggest that men are therefore dissatisfied with themselves, but rather she argued
that each sex has attributes that the other admires. She did suggest, however, that men compensate for their
inability to have children through achievement in other domains.
OVERVIEW OF INTERPERSONAL THEORY
 
Harry Stack Sullivan, the first American to construct a comprehensive personality theory, believed
that people develop their personality within a social context. Without other people, Sullivan contended,
humans would have no personality. “A personality can never be isolated from the complex of
interpersonal relations in which the person lives and has his being” (Sullivan, 1953).
 
Sullivan insisted that knowledge of human personality can be gained only through the scientific
study of interpersonal relations. His interpersonal theory emphasizes the importance of various
developmental stages- infancy, childhood, juvenile era, preadolescence, early adolescence, late
adolescence, and adulthood.
 
In many ways, Sullivan’s theory is dramatically different from Freud. In fact, some writers prefer to
place Sullivan’s theory in a category other than psychoanalytic approach. His rejection of many Freud’s
concepts and his emphasis on the interpersonal nature of personality places Sullivan’s approach
somewhere between that of the psychoanalysis and that of the social learning theorists.
II. SULLIVAN’S PRINCIPLES/ CONCEPTS
Some of the important and interesting concepts proposed by Sullivan are discussed
below
A. Tension- it refers to the potentiality for action that may or may not be experienced in
awareness. Thus, not all tensions are consciously felt. Sullivan recognized two types of
tensions: needs and anxiety.
Needs- there are tensions brought on by biological imbalance between a person and
physiochemical environment, both inside and outside the organism. Although needs originally
have a biological component, many of them stem from the interpersonal situation. For
Sullivan, the most basic interpersonal need is tenderness.
General needs- facilitate the overall well-being of a person which includes
interpersonal and physiological needs
Zonal needs- arise from a particular area of the body which includes oral, genital, and
manual.
Anxiety- it is the chief disruptive force blocking the development of healthy interpersonal
relations. Severe anxiety makes people incapable of learning, impairs memory, narrows
perception, and may even result in complete amnesia. Because anxiety is painful, people have
a natural tendency to avoid it, inherently preferring the state of euphoria, or complete lack of
tension.
Anxiety- it is the chief disruptive force blocking the development of healthy interpersonal
relations. Severe anxiety makes people incapable of learning, impairs memory, narrows
perception, and may even result in complete amnesia. Because anxiety is painful, people
have a natural tendency to avoid it, inherently preferring the state of euphoria, or
complete lack of tension.
B. Energy Transformations- these are the tensions that are transformed into actions,
either overt or covert. This somewhat awkward term simply refers to our behaviors that
are aimed at satisfying needs and reducing anxiety- the two great tensions.

C. Personifications– a mental image we have of other people and of ourselves.

Personifications need not to correspond to reality, for the importance of how they
influence our interactions with others lies in the individually different way in which we
conceive of the other person.
Sullivan believed that people acquire certain images of self and others throughout the
developmental stages, and he referred to these subjective perceptions as personifications.
Some of these personifications are the following:
 
1. Bad-Mother, Good-Mother
The bad-mother personification grows out of infant’s experiences with a nipple that does not satisfy their
hunger needs. All infants experience the bad-mother personification, even though their real mothers may be loving and
nurturing. Later, infants acquire a good-mother personification as they become mature enough to recognize the tender
and cooperative behavior of their mothering one. Still later, these two personifications combine to form a complex and
contrasting image of the real mother.
 
2. Me Personifications
The most noteworthy of the personifications are those related to the self. According to Sullivan, we all form
images of ourselves, and these images fall into three basic categories:
 
1. The good- me personification- consists of those aspects of ourselves that we feel good about, that have been
rewarded in the past, and that are not associated with anxiety.
 
2. The bad-me personification- reflects those parts of our experiences that we would rather not think about, that
have not been rewarded, and that have associated with anxiety.
 
3. The not-me personification- represents those aspects of ourselves which are so threatening that we dissociate
them from the self- system and maintain them in our unconscious. This process of dissociation is similar to
Freud’s concept of repression.
1. Eidetic Personifications
One of Sullivan’s most interesting observations was that people often create
imaginary traits that they project onto others. Included in these eidetic personifications are
the imaginary playmates that preschool-aged children often have. These imaginary
friends enable children to have a safe, secure relationship with another person, even
though that person is imaginary.
 
Malevolence- the disjunctive dynamism of evil and hatred is called malevolence, defined by
Sullivan as a feeling of living among one’s enemies. Those children who become malevolent
have much difficulty giving and receiving tenderness or being intimate with other people.
 
Intimacy- the conjunctive dynamism marked by a close personal relationship between two
people of equal status is called intimacy. Intimacy facilitates interpersonal development while
decreasing both anxiety and loneliness. Intimacy must not be confused with sexual interest. In
fact, it develops prior to puberty.
 
Lust- in contrast to both malevolence and intimacy, lust is an isolating dynamism. That is, lust
is a self-centered need that can be satisfied in the absence of an intimate interpersonal
relationship. In other words, although intimacy presupposes tenderness or love, lust is based
solely on sexual gratification and requires no other person for its satisfaction.
 Self-System- the most inclusive of all dynamisms is the self-system, or that pattern of
behaviors that protects us against anxiety and maintains our interpersonal security. The self
system is a conjunctive dynamism, but because its primary job is to protect the self
from anxiety, it tends to stifle personality change. Experiences that are inconsistent with our
self-system threaten our security and necessitate our use of security operations, which consist
of behaviors designed to reduce interpersonal tensions. One such security operation
is dissociation, which includes all those experiences that we block from awareness. Another is
selective inattention, which involves blocking only certain experiences from awareness.
 
E. Levels of Cognition in Interpersonal Theory
Sullivan recognized three levels of cognition, or ways of perceiving things-
prototaxic, parataxic, and syntaxic.
 
1. Prototaxic Level
Experiences that are impossible to put into words or to communicate to others are
called prototaxic. Newborn infants experience images mostly on a prototaxic level, but
adults, too, frequently have preverbal experiences that are momentary and incapable of
being communicated.
 
 2. Parataxic Level
Experiences that are prelogical and nearly impossible to accurately communicate to
others are called parataxic. Included in these are erroneous assumptions about 
cause and effect, which Sullivan termed parataxic distortions.
 
3. Syntaxic Level become capable of syntaxic language at about 12 to 18 months
of age when words begin to have the same meaning for them that they do for others.
 
F. Stages of Development in Interpersonal Theory
Sullivan saw interpersonal development as taking place over seven stages, from infancy
to mature adulthood. Personality changes are most likely during transitions between stages.
1. Infancy (0-2 years)
The period from birth until the emergence of syntaxic language, usually at about age 18-
24 months- a time when the child receives tenderness from the mothering one while also
learning anxiety through an empathic linkage with the mother. Anxiety may increase to the
point of terror, but such terror is controlled by the built-in protections
of apathy and somnolent detachment that allow the baby to go to sleep. During infancy
children use autistic language, that is, private language that makes little or no sense to other
people.
2. Childhood (2-6 years)
The stage that lasts from the beginning of syntaxic language until the need for playmates
of equal status is called childhood. The child’s primary interpersonal relationship continues
to be with the mother, who is now differentiated from other persons who nurture the child.
Besides their parents, preschool-aged children often have one other significant relationship-
an imaginary playmate.
3. Juvenile Era (6- 8 ½ years)
The juvenile stage begins with the need for peers of equal status and continues until the
child develops a need for an intimate relationship with a chum. At this time children should
learn how to compete, to compromise, and to cooperate. These three abilities, as well as an
orientation toward living, help a child develop intimacy, the chief dynamism of the next
developmental stage.
4.Preadolescence (8 ½ - 13 years)
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PART VII. ERICH FROMM’S HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS/ SOCIAL-
ANALYTICAL
 
I. OVERVIEW OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOANALYSIS/ SOCIAL-ANALYTICAL
 
Erich Fromm’s basic thesis is that modern-day people have been torn away from their
prehistoric union with nature and with one another, yet they have the power of reasoning,
foresight, and imagination. He developed a theory of personality that emphasizes the
influence of sociobiological factors, history, economics, and class structure. His humanistic
psychoanalysis assumes that humanity’s separation from the natural world has produced
feelings of loneliness and isolation, a condition called basic anxiety.
 
According to Fromm, individual personality can be understood only in the light of human
history. “The discussion of the human situation must precede that of personality, psychology
must be based on an anthropologic-philosophical concept of human existence”.
II.FROMM’S PRINCIPLES/ CONCEPTS
 
A. Escape from Freedom and Positive Freedom
Fromm believes that we are free to be and do whatever we please. Yet it is very
freedom that creates greatest problem for us. Once we emerge on our own, we are faced
with enormous personal responsibilities, we are isolated, we are alone. Freedom can be
frightening. As Fromm said, we feel an “unbearable state of powerlessness and
aloneness.” As we become aware of our individuality, we become aware of all that we
cannot control and come painfully face-to-face with our insignificance. According to
Fromm, we have two types of responses to this situation: escape from freedom or
positive freedom.
 
Mechanisms of Escape from Freedom
The following are the three strategies people employ in an attempt to overcome the
feelings of powerlessness and anxiety that accompany freedom.
 
1. Authoritarianism- the tendency to “fuse one’s self with somebody or something
outside of oneself in order to acquire the strength which the individual self is lacking”.
Fromm describes these authoritarian characters as reflecting an ironic combination
of strivings for submission and strivings for domination, or, in Fromm’s terms,
masochism and sadism.
 
2.Destructiveness- the individual attempts to overcome life’s threatening situations by
destroying them. For example, we may say that we are fighting for love of country but in
reality we are neurotically striving to overcome the feelings of powerlessness and
isolation that threatens us all.
1. Automaton Conformity- the individual simply has a blind acceptance of all
of the contradictions of life. If he can’t beat them, he must join them. He
totally lacks any spontaneity and has no true experience of what is really his
own life.
 
Positive Freedom-it refers to spontaneous and full expression of both the
rational and emotional potentialities. Spontaneous activity is frequently seen in
small children and in artists who have little or no tendency to conform to
whatever others want them to be. They act according to their basic natures and
not according to conventional rules
III.FROMM’S PRINCIPLES/ CONCEPTS
 
A. Escape from Freedom and Positive Freedom
Fromm believes that we are free to be and do whatever we please. Yet it is very
freedom that creates greatest problem for us. Once we emerge on our own, we are faced
with enormous personal responsibilities, we are isolated, we are alone. Freedom can be
frightening. As Fromm said, we feel an “unbearable state of powerlessness and
aloneness.” As we become aware of our individuality, we become aware of all that we
cannot control and come painfully face-to-face with our insignificance. According to
Fromm, we have two types of responses to this situation: escape from freedom or positive
freedom.
 
Mechanisms of Escape from Freedom
The following are the three strategies people employ in an attempt to overcome the feelings of powerlessness and
anxiety that accompany freedom.
 
1. Authoritarianism- the tendency to “fuse one’s self with somebody or something outside of oneself in order to acquire
the strength which the individual self is lacking”. Fromm describes these authoritarian characters as reflecting an
ironic combination of strivings for submission and strivings for domination, or, in Fromm’s terms, masochism and
sadism.
 
2.Destructiveness- the individual attempts to overcome life’s threatening situations by destroying them. For example, we
may say that we are fighting for love of country but in reality we are neurotically striving to overcome the feelings of
powerlessness and isolation that threatens us all.
 
3.Automaton Conformity- the individual simply has a blind acceptance of all of the contradictions of life. If he can’t beat
them, he must join them. He totally lacks any spontaneity and has no true experience of what is really his own life.
 
Positive Freedom-it refers to spontaneous and full expression of both the rational and emotional potentialities.
Spontaneous activity is frequently seen in small children and
Nonproductive Orientations
1. Receptive characters- feel that the source of all good lies outside themselves and that the
only way they can relate to the world is to receive things, including love, knowledge, and
material possessions.
2. Exploitative characters- aggressively take what they desire rather than passively receive it.
3. Hoarding- seeks to save that which they have already obtained. People with this orientation
hold everything inside and do not let go of anything.
4. Marketing character- see themselves as commodities, with their personal value dependent
on their exchange value, that is, their ability to sell themselves.
Productive Orientations
The single productive orientation has three dimensions- working, loving, and reasoning.
Healthy people value work not as an end in itself, but as a means of creative self-expression.
Productive love is characterized by care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. In addition to
these four characteristics, healthy people possess biophilia: that is, a passionate love of life
and all that is alive. Finally, productive thinking is motivated by a concerned interest in
another person or object.
C. Fromm’s Concept of LOVE
In the final analysis of man’s troubled existence, Fromm fervently feels that the answer to the problem is the
capacity of man to love. According to him, love is an art, it requires the effort and knowledge the other types of art
demand. Love is an active process in which we establish individuality. It is in genuine love, said Fromm, that we
find the paradox “two beings become one yet remain two”.
In his popular book entitled “The Art of Loving” , Fromm identified care, responsibility, respect, and
knowledge
as four basic elements common to all forms of genuine love. He proposes five types of love. They are
described below:
1. Brotherly love- the most fundamental, the strongest, and the most underlying kind of love. It is a love between
equals.
2. Motherly love- the love and care for the helpless, the wanting to make them strong and independent.
3. Erotic love- usually allied with sexual experience, a “craving for complete function,” and is what most consider
the only kind of love. It is exclusive and inclined toward jealousy.
4. Self-love-
5.Love of God-care, responsibility,
has the highest value,respect, and desirable
is the most knowledge of self.
good, and emphasizes care, respect, responsibility, and specially
knowledge.
D. Fromm’s Five Existential/ Human Needs
1. Transcendence- to go above being just an animal, to improve and learn,
to increase in material things.
2. Sense of Identity-capacity to be aware of ourselves as a separate entity.
3. Rootedness-the need to establish roots or to feel at home again in the
world.
4. Frame of orientation-the need for road map to make their way through
the world.
5. Relatedness- feeling of oneness with fellow men and with self. Fromm
postulated three basic ways in which a person may relate to the world: (1)
submission, (2) power, and (3) love.
 Behavioral-Social Approach
Part I. BEHAVIORISM (John B. Watson)

In 1913 a young psychologist named John B. Watson published an article entitled “Psychology as
the Behaviorist View It,” which signaled the beginning of a new movement in psychology- behaviorism.
By 1924, with the publication of Behaviorism, Watson had made significant progress in his effort to
redefine the discipline of psychology.
 
Watson argued that if psychology was to be a science, psychologists must stop their efforts to
examine mental states. He claimed that researchers who concerned themselves with such things as
consciousness, the mind, and thoughts were not engaging in legitimate scientific study. Watson argued
that only the observable could be reasonable subject matter for a science. Because subjective feelings
cannot be objectively observed, they have no place in an objective science. What, then, was the
appropriate subject matter for psychologists? Watson’s answer was overt behavior- that which can be
observed, predicted, and eventually controlled by the scientist (Burger, 1986).
To illustrate behaviorism, Watson conducted an experiment using Baby Albert as a subject. Below
is the sequence of Watson’s experiment.
 
 
Before Conditioning
Stimulus Response
White Rat No fear
Noise Fear
 
During Conditioning (Repeated pairing)
White Rat-Noise- FEAR
 
After Conditioning
White Rat- FEAR
Part II. OPERANT CONDITIONING (Burrhus F. Skinner)

It is the use of consequence/s to form or modify the occurrence of behavior. To illustrate

the theory of Skinner, he conducted an experiment using rat as a subject. Below is the narration of
his experiment.

B.F. Skinner devised a box which is called “SKINNER’S BOX”. In the box, there is push a
button and food pellets inside a food dispenser. Then, he put hungry rat inside the box and
since its hungry-the rat was restless and was moving around the box. Accidentally, the rat
pushed the button, then food pellet appears from the food dispenser. And since, the rat was
hungry he repeatedly push the button to get food pellets.

The experiment shows that the rat learned to push the button because of the food pellets
coming from the food dispenser. Therefore, the behavior of the rat was formed or modified because
of a specific consequence/ reinforcement. For better understanding of this theory, let us discuss
the four procedures of operant conditioning.
Four Procedures of Operant Conditioning
 
1. Positive reinforcement- it occurs when the behavior is followed by a favorable stimulus.
2. Negative reinforcement- it occurs when the behavior is followed by the removal of aversive/ unfavorable stimulus.
3. Positive punishment- it occurs when the behavior is followed by unfavorable/ aversive stimulus.
4. Negative punishment- it occurs when the behavior is followed by the removal of favorable stimulus.
 
Schedules of Reinforcement
 
A reinforcement schedule is simply a rule that states under what conditions a reinforcer will be delivered. There are four
schedules of reinforcement.
 
5. Fixed Ratio- in this schedule, a fixed number of responses must be made before the reward is administered. For example, a
factory worker is paid PhP20.00 for every 12 shirt collars sewed. Thus, he or she is paid on FR12 schedule (Dela Cruz &
Lee-Chua, 2008).
 
2.Variable Ratio- the number of responses determines the delivery of reinforcement; but the ratio changes from reinforcement
to reinforcement. Slot machines are set to pay-off according to a variable-ratio schedule. A variable-ratio schedule keeps people
coming back and guessing the next pay-off will be.
 
3.Fixed Interval- in this schedule, the reinforcement will be delivered after a specified passage of time. For example, salaried
employees who receive their paycheck every week is reinforced on an FI schedule.
 
4.Variable Interval- in this schedule, the length of time is varied or unspecified before the delivery of the
reinforcement. For example, you are waiting for the bus to arrive. After 5 minutes the bus does arrive. Then
another bus arrives after 10 minutes, then the next after 15 minutes.
 
Shaping
 
One of the problems encountered when working with operant conditioning is that the desired behavior
must be emitted before it can be reinforced. A psychologist could wait a long time for a rat to press a bar by
chance, and just as long again for that rat, even after being reinforced, to do it again. The psychologist in this
case would probably use a technique called shaping, in which successive approximations of the desired
behavior are reinforced.
For example in the classroom, shaping can be used with children who have behavioral problems.
Hyperactive children typically have difficulty paying attention in class and cannot stay in their seats for a very
long time. Through shaping, a child can be reinforced with a star, a token, or stickers for staying in his seat for
a few seconds. In subsequent days, the child can be reinforced for staying in his seat for progressively longer
and longer periods of time (20 seconds, 30 seconds, one minute, and so on). Finally, the child is reinforced
only for staying in his seat for the entire class period. Thus, shaping involves reinforcing behaviors until the
desired behavior finally
SKINNER’S VIEW OF THE UNHEALTHY PERSONALITY
Unfortunately, the techniques of social control and self-control sometimes produce
detrimental effects, which result in inappropriate behavior and unhealthy personality
development.
Counteracting Strategies
When social control is excessive, people can use three basic strategies for counteracting
it- they can escape, revolt, or use passive resistance (Skinner, 1953).
Scape- people withdraw from the controlling agent either physically or psychologically.
People who counteract by escape find it difficult to become involved in intimate personal
relationships, tend to be mistrustful of people and prefer to live lonely lives of
noninvolvement.
Revolt- people using this strategy behave more actively, counterattacking the controlling
agent. They can rebel through vandalizing public property, tormenting teachers, verbally
abusing other people, and the like.
Passive resistance- the conspicuous feature of this strategy is stubbornness. For example,
a child with homework to do finds a dozen of excuses why it cannot be
 
Inappropriate Behaviors
Inappropriate behaviors follow from self-defeating techniques of
counteracting social control or from unsuccessful attempts at self-control,
especially when either of these failures is accompanied by strong emotions.
These behaviors include excessively vigorous behavior, which makes no
sense in terms of the contemporary situation, but might be reasonable in
terms of past history; and excessively restrained behavior, which people use
as a means of avoiding the aversive stimuli associated with punishment.
Another type of inappropriate behaviors is blocking out reality by simply
paying no attention to aversive stimuli.
Part III. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING (Ivan Pavlov)
Classical conditioning is a process in which an unconditioned stimulus is repeatedly paired
with a conditioned stimulus until the conditioned stimulus comes to elicit a response without the
presentation of the unconditioned stimulus.
This theory is also illustrated by an experiment conducted by Ivan Pavlov.

Before Conditioning
Stimulus Response
Bell (CS) No salivation
Meat powder (US) Salivation

During Conditioning (Repeated pairing)

Bell-meat powder- Salivation

After Conditioning
Bell- Salivation (CR)

The dog learned to salivate because of the repeated associations of bell and meat powder.
Therefore, a behavior can also be learned by means of this process called conditioning. As stated
by Burger, we are probably not aware of all the associations we make by pairing stimuli in our
everyday environments. Research suggests that preferences in food, clothing, and even friends can
be influenced through this process.
 
Extinction: Weakening Conditioned Responses
What happens if the CS repeatedly occurs without the US? What would happen if Pavlov exposed the dog to the bell without the mea
powder? The response would gradually weaken and be eventually eliminated, and extinction would take place.
 
For example, as a young child, you might have learned to fear going to the dentist’s office. You learned this fear (CR) because yo
associated the dentist’s office (CS) with pain (UR) when the dentist filled your tooth (US). However, as you grew up, you went to the dentist on
number of occasions but did not experience pain. Subsequently, your childhood fear of dental offices was extinguished (Dela Cruz & Lee-Chua
2008)
Spontaneous Recovery: Recovering Conditioned Responses
 
Pavlov observed that after extinction was completed and the dog was returned to the experimental chamber where the CS was presente
again, salivation, which was previously extinguished, reappeared. Pavlov called this reappearance of conditioned behavior spontaneous recover
and treated it as evidence that the CS-US association is not permanently destroyed in an extinction procedure. The phenomenon of spontaneou
recovery shows that the CR was not unlearned during extinction, but was being actively inhibited by the organism.
 
An example of spontaneous recovery in real life is when a child who has ceased to be afraid of the dental office in the last few visit
becomes afraid again after a new experience.
Generalization and Discrimination
 
Pavlov found that CRs occur not only when confronted by the CS during training, but also in the face of similar
stimuli. This phenomenon is called stimulus generalization. In the experiment, for instance, the dog generalized his response to other similar
sounds like buzzer.
On the other hand, if you condition a dog to salivate to a conditioned stimulus such as a circle, and present another stimulus such as
circle, and present another stimulus such as an ellipse, but never reinforce the response in the presence of an ellipse, the dog will respond to th
circle but not to the ellipse. This phenomenon is called stimulus discrimination, the learned tendency to respond to the stimulus used in training.
Part IV. SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY (Albert Bandura)
Social cognitive theory is learning by observing the behavior of others. Bandura proposes
that human beings are capable of creating their own standards of performance that can serve to
guide behavior in the absence of any external sources of reinforcement.
Bandura believes that new behaviors are acquired through two major kinds of learning:
observational learning and enactive learning. To illustrate the theory of Bandura, take a look on
the experiment he conducted in the table below.

Bandura gathered 4-6 year old nursery children in a

room with television. He let the children watch a
film, in the film, an adult model is aggressive to the
Bobo doll- an adult-sized plastic doll. The adult
model sat, punched, kicked, and threw rubber ball
to the Bobo doll. The film has 3 endings:
1. Model-reward condition- the adult model
was given a candy and softdrinks.
2. Model-punish condition- the adult model
was slapped with a rolled newspaper.
3. No consequence condition- the film was
ended with the aggressive actions of the
model to the Bobo doll.

In order to determine if the children will imitate the

action of the adult model, Bandura gathered the
children in a playroom with Bodo doll like dolls and
instruments that maybe used to hit the Bobo doll.
Bandura found-out that most children copied the
aggressive behavior of the adult model to the Bobo
doll.
 
factors determine whether imitative behavior will occur:
 
Attentional processes. The learner must pay attention to the appropriate features of the model’s
behavior for learning to occur.
 
Retentional processes. The individual must retain some of the information gained through observation
if imitation is to occur at a later time. It is at this stage that rehearsal may be important. Observational
learning in humans involves two representational systems- an imaginal and a verbal one.
 
Motor reproductive processes. The learner must know cognitively and roughly what are to be done,
but may be relatively unskilled at performing the task itself. The individual must be able to translate
some general knowledge into a coordinated pattern of muscle movements. When a learner already
possesses the required motor skills, the translation of knowledge into action poses no problem.
 
Incentive and motivational processes. The first three processes are the only ones necessary for an
individual to acquire the capability to perform some new behavior. Without the appropriate incentive,
however, the behavior may not occur. According to Bandura (1977), the individual must have an
expectation that the performance of the new behavior will result in some type of reinforcement.
SELF-EFFICACY
In an extension of Bandura’s social learning theory, he introduces the concept of self-
efficacy- the belief that one can have an impact on one’s environment- to account for
psychological changes that come about from a variety of treatments (Bandura, 1977). For
Bandura, a self-efficacious individual is one who believes that he or she can master a
situation so that it will lead to positive outcomes.
 
What Contributes to Self-Efficacy?
Personal efficacy is acquired, enhanced, or decreased through anyone or combination of
the following four sources:
1. mastery experiences;
2. social modeling;
3. social persuasion; and
4. physical and emotional states.
 
behavior. Bandura believes that people use both reactive and proactive strategies for self-
regulation. That is, they reactively attempt to reduce the discrepancies between their
accomplishments and their goal; but after they clos those discrepancies, they proactively set
newer and higher goals for themselves.
Self-Regulation through Moral Agency
People also regulate their actions through moral standards of conduct. Bandura sees moral
agency as having two aspects:
1. doing no harm to people
2. proactively helping people
Self-regulatory influences are not automatic but operate only if they are activated, a
concept Bandura calls selective activation. By justifying the morality of actions people can
separate or disengage themselves from the consequences of their behavior, a concept Bandura
calls disengagement of internal control.
The following are various mechanisms through which self-control is disengaged or
selectively deactivated:
1. redefining the behavior
2. disregarding or distorting the consequences of behavior
3. dehumanize or blame the victims
4. displace or diffuse responsibility
Triadic Reciprocal Causation
Bandura’s concept of triadic reciprocal causation assumes that behavior is
learned as a result of a mutual interaction of (1) the person, including cognition and
neurophysiological processes; (2) the environment, including interpersonal
relations and socioeconomic conditions; and (3) behavioral factors, including
previous experiences with reinforcement.
 
Part V. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY (Julian Rotter)
 
Julian Rotter is another personality theorist who found the behaviorist approach to
personality useful but questioned the narrowness of the radical behaviorist position. Like
Bandura, Rotter concluded that the principles used to explain the behavior of lower
animals are too limited to cover complex human behaviors.
 
Like any behaviorist model of personality, Rotter’s social learning theory predicts
responses to particular situations. Unlike Skinner, however, Rotter includes cognitive
variables in his model. He argues that to predict human behavior we have to take into
account such factors as people’s perceptions, expectancies, and values.
 
This theory rests on the following five basic assumptions:
1. Humans interact with their meaningful environments
2. Human personality is learned
 
. Personality has a basic unity
4. Motivation is goal directed
5. People are capable of anticipating events
 
Because Rotter’s primary concern is the prediction of human behavior, he
suggested four variables that must be analyzed in order to make accurate
predictions in any specific situation. These variables are behavior potential,
expectancy, reinforcement value, and the psychological situation.
 
A. Behavior Potential
A key concept in Rotter’s model is behavior potential, the possibility that a particular response
will occur at a given time and place. For example, if you insult someone, how likely is this person to
respond aggressively? Rotter says that aggressive response is one of several optional behaviors in the
situation. The insulted person might attempt to top the remark with a wittier jab, calmly say that the
behavior was out of line, or simply leave the scene. The likelihood of any one of these behaviors
occurring depends on the likelihood of any of the others taking place. If the person decides to hit the
insulter, it means the behavior potential for that response was the strongest.

The strength of the behavior potential for a given behavior is determined by three variables:
expectancy, reinforcement value, and the psychological situation. In short, people calculate the
chances of obtaining a given reinforce for their actions and the value the reinforcer has for them. If the
odds of being reinforced for a behavior are slim or the reinforcer is not particularly prized, then the
behavior potential is weak. Because no two situations are exactly alike, and because personality
predispositions alone are limited behavior predictors, Rotter also includes the psychological situation
in his model. Rotter explains that “each situation is composed of cues serving to arouse in the
individual certain expectancies for reinforcement of specific behaviors.”
 
 
B. Expectancy
 
For any given behavior, we can estimate the likelihood of its being reinforced. What are the chances that
staying up all night studying will result in a higher grade? How likely is it that you will have a good time if you go
to the dance? Rotter calls this estimation expectancy: “the probability held by the individual that a particular
reinforcement will occur as a function of a specific behavior on his part in a specific situation or situations.”
C. Reinforcement Value
Another important determinant of the behavior is the value that the reward holds for the individual. Rotter
calls this reinforcement value- the degree of preference for any reinforcement to occur if the possibilities of their
occurring were all equal”. Naturally, the reinforcement values of certain rewards changes somewhat from situation
and across time. For example, when we are lonely, social contact will hold a higher reinforcement values than
when we aren’t. Yet, there are stable individual differences from person to person, which lend stability to our
reinforcement values over time and across situations. Given the choice, some people will always take free baseball
tickets over free ballet tickets.
D. Psychological Situation- defined as part of the external and internal world to which a person is
responding. Rotter
3. Personality has a basic unity
4. Motivation is goal directed
5. People are capable of anticipating events
 
Rotter’s and Hochreich’s Categories of Needs
1. Recognition-Status
2. Dominance
3. Independence
4. Protection- Dependency
5. Love and Affection
6. Physical comfort
Rotters’ Internal-External Control Scale
This I-E scale attempts to measure the degree to which people perceive a causal relationship between
their own efforts and environment consequence. People who score high on internal control generally believe
that the source of control resides within themselves and that they exercise a high level of personal control in
most situations. On the other hand, people who score high on external control generally believe that their life
is largely controlled by forces outside themselves, such as chance, destiny, or the behavior of other people.
Rotter’s Interpersonal Trust Scale
Interpersonal trust is defined as a generalized expectancy held by an individual that the word, promise,
oral or written statement of another individual or group can be relied on. Rotter (1980) summarized results of
studies that indicate that people who score high in interpersonal trust, as opposed to those who score low, are:
1. less likely to lie
2. probably less likely to cheat or steal
3. more likely to give others a second chance
4. more likely to respect the rights of others
5. less likely to be unhappy, conflicted or maladjusted
6. somewhat more likeable and popular
7. more trustworthy
8. neither more nor less gullible
9. neither more nor less intelligence
 
Rotter’s Concept of Maladaptive Behavior
According to Rotter, maladaptive behavior is any persistent behavior that fails to move a person closer to
a desired goal. It frequently arises from the combination of high need value and low freedom of movement: that
is, from goals that are unrealistically high in relation to one’s ability to achieve them.
 
For example, the need for love and affection is realistic, but some people unrealistically set a goal to be
loved by everyone. Hence, their need value will nearly certainly exceed their freedom of movement, resulting
in behavior that is likely to be defensive or maladaptive
 
 
 c
 HUMANISTIC APPROACH
Part I. CARL ROGERS’ CLIENT-CENTERED PERSONALITY THEORY
When Carl Rogers started out, he was, like Freud, working with troubled people. Seeing the kind of
environment these individuals had gave Rogers insight into what was stopping them from reaching their full
potential. He hypothesized that all persons start out in life with positive feelings about themselves, but these
feelings may continually be eroded by the significant persons (parents, teachers, siblings, and friends) in their
respective worlds. For instance, the adults in a child’s life often make the giving of their love conditional- “I will
(love) you only if you conform to our standards (authority figures in particular, society in general)”- a stance
termed by Rogers as conditional positive regard. Thus, innately good feelings about the self gradually diminish
as children grow up, since constraints and negative feedback continue even during their adult lives. Trying to live
up to societal standards can lead to conflict, just as simply conforming may suggest a devaluing of one’s true self.
In certain cases, it can also lead to a complete loss of the sense of self.
For Rogers, the sense of self, the “I,” or the “me” develops through an individual’s experiences with the
world. A person’s self-concept (a central theme in humanistic psychology) refers to an individual’s overall
perceptions of his or her abilities, behavior, and personality. A person with a poor self-concept is likely to think,
feel, and act negatively.
According to Rogers, while not all aspects of the self are conscious, all are accessible to consciousness. He further
distinguishes between the real self (the self as a result of experiences) and the ideal self (the self the person would
like to be); the greater the discrepancy between the real self and the ideal self, the more maladjusted the person.
 
That people need to be accepted by others, regardless of what they do, was realized by Rogers who stressed
that we need to recognize each other’s worth and dignity as persons, giving each other unconditional
positive regard. We should be emphatic listeners in trying to understand another’s true feelings, and should
be genuine and open with our feelings in our human relations as well. Rogers believed strongly in the human
potential to resiliently adapt, develop, and become fully functioning individuals despite the constraints set by
the environment.
 
The Fully Functioning Person
 
 Roger believes that we naturally strive to reach an optimal sense of ourselves and a satisfaction with our
lives. But this “good life” is not a static state.
 To be functionally functioning means to be open to the constant flow of our existence. “The goodlife is a
process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination”.
 The following are the characteristics of a fully functioning person:
1. They are open to their experiences.
2. They tend to open their eyes to what is going on in the here and now.
3. They trust their own feelings.
 Unlike Freud, Rogers believes that all people are basically good. People are sometimes cruel, but, Rogers
maintains, provided we are allowed to be what we are, unburdened with life problems, all of us will fulfill
our potential as loving, trustworthy people.
  
 Fully functioning people accept and occasionally express their
anger, but their constructive, affectionate impulses have an
increasingly large influence on their behavior as they grow.
 Although effective in reducing anxiety, distorting and denying
information are defenses that take us further and further away from
experiencing life.
 In severe cases, people replace reality with fantasy.
 Example, student with poor grades might convince herself that she
is a genius. When the incongruence between the self-concept and
reality is so obvious that the defense processes can’t operate
adequately, the person experiences what Rogers calls a state of
disorganization.
Conditions of Worth & Unconditional Positive Regard
 
 Why is it difficult to accept and incorporate inconsistent information into our self-concept?
 According to Rogers, because most of us have grown up in an atmosphere of conditional
positive regard. As children, our parents and “significant others” provide us with love and
support, but often not unconditionally. That is, most parents will love their children as long
as what’s expected of them.
 As a result of this conditional positive regard, children learn to abandon their true feelings
and desires and to accept only that part of themselves that the parents have deemed
appropriate.
 Ultimately, because of these conditions of worth, children become less and less aware of
themselves and less able to become fully functioning in the future.
 How can we come to accept our faults and weaknesses, when we know they may not be
accepted by others?
 To Rogers, we need unconditional positive regard to accept all the parts of our
personality.
 With unconditional positive regard we believe we will be accepted, loved, and “prized”, no
matter what we do.
  
 Part II. ABRAHAM MASLOW’S HOLISTIC-DYNAMIC THEORY
 Maslow termed his theory as 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 toward
psychological health which is self-actualization. Abraham Maslow, like Rogers, had infinite faith in the
human capacity for growth. Maslow believed that we all have needs, and they come in two forms:
deficiency needs and growth needs (also known as “metaneeds” or “self-actualizing” needs).
Deficiency needs are related to an individual’s physiological needs (need for food, water, shelter, etc.)
and psychological needs (need for affection, security, self-esteem, etc.) Growth needs, on the other
hand, refer to such higher needs as the need for truth, beauty, goodness, wholeness, vitality, uniqueness,
perfection, and justice.
 
The following are the several basic assumptions of Maslow in his theory of motivation:
 1. holistic approach to motivation;
 2. motivation is usually complex;
 3. people are continually motivated by one need or another;
 4. all people everywhere are motivated by the same basic needs; and
 5. needs can be arranged on a hierarchy.
 Hierarchy of Needs
 
According to this theory, human cannot advance to the next level of needs without satisfying the lower level which means that you cannot achieve
the highest form of need (self- actualization) without satisfying the four lower needs. When needs are not met, an individual may become alienated,
weak, or cynical.
 
The following are the list of needs which are arranged from lowest (basic) to the highest (complex) form.
 
a. Physiological needs. These are the basic life needs which are necessary for our survival. Examples of these needs are food, water, air, sleep,
sex etc.
 
b. Security/ Safety needs. These are the needs to be free of physical danger and of the fear of losing a job, property or shelter. It also includes
protection against any emotional harm. Specific examples are protection, security, order, law, limits, stability etc.
 
c. Social Belongingness and love needs. Since men are social beings, they need to belong and be accepted by others. This need includes the
search and desire for friends, affection or intimate relationship, family, work group, etc.
 
d. Esteem needs. Maslow stressed that if man begins to satisfy the social belongingness needs, he will then seek to gain the respect and
recognition of others through his achievements. Specifically, this includes the need for achievements, status, good reputation that could lead to
self- respect.
 
e. Self- actualization. The highest level or form of needs according to Maslow is self- actualization. This can be defined as the man’s ability to
realize and achieve his full potentials. To be specific this needs include growth and self- fulfillment.
 
The abovementioned needs are called conative needs which mean that they have a striving or motivational character. Aside from the conative
needs, Maslow also identified three other categories of needs- aesthetic, cognitive, and neurotic.
 
The Jonah Complex- the fear of being one’s best. This complex is characterized by attempts to run away from one’s destiny, represents a
fear of success, a fear of being one’s best, and a feeling of awesomeness in the presence of beauty and perfection.
Part III. ROLLO MAY’S EXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY
 
Background of Existentialism
 
Shortly after World War II, a new psychology- existential psychology- began to spread from Europe to the
United States. Existential psychology is rooted in the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzche,
Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and other European philosophers. The first existential psychologists and
psychiatrists were also Europeans, and these included Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, Victor Frankl, and
others.
Modern existential psychology has roots in the writings of SOREN KIERKEGAARD, a Danish
philosopher and theologian. He was concerned with the increasing trend in postindustrial societies toward the
dehumanization of people. He opposed any attempt to see people merely as objects. Kierkegaard regards people
as thinking, active, and willing beings. Like later existentialists, Kierkegaard emphasized a balance between
freedom and responsibility.
 
What is existentialism?
1. Existentialism opposes the split between subject and object.
2. This philosophical thought states that people search for some meaning to their lives.
3. Existentialists hold that ultimately each of us is responsible for who we are and what we become.
4. Existentialists are basically antitheoretical.
 
 
Basic Concepts of Existentialism
1. Being-in-the-world- the basic unity of person and environment. It is expressed in the
German word Dasein, meaning to exist there. The hypens in this term imply a oneness of
subject and object, of person and world. Many people suffer from anxiety and despair
brought on by their alienation from themselves or from their world.
3 Modes of being-in-the-world
a. Umwelt- the environment around us
b. Mitwelt- our relationships with other people
c. Eigenwelt- our relationships with our self
 
2. Nonbeing- nothingness like death. “Death is the one fact of my life which is not relative
but absolute, and my awareness of this gives my existence and what I do each hour an
absolute quality” (May, 1958).
 
What is Existential Psychology?
Existential psychology is concerned with the individual’s struggle to work through life’s experiences and
to grow toward becoming more fully human.
Anxiety
May defined anxiety as the subjective state of the individual’s becoming aware that his or her existence can
be destroyed, that he can become nothing. May called anxiety a threat to some important value. Anxiety exists
when one confronts the issue of fulfilling one’s potentialities. This confrontation can lead to stagnation and
decay, but it can also result in growth and change.
Kierkegaard states that “anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” Anxiety like dizziness, can be either
pleasurable or painful, constructive or destructive. Moreover, anxiety can be either normal or neurotic.
 
Normal Anxiety and Neurotic Anxiety
 May defined normal anxiety as that “which is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and
can be confronted constructively on the conscious level.”
 Neurotic anxiety is 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.
 
Normal Anxiety and Neurotic Anxiety
 May defined normal anxiety as that “which is proportionate to the threat, does not involve repression, and can be
confronted constructively on the conscious level.”
 Neurotic anxiety is 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
Guilt arises when people deny their potentialities, fail to accurately perceive the needs of fellow humans, or remain
oblivious to their dependence on the natural world. Forms of guilt correspond to the 3 modes of being-in-the world which
includes umwelt, mitwelt, and eigenwelt.
 
Intentionality
Intentionality is the structure that gives meaning to experience and allows people to make decisions about the future.
Action implies intentionality, just as intentionality implies action; the two are inseparable.
 
Care, Love, and Will
 Care is a state which something does matter.
 Love is a delight in the presence of the other person and an affirming of value and development as much as one’s own.
 Will is the capacity to organize one’s self so that movement in a certain direction or toward a certain goal may take
place.
 
Forms of Love
 1. Sex- a biological function that can be satisfied through sexual intercourse or some other release of sexual tension.
 2. Eros- psychological desire that seeks procreation or creation through an enduring union with a loved one.
 3. Philia- intimate nonsexual friendship between two people which can also lead to erotic relationships.
 4. Agape- esteem for the other, the concern for the other’s welfare beyond any gain that one can get out of i
disinterested love.
 
Freedom and Destiny
A blend of the four forms of love requires both self-assertion and an affirmation of the other person. It also require
an assertion of one’s freedom and a confrontation with one’s destiny. Healthy individuals are able both to assume the
freedom and to face their destiny.
Freedom- it refers to the individual’s capacity to know that he is the determined one. It entails being able to harbo
different possibilities in one’s mind even though it is not clear at the moment which may one must act.
Forms of Freedom
Existential freedom- it is the freedom to act on the choices that one makes.
Essential freedom- it is the freedom of being.
Destiny- the design of the universe speaking through the design of each one of us.
May’s Concept of Psychopathology
According to May, apathy and emptiness are the malaise of modern times. When people deny their destiny o
abandon their myths, they lose their purpose for being; they become directionless. Without some goal or destination
people become sick and engage in a variety of self-defeating and self-destructive behaviors.
 COGNITIVE APPROACH
Introduction

In the past few years there has been a growing interest in yet another approach to personality.
The newest member of the club, the cognitive approach, describes differences in personality
as differences in the way people process information. When people demonstrate noticeable
different patterns of behavior it is the result of differences in the way they perceive the world
and in the way they organize and utilize this information.

Cognitive models of personality are not entirely new. Kurt Lewin’s (1938) “field theory” of
behavior described differences in the way people organize the various representations of the
elements in their lives within their cognitive “life space.”

Part I. GEORGE KELLY’S PERSONAL CONSTRUCT THEORY

George Kelly’s approach to personality begins with a unique conception of humanity.

Kelly rejects the need for motivational concepts to explain human behavior. We are not pushed
into action by environmental or unconscious forces. Whereas Freud saw people as largely
controlled by their unconscious impulses, and Skinner sees them as large, complex rats passively
reacting to environmental stimuli, Kelly presents a man-as-scientist conception.
He begins with the basic assumption that we are motivated to make sense of all the stimuli that
impinge on us as we pass through the world. Like the scientist who seeks to predict and control
events, we seek to develop a view of the world that will allow us to predict and control what
happens to us. Based on our experiences, we generate hypotheses, for example, about what a
certain person is like. We then collect data and compare it with a new hypothesis. If it is verified
(the person acts the way our hypothesis predicted), we will continue to use it; if not, we discard it
and replace it with a new hypothesis. Kelly describes this process as similar to template matching.
He compares our ideas about what the world is like with transparent templates. We place templates
over the events we encounter. If they match, we retain the template; if not, we modify it for a better
prediction next time.
 
Personal Constructs- refer to the cognitive structures we use to
interpret and predict events. No two people use identical personal
constructs, and no two people organize their constructs in an
identical manner.
Personal constructs are bipolar. That is, elements we encounter are
classified in an either/ or fashion for each construct. For example, I
might apply personal constructs of friend-unfriendly, tall-short,
intelligent-stupid, masculine-feminine, and so on in constructing my
image of a new acquaintance. Each construct also has a range of
convenience, which restricts the items for which it is useful. For
example, the construct friendly-unfriendly is useful with people, but
describing a table would be outside its range of convenience.
 
The Fundamental Postulate and Corollaries
In his famous two-volume book The Psychology of Personal Constructs, Kelly (1955) presents his theory of
personality in a highly organized manner. He presents one basic postulate upon which the entire theory is based,
and eleven corollaries that elaborate on the theory.
 
Kelly’s Fundamental Postulate: A person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he
anticipates events.
 
Kelly’s Eleven Corollaries
 
Construction Corollary: A person anticipates events by construing their replications. (similarities among events
Individuality Corollary: Persons differ from each other in their construction of events. (differences among
people)
Organization Corollary: Each person characteristically evolves, for his convenience in anticipating events, a
construction system embracing ordinal relationships between constructs. (relationships among constructs)
Dichotomy Corollary: A person’s construction system is composed of a finite number of dichotomous constructs.
(dichotomy of constructs)
Choice Corollary: A person chooses for himself that alternative in a dichotomized construct through which he
anticipates the greater possibility for extension and definition of his system. (choice between dichotomies)
 
  

1. Range Corollary: A construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite range of

events only. (range of convenience
2. Experience Corollary: A person’s construction system varies as he successively
construes the replications of events. (experience and learning)
3. Modulation Corollary: The variation in a person’s construction system is limited by
the permeability of the constructs within whose range of convenience the variants lie.
(adaptation to experience)
4. Fragmentation Corollary: A person may successively employ a variety of construction
subsystems which are inferentially incompatible with each other. (incompatible
constructs)
5. Commonality Corollary: To the extent that one person employs a construction of
experience which is similar to that employed by another; his psychological processes are
similar to those of the other person. (similarities among people)
6. Sociality Corollary: To the extent that one person construes the construction processes
of another, he may play a role in a social process involving the other person. (social
processes)
  

Moral approach
Jean Piaget of theory of moral development explains how a child’s constructs a mental
model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was affixed trait, and
regarded cognitive development as a process which occur due to biological maturation and
interaction with the environment.
 
Piaget presented 2 stages of moral development.
 
He labeled the first as heteronomous morality. This is the stage at which children think
that rules are unchangeable and that breaking them leads automatically to punishment.
The stage at which a person understands that people make rules and that punishments
are not automatic is the second, which he called autonomous morality.
 HETERONOMOUS MORALITY (YOUNGER)
Based on relations of constraint; for example, the complete acceptance by the child of
adult prescriptions.
Reflected in attitudes of moral realism: Rules are seen as inflexible requirements,
external in origin and authority, not open to negotiation; and right is a matter of literal
obedience to adults and rules.
 
AUTONOMOUS MORALITY (OLDER)
Based on relations of cooperation and mutual recognition of equality among autonomous
individuals, as in relations between people who are equals.
Reflected in rational moral attitudes: rules are viewed as products of mutual agreement,
open to renegotiation, made legitimate by personal acceptance and common consent,
and right is a matter of acting in accordance with the requirements of cooperation and
mutual respect.
 
Kohlberg’s Stages of moral Reasoning
Lawrence Kohlberg-constitute an adaptation of a psychological theory originally
conceived by the Swiss psychologist jean piaget. The theory holds that moral reasoning,
the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable development stages, each more
adequate at responding to moral dilemmas than its predecessor. Kohlberg followed the
development of moral judgment far beyond the ages studied earlier by piaget who also
claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages
I. PRECCONVENTIONAL LEVEL
Rules are set down by others.
Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience Orientation. Physical consequences of action
determine its goodness or badness.
Stage 2: Instrumental Relativist Orientation. What is right is whatever satisfies
one’s own needs and occasionally the needs of others. Elements of fairness and
reciprocity are present.
 
 
II. CONVENTIONAL LEVEL
Stage 3: “Good Boy—Good Girl” Orientation. Good behavior is whatever pleases or helps
others and is approved of by them. One earns approval be being “nice.”
Stage 4: “Law and Order” Orientation. Right is doing one's duty, showing respect for
authority, and maintaining the given social order for its own sake. People define own values
in terms of ethical principles they have chosen to follow.
III. POSTCONVENSTIONAL LEVEL
Stage 5: Social contract Orientation. What is right is defined in terms of general individual
rights and in terms of standards that have been agreed on by the whole society. Laws are
not “frozen”—they can be changed for the good of society.
Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principle Orientation. What is right is defined by decision of
conscience according to self-chosen ethical principles. These principles are abstract and
ethical (such as the Golden Rule), not specific moral prescriptions (such as the Ten
Commandments).