human personality

1. HUMAN PERSONALİTY
ŞEYMA ESRA BERBER

2. The structure of Human
Personality
Id
A reservoir of unconscious energy divided into two drives: (to avoid
pain and maintain pleasure)
As energy builds up in the id, the tension results.
The id may discharge this tension in the form of reflex actions, physical
symptoms, or uncensored mental images and unbidden thoughts.
Superego
Moral ideals, conscience, and social standards
Ego
Referees between instinctive needs and social demands… Helps to rein
in the impulses of the id

4. • Id: unconscious
The primitive, impulsive and irrational unconscious that
operates solely on the outcome of pleasure or pain and is
responsible for instincts to sex and aggression
• Ego: both conscious and unconscious
The ego is the “I” people perceive that evaluates the outside
physical and social world and makes plans accordingly.
• Superego: (parental authority) partly conscious but largely
unconscious)
It is the moral voice and conscience that guides the ego; violating it
results in feelings of guilt and anxiety. Freud believed the superego was
mostly formed within the first 5 years of life based on the moral
standards of a person’s parents; continued to be influenced into
adolescence by other role models.

5. Three structures (levels) of mind

8. A man apologizes for “displacing” his frustrations at work onto his
family.
 A woman suspects that she is “repressing” a childhood trauma.
An alcoholic reveals that he is no longer “in denial” about his
drinking.
A teacher informs a divorcing couple that their 8-year-old child is
“regressing” to immature behavior.
All of this language about displacing, repressing, denying, and
regressing can be traced to the first psychodynamic theory of
personality, Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis.

9. Defense mechanisms
Methods used by the ego to prevent unconscious anxiety or threatening thoughts from
entering consciousness.
 According to Freud, the healthy personality must keep all three systems in balance.
 If a person feels anxious or threatened when the wishes of the id conflict
with social rules, the ego has weapons at its command to relieve the
tension. These unconscious strategies, called defense mechanisms.
 These unconscious strategies deny or distort reality, but they also protect us from
conflict and anxiety.
 They become unhealthy only when they cause self-defeating behavior
and emotional problems.

10. Repression
• It occurs when a threatening idea, memory, or emotion is blocked
from consciousness.
e.g.: You cannot remember any memory of its relations.

11. Projection
• It occurs when a person’s own unacceptable or threatening feelings
are repressed and then attributed to someone else.
• e.g.: That teacher does not like me at all.
• You hate the teacher but your superego tells you that such hatred is
unacceptable. You can 'solve' the problem by believing that they hate
you

12. Displacement
• It occurs when people direct their emotions (especially anger) toward
things, animals, or other people that are not the real object of their
feelings.
• e.g.: You may go home and kick your dog or break something or start
digging the garden.

13. Sublimation
• It’s a form of Displacement which appears in the form of Creation of art or
invention in a socially acceptable way.
• This is similar to displacement, but takes place when we manage to
displace our emotions into a constructive rather than destructive activity
• Freud believed that Sexual passion is often sublimated into the creation of
Art or Literature.
• e.g.: Writing a poem about how you feel.
• Sports is an example of putting our emotions (e.g. aggression) into s.th.
constructive.

14. Denial
• It occurs when people refuse to admit that
something unpleasant is happening.
• Denial involves blocking external events from awareness (Anna Freud,
1936).
• If some situation is just too much to handle, the person just refuses to
experience it.
• This is a primitive and dangerous defense - no one disregards reality and gets away with it for
long!
• e.g.: smokers may refuse to admit to themselves that smoking is bad
for their health

15. Regression
• It occurs when a person reverts to a previous phase of psychological
development.
• e.g.: Adults may regress to immature behavior when they are under
pressure—say, by having temper tantrums when they don’t get their
way.
• An 8-year-old boy who is anxious about his parents’ divorce may
regress to earlier habits of thumb
sucking or wetting his bed.

16. Reaction Formation
• This is where a person goes beyond denial and behaves in the
opposite way to which he or she thinks or feels.
• e.g.: I actually like that teacher.
• A person who is angry with a colleague actually ends up being
particularly courteous and friendly towards them.
• A man who is gay has a number of conspicuous heterosexual affairs
and openly criticizes gays.
• A mother who has a child she does not want becomes very protective
of the child.

17. Rationalization
• Rationalization is the cognitive distortion of "the facts" to make an
event or an impulse less threatening (A. Freud, 1936).
• We do it often enough on a fairly conscious level when we provide
ourselves with excuses.
• e.g.: she’s not a good teacher that’s why I hate her.