Q. What is personality? Discuss Freud's approach to personality.
A. Personality is defined as uniqueness and consistency in behavior, thoughts and feelings across situation over time.
Freud developed the psychoanalytic theory of personality development, which argued that personality is formed through conflicts among three fundamental structures of the human mind: the id, ego, and superego.
The id represents the storehouse of all our primitive and innate urges.These include various body needs, sexual desire and aggressive impulses. The id is totally unconscious and operates in accordance of pleasure principle. It demands immediate and total gratification without calculating the costs involved.
As all the impulses originating from id can't be realistically satisfied, another structure of personality develops which is called ego. Its task is to hold id in check until the conditions allow for satisfaction of its impulses. It works on the reality principle. Ego is mostly conscious but some part of it is unconscious which deals with conflicts with the id.
The final aspect of personality, superego, develops to check if the satisfaction of an impulse is morally correct or not. The superego is derived from our parents and through experience and represents our internalization of the moral teachings and norms of the society. The superego resides mostly in the preconscious part of the brain.
The personality development then progresses in stages which Freud termed as psychosexual stages of development. The various stages one passes through were oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. The constant struggle between id, ego and superego leads to the development of personality.
Q. Critically evaluate the psycho social theory of personality development.
A. Psycho social theories of personality development emphasize the importance of social and cultural forces in addition to the psychic forces in the development of personality. Some of these theories are given by Karen Horney, Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson etc.
The strengths of psycho social theories of development are:
1. These theories brought the importance of social and cultural factors in the development of personality. For example, Horney emphasized about the strength of interpersonal relationships for coping with the anxiety, Adler talked about the innate social interest
The id represents the storehouse of all our primitive and innate urges.These include various body needs, sexual desire and aggressive impulses. The id is totally unconscious and operates in accordance of pleasure principle. It demands immediate and total gratification without calculating the costs involved.
As all the impulses originating from id can't be realistically satisfied, another structure of personality develops which is called ego. Its task is to hold id in check until the conditions allow for satisfaction of its impulses. It works on the reality principle. Ego is mostly conscious but some part of it is unconscious which deals with conflicts with the id.
The final aspect of personality, superego, develops to check if the satisfaction of an impulse is morally correct or not. The superego is derived from our parents and through experience and represents our internalization of the moral teachings and norms of the society. The superego resides mostly in the preconscious part of the brain.
The personality development then progresses in stages which Freud termed as psychosexual stages of development. The various stages one passes through were oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. The constant struggle between id, ego and superego leads to the development of personality.
Q. Critically evaluate the psycho social theory of personality development.
A. Psycho social theories of personality development emphasize the importance of social and cultural forces in addition to the psychic forces in the development of personality. Some of these theories are given by Karen Horney, Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson etc.
The strengths of psycho social theories of development are:
1. These theories brought the importance of social and cultural factors in the development of personality. For example, Horney emphasized about the strength of interpersonal relationships for coping with the anxiety, Adler talked about the innate social interest
