This document provides an overview of the psychoanalytic approach to personality proposed by Sigmund Freud. It discusses: 1. Freud's discovery of the unconscious mind and development of psychoanalysis using free association. 2. Freud's structural model of personality consisting of the id, ego, and superego. It also discusses Freud's concepts of libido, thanatos, and defense mechanisms. 3. Freud's psychosexual stages of development including the oral, anal, and phallic stages and how fixation at different stages can influence adult personality. The document provides a concise introduction to Freud's seminal psychoanalytic theory of personality.

1. Beatrice - 1,2
Miguel - 3,4
Darrel - 5,6
Chapter 1 What Is Personality
◆ The Person & The Situation
• Both the person and the situation contribute to behavior
- there are typical behavioral response patterns to situations
- The Main Question: What makes an individual's behavior different from another?
◆ Six Approaches To Personality (reference #'s in text)
• Psychoanalytical Approach (1)
- founded by Freud
- unconscious mind is responsible for important differences in behavior
• Trait Approach (2)
- identifies where a person lies along a continuum of various personality characteristics to
differentiate
• Biological Approach (3)
- behavior is different by inherited predispositions and processes
• Humanistic Approach (4)
- personal responsibility and feelings of self-acceptance are causes of differnces
• Behavioral/Social Learning Approach (5)
- B.F. Skinner
- conditioning and expectations create differences
• Cognitive Approach (6)
- difference in the way people process information cause differences in behavior
◆ Example of Behavior - Aggression - And the Perspective of the Approaches
• (1): unconscious desire to self destruct; unconsciously turned in outward expression; blocked
from reaching goals.
• (2): individual differences and stability of aggressive behavior; ie'- child aggressiveness likely to
become aggressive adults
• (3): born with aggressive tendencies; ie'- men are more aggressive then women
• (4): inherently born good, but their environment shapes them to be aggressive
• (5): learn to be aggressive through role models, TV, etc....
• (6): some people are more likely to interpret ambiguous situations as threatening
◆ Example of Behavior - Depression - " "
• (1): depression is anger expressed/turned inward
• (2): predicting behavior by identifying individuals prone to depression
• (3): depression is inherited
• (4): caused by under-developed self-esteem and no self-acceptance
• (5): caused by a lack of positive reinforces and exposure to uncontrollable events making one
feel helpless which in turn, one projects these feelings of helplessness generally to other situations.
• (6): how people interpret their inability to control events; interpret incoming information with a
depressive filter on.
◆ Personality and Culture
• People and their personality exist within a cultural context
• Individualistic Cultures: western countries; emphasis on individual needs and accomplishments;
people view themselves as independent and unique.
• Collectivist Cultures: focus on cooperation; belonging to a larger group - family, tribe, nation

2. • Behavior study in personality have different meanings in different cultures.
◆ Theory, Application, Assessment, and Research
• Theory - And Approach Perspective
- explains the mechanism and how the mechanism is responsible for creating individual behavior
- Genetic Vs. Environmental Influences
• To what extent are our behaviors inherited or shaped by our environment?
a) (1): emphasize innate needs and behavior patterns; unconscious - somewhat Genetic
b) (2)&(3): importance of inherited perdispositions - Genetic
c) (4),(5),&(6): less likely to emphasize inherited influences - leans toward Enviro.
- Conscious Vs. Unconscious
• To what extent are we aware?
a) (1): unconscious
b) (2)&(6): no extreme position but rely heavily on self-reported data (meaning more
conscious)
c) (4): middle ground, no extreme position
d) (5): people assume they understand and are conscious but really don't understand.
- Free Will Vs. Determinism
• extent of decisions or outside forces?
a) (1): emphasize innate needs, unconscious, outside our controll
b) (2)&(3): genetic predisposition tends to limit development
c) (4): we have personal choice; take responsibility
d) (5): no choosing, direct result of environmental stimuli
e) (6): people must recognize how they cause their own problems
• Application
- psychotherapy
• Assessment
- people self-report then data is interpreted by psychologist
- observing behavior and reporting
• Research
- Chapter 2.
Chapter 2 Research Methods
◆ Hypothesis-Testing Approach
• Based on previous theory and research, one generates a hypothesis and uses experimental
methods to collect data and prove hypothesis. Usually with large numbers of participants.
• Theory & Hypothesis
- Theory: general statement about a relationship between constructs or events
a) law of parsimony: simplest theory best explains
b) usefulness: theory must be able to generate a testable hypothesis
c) a theory is never tested
- Hypothesis: formal prediction about a relationship between 2 or more variables logically
derived from a theory
• Experimental Variables
- Independent Variable: how groups in experiments are divided; often manipulated by
experimenter. (aka. Treatment Variable)
- Dependent Variable: measured and used to compare groups. (aka. Outcome Variable)
a) differences in independent variable causes or correlates a change in the dependent variable
• Manipulated Vs. Non-Manipulated Independent Variables

3. - Manipulated: randomly assigned participants to an experimental group will average out other
differences; then, introduce independent variable (ie'- drugs: one group gets them, other doesn't)
- Non-Manipulated (Subject Variable): without researchers intention (ie'- male or female)
participants determine which group they belong to; cancels the averaged out differences so its difficult
to determine cause-and-effect relationships.
a) allows researchers to study differences between interesting topics(ie'- men and women /
introverts and extroverts)
• Prediction Vs. Hindsight
- Prediction is important because a predicted hypothesis proven or disproved has scientific
value; whereas, if a scientist does an experiment without a predicted hypothesis, he can argue the
outcome in either direction giving it no scientific value.
• Replication
- one study may find statistical significance, but to be commonly accepted by the psychological
community, the experiment must be re-done. to eliminate any special circumstance and to make sure
the findings either apply to a small particular group, or a larger population.
- downfall to replication: File Drawer Effect - when a replication fails to find significant effects,
the researcher says something went wrong and the research is filed away so some may not realize that
problems exist within the experiment.
◆ Case Study Method (qualitative)
• In depth study of at least one individual.
• Semi-structured interview on a personal level that is taped; in a location that is comfortable for
the subject.
• Researcher will describe their impressions of the behavior rather then report stats.
• The tape is the transcribed to a Coding Document: placing the subject in a category; ie'- level of
trauma
• Strengths
- detailed analysis that other methods don't allow for
- generating a hypothesis
a) "high mundane realism"
> studying what you actually want
- studying rare cases
- illustrating a treatment
- demonstrating possibilities
a) ie'- easily hypnotized people can form blisters on their skin when imagining its on fire
• Weaknesses/Limitations
- generalizing from a single individual to other people
- can't determine cause&effect; just correlation
- investigators' subjective judgments interfere with scientific objectivity
- no control over independent variables
- relying on recalled memories which can be shaped by current emotions
a) "retrospective bias" ; "retrospective distortion"
◆ Statistical Analysis of Data
• Statistical Significance
- telling if different group averages on dependent variables represent real effects
a) Analysis of Variance
b) Chi-Square Test
c) Correlation Coefficient
- Statistical significance

4. a) if two averages differed by a small amount that could be chance > no stat. significance
b) if two averages differed by a large amount, not likely caused by chance, and reflects a true
difference > stat. significance
• Stats tell us the probability of the difference being caused by chance
• Significance level is 0.5
- means that the difference is so large that it occurs less than 5% of the time by chance
◆ Correlation Coefficient
• Statistical test to understand the relationship between two measures.
- data is reduced to one number ranging from 1.00 to -1.00
a) the closer to 1.00 or -1.00 the stronger the relationship
• Positive Correlation: high score on one measure indicates a higher score on other measure
• Negative correlation: high score on one measure indicates a lower score on other measure
◆ Personality Assessment (survey method) - (quantitative)
• questionnaire with exact questions
• Strengths
- many people participate giving a lot of information
- leads to better statistics
- allows for anonymity, assumed more truthful
• Weaknesses
- same weaknesses as case study
- wording of question and response options; bias
- subject bias because of "social desirability norm"
- certain people will agree to take or send back the questionnaire.
• Reliability
- how consistently the test measures over time
a) test-restest reliability coefficient
- internal consistenty
a) when all items on the test measure the same thing
b) internal consistency coefficient
• Validity
- extent to which a test measures what it is designed to measure
a) how well is validity demonstrated?
- Hypothetical Construct: describe concepts that have no physical reality; ie'- intelligence,
masculinity, social anxiety
• Construct Validity
- demonstrates that a test accurately gauges the personality dimension being measured
• Face Validity
- the test obivously and straightforwardly measures a contruct
• Congruent Validity
- extent to which test scores correlate to other methods of measuring the same construct
• Discriminant Validity
- extent to which test scores don't correlate to scores of theoretically unrelated constructs
• Behavioral Validation
- test scores should be able to predict relevant behavior
Chapter 3 The Psychoanalytic Approach
1. Freud Discovers the Unconscious

5. a. Sigmund Freud - Neurologist back in the early 1900s
b. Joseph Breuer, a physician, and Jean-Martin Charcot, a neurologist, were both hypnosis
to treat hysterical patients
i. Hysteria is a disorder that consists of a variety of physical symptoms such as
blindness, deafness, and inability to walk or use an arm, etc.
a. One of Breuer's patients, Anna O., had hysteria, inability to move left arm, and she
could only speak English when her native toungue was German
i. After several sessions of hypnosis, she was able to move her left arm and was
able to speak German again.
a. Freud began to get disillusioned with hypnosis and looked for alternative methods, he
wanted patients to be able to say whatever was in their mind
i. Free Association - a procedure used in psychoanalysis in which patients say
whatever comes into their mind.
a. Freud's approach to treatment was so radical that many respected physicians
considered it absurd
b. Gradually, Freud's theory gained acceptance within the growing field of psychology
2. The Freudian Theory of Personality
a. The Topographic Model
i. Originally divided into conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.
1. Conscious - The part of personality that contains the thoughts we are
currently aware of
2. Preconscious - The part of personality that contains thoughts that can
be brought into awareness with little difficulty
3. Unconscious - The part of personality that contains material that cannot
easily be brought into awareness
a. The Structural Model
i. Freud felt the topographic model was too limited in description of human
personality
ii. Divides personality into the id, ego and the superego
1. ID - The selfish part of you, concerned only with satisfying your personal
desires, pleasure principle
a. Wish Fulfillment - if the desired object is not available, the id will
imagine what it wants
b. Freud described id as being buried entirely in the unconscious
1. Ego - Based on the reality principle, the primary job of the ego is to
satisfy the id impulses but in a manner that takes into consideration the
realities of the situation.
a. Unlike the id, the ego is free and moves between the
unconscious, preconscious and conscious.
b. The ego is also responsible to satisfy the id but at the same time
reducing tension
i. Example: your id desire is hunger, which makes you want
to grab any food you see, but the ego is the realization
that you can't just grab any food you see because it is
unacceptable, thus lessoning the tension, and, in a way
considers the consequence.

6. a. As children interact with their environment during their first 2
years, the second part, ego, gradually develops
1. Superego - by the time children reach age 5 the third part, superego, is
formed; represents society's - and, in particular, the parents' - values
and standards
a. Superego places more restrictions on what we can and can't do
b. Primary weapon that superego brings is guilt
c. Provides ideals the ego uses to determine if a behavior is
virtuous and thus worthy of praise
a. Libidy and Thanatos
i. Topographic provides playing field, structural provides characters, libido and
thanatos sets this Freud theory in motion
1. Triebe - internal forces that human behavior is motivated by
i. Libido - The limited amount of psychic energy that powers mental activity, life
or sexual instinct
ii. Thanatos - the self-destructive (death) instinct, which is often turned outward
in the form of aggression
1. Energy within a physical system does not disappear but exists in finite
amounts
a. So if the ego has to expend large amounts of energy to control
the id, it has little energy left to carry out the rest of its functions
efficiently
a. Defense Mechanisms
1. Neurotic anxiety - vague feelings of anxiety sparked by the sensation that
unacceptable unconscious thoughts are about to burst through the awareness
barrier and express themselves in consciousness
i. Defense Mechanisms - devices the ego uses to keep threatening material out of
awareness and thereby reduce or avoid anxiety
1. Repression - the ego pushes threatening material out of awareness and
into unconscious.
a. Example - a boy sees his father abuse his mother and when
asked about the experience, the boy insists he never saw
anything. Although he may not be lying but he may have found it
too horrific to accept it.
1. Sublimation - Threatening unconscious impulses are channeled into
socially acceptable behaviors
a. Example - Football players, or other athletics: aggressive
athletes are often considered hero's
1. Displacement - A response is directed at a nonthreatening target
instead of the unconsciously preferred one
a. Example - as a result of mistreatment or abuse, a woman might
carry with her a great deal of unconscious anger
1. Denial - When we simply refuse to accept that certain facts exist
2. Reaction Formation - People act in a manner opposite to their
unconscious desires

7. a. A daughter that goes around saying how much she LOVES her
mother might actually be masking strong unconscious hatred for
her mother
1. Intellectualization - The emotional content of threatening material is
removed before it is brought into awareness, that is, by considering
something in a strictly intellectual way and not emotional.
2. Projection - One's own unconscious thoughts and impulses are
attributed to other people.
a. Example - the woman who thinks everyone in her neighborhood
is committing adultery may be harboring sexual desires for the
married man living next door
a. Psychosexual Stages of Development
i. Freud argued that the adult personality is formed by experiences from the first
5-6 years of life.
ii. Freud thinks that our adult personalities are formed in different stages called
psychosexual stages of development
iii. Fixation - Tying up psychic energy at one psychosexual stage, which results in
adult behaviors characteristic of that state
iv. Oral Stage - the psychosexual stage of development in which the mouth, lips,
and tongue are the primary erogenous zones, that is, you don't have to look at
a 6 month old baby to realize that everything pretty much enters the body
through the mouth
1. People with oral personalities are considered dependent on others as
adults
i. Anal stage - psychosexual stage in which the anal region is the primary
erogenous zone
1. When children enter 18 months old, they enter anal stage.
2. In this stage most children are toilet trained
i. Phallic Stage - psychosexual stage where the genital region is the primary
erogenous zone and in which the oedipus complex develops also referred to as
the oedipus complex
1. Oedipus - greek mythical character that unknowingly married his
mother
i. Castration anxiety - when boys are scared that their fathers will discover their
thoughts and want to cut off their penis
1. If they have seen their sisters genitals, they assume that the fate had
already reached his sister.
2. Girls develop Penis Envy, the desire to have a penis
i. After the oedipus complex, the child passes into latency stage, right before
puberty. Sexual desires begin to form and get stronger when the genital stage
comes through
a. Getting at Unconscious Material
i. Dreams - Freud called it the "royal road to the unconscious"
1. Dreams provide id impulses with a stage for expression, they are a type
of wish fulfillment. Dreams represent the things we want or desire
2. Many of our thoughts and desires are presented symbolically.

8. a. Example - Body is represented as a house, parents as king queen,
children as small animals and penis's as phallic looking objects.
i. Projective Tests - Those ink blob tests where you look at and try to explain in
the form of a story or identification of object. There is no right or wrong answer
ii. Free association - it is the fundamental rule of psychoanalysis. To be able to just
say whatever is on your mind, and express the unconscious
iii. Freudian slip - when a patient accidently calls his wife by her maiden name or
says that her mind is her "breast" feature. This is insightful because the
husband may not have ever wanted to marry her and her best feature might
really be her breasts
iv. Hypnosis - It is the pipeline to the unconscious
v. Accidents - say your arguing with someone and "accidently" knock over and
break a statue, is it really an accident?
1. Resistance - when a patient for whatever reason starts missing regular
therapy meetings
i. Symbolic Behavior - example: say your moms favorite flower is the daisy and
you have a doormat outside your house with a bunch of daisies on it. You come
every day from work and rub your shoes all over the door mat, symbolically the
daisies represent the mother and you are stomping on your mother.
3. Application: Psychoanalysis
a. Freud was the first person to outline and advocate a system of psychotherapy
b. Psychoanalysis - The system of psychotherapy
i. It's goal is to bring crucial unconscious material into the conscious where it can
be examined and dealt with
ii. Typically, the psychoanalysis client lies on a couch while the therapist sits
behind them out of sight
iii. The bulk of time during these sessions is getting out the unconscious, it's very
difficult because the ego is programmed to keep the unconscious where it is at
iv. Transference - When clients bring out emotions of past clients
v. Countertransference - when the therapist actually brings out his own emotions
into the mix
4. Assessment: Projective Tests
a. Types of Projective Tests
i. Rorscharch Inkblot test -…the inkblot..that's all it is...
ii. Thematic apperception test (TAT) - consists of series of ambiguous pictures,
the test takers are asked to tell a story about each picture
iii. Human figure drawing test - where the test taker is asked to draw a person, or
a family or a tree. It tests level of intelligence in children as well
Chapter 4
1. People don't always believe the Freudian theory, some even ridicule it.
2. Freud tried several ways to validate his findings
3. Chapter 4 is about testing whether or not Freud's theory(s) is correct.

9. 4. Dream Interpretation
i. Dream interpretation was popularized by Freud
a. The Meaning of Dream Content
i. According to Freud, dreams provide meaning to what is in the unconscious
ii. Dreams could either be symbols, usually sexual symbols in Freudian tradition
1. Dream researchers have different procedures where they'll ask a patient
to write their dreams down in a diary first thing in the morning, or talk
about a last or recurrent dream
i. Experiment - participants spent several nights in a sleep laboratory, they would
be woken up in the middle of every night to be asked about their dreams.
When they were suggested of a dream, they were able to actually focus on
what was suggested to them.
ii. Women's dreams typically have an equal amount of males and females
iii. Men typically dream of more male characters, and this difference is found in all
ages
1. Males make up 50% of female's dreams and 65% of male dreams
2. This is so because men usually never get over issues with their fathers
3. Nothing can really be proven as to why males dream of more males than
females, but there are
i. Recurrent Dreams - they can represent anxiety or unresolved issues. The
unconscious conflict comes out at night and the anxiety comes out during the
day. People who have these dreams are thought of having more anxiety
ii. Sexual symbols - hasn't been proven that objects in dreams are sexual symbols
1. It is believed that people who can't express their sexual desires when
they are awake express them when they are asleep
2. There was a test done on a few people for 10 days where they basically
recorded their anxiety level and their dreams. Although the more
anxiety did in fact bring out more symbols, the theory still remains
elusive
a. The Function of Dreams
i. Freud believed people dream because unconscious impulses can't be
suppressed forever
ii. REM Sleep - Rapid eye movement. People experience REM between 1 1/2 to 2
hours a night spread over several preiods
1. REM sleep has much more dreams and non-REM sleep has significantly
less dreams
i. Researchers believe that depriving someone of REM sleep can bring serious
psychological distrurbances
ii. REM sleep is essential for having less difficulty with stressful tasts
iii. People with traumatic experiences usually ignore those during the day but they
come out at night during sleep
a. Conclusion
i. Nothing has really been proven about dreams, but we can definitely agree that
REM sleep brings some sort of psychological positive benefits
5. Defense Mechanisms
i. People use defense mechanisms unconsciously all the time and don't even realize it

10. a. Identifying and Measuring Defense Mechanisms
i. Identification - People who use this mechanism associate themselves with
powerful and successful individuals.
1. Plays a big role in development of gender identity
2. Young men identify with their fathers and young women with their
mothers (generally speaking)
a. Developmental Differences
i. Adults have much more defenses they can use to ward off anxiety than
children. Children usually can only result to denial
ii. Around middle elementary school, kids begin to realize that denying things
every happened doesn't make them go away
iii. Older kids use projection
1. Projection - protects us from threatening anxiety by attributing
unacceptable thoughts and feelings to someone else
a. Example: If I extremely disliked my hair - unconsciously - I would
probably be criticizing other people's hair as well.
a. Defense Style
i. Some people depend rely on some defense mechanisms more than others, this
is called defense style
ii. Identifying a persons defense style can say a lot about his or her general well-
being
iii. Some say that defense mechanisms can be normal and even adaptive
1. Sublimation - Turning the unconscious impulse into a socially acceptable
action - can serve a dual function of relieving anxiety and improving a
person's life situation
i. It's not normal for adults to still use the same childhood defense mech. Such as
denial or projection
ii. People who deal with high level of stress during their child hood might end up
depending more on denial and projection as adults
6. Humor
a. Freud's Theory of Humor
i. Freud saw two different kinds of jokes: (1) those dealing with hostility and (2)
those dealing with sex
ii. Freud believed that aggressive jokes allow the expression of impulses ordinarily
held in check
1. A good insulting joke allows us to express these same aggressive desires
in a socially appropriate manner
i. Catharsis - A release of tension or anxiety
1. Freud thought that we laugh at those kind of jokes not because they are
clever or witty, but because the punch line of the joke allows for
catharsis
a. Research on Freud's Theory of Humor
i. A group of students were tested to test Freud's theory and to their surprise,
they performed just as Freud would believe they would

11. 1. They showed them a picture with no sense of sexuality or anything and
asked to write a funny caption, all the students came up with something
like "I was late because I was with your wife"
i. Several investigators support Freud's theory that people find aggressive and
sexual themes funny
1. People find cartoons and shows funnier when they reference to
aggression, pain or sex
2. If hostile humor allows us to satisfy aggressive impulses, we should find
a joke funnier when it pokes fun at a person or group we don't like
i. Hostile humor reduces aggression because of the catharsis hostile humor
creates.
1. Example - There was an experiment where angry participants read
cartoons that expressed hostility toward women, later they were given
the opportunity to give electric shocks to a woman as an "experiment".
These participants gave less intense and shorter shocks than angry
participants who had not seen the cartoons
i. But hostile humor doesn't only reduce aggression, in some cases it could
actually increase it
7. Level of Tension and Funniness
a. A person nervous and slightly frightened person is more vulnerable to a funny joke
than someone who is calm and therefore tensionless
b. The more tension people experience before a punch line, the funnier the joke will be
i. There were experiments that tested this theory and proved it right
a. Interpreting the Findings
i. Researchers have uncovered some evidence to support Freud's theory of
humor, but the thing is that there is always alternative explanations for things.
8. Hypnosis
a. Hypnosis taps an aspect of the human mind that is otherwise difficult to reach.
b. Neodissociation theory - Hilgard's theory, which maintains that consciousness is
divided into aware and unaware parts during hypnosis
i. The part of you that is aware of the hypnosis is called the "hidden observer"
ii. Some researchers argue that hypnosis is not some magical thing that's going on,
that is, that people do things they are told during hypnosis not because they are
in a trance but because they think they are supposed to
1. They also argue that nothing done during hypnosis cannot be done
without hypnosis as well
a. Why do some people claim to forget what they did when hypnotized?
i. Some researchers believe it's because the events that happen during hypnosis
is stored in a pocket of the mind created by ego
ii. Others argue that people don't remember because they don't expect to
remember anything thus not making an effort to remember anything.
a. The hypnotist isn't what makes the difference, it’s the participant.
i. Some participants respond more to hypnosis than others, this has very little to
do with the actual hypnotist
ii. Absorption - the ability to become highly involved in sensory and imaginative
experiences

12. Chapter 5
Chapter 6