1. Is personality innate or learned?
2. Is personality conscious or unconscious?
3. Is personality influenced by interior or exterior factors?
So, not only is the topic of personality complex, but it is also multi-faced, with theories both complementing and contradicting each other. To understand personality, is to understand the four major perspectives on it: Psychodynamic, Behavioral and Social Cognitive, Humanistic, and Trait.
The psychodynamic perspective views personality as primarily unconscious, or beyond awareness, and as occurring in stages. It strongly emphasizes the role of early experiences in sculpting someone’s personality. Sigmund Freud created the Psychodynamic theory around the early 1900’s. His studies stressed the importance of the unconscious mind - a key factor in his later created personality structure.
According to Freud, personality has three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id accommodates biological instincts and is completely unconscious. It operates according to the pleasure principle, which has no contact with reality, seeks pleasure, and avoids pain. The ego operates according to the reality principle, bringing an individual pleasure within the norms of society. The superego is the moral branch of the personality and is mainly conscious. Ironically, it …show more content…
In The Lord of the Flies a group of boys are stranded on an island while their sense of morality is not fully formed. The boys are removed from outside influence and left to rely on their most natural of behaviors/instincts. Jack represents the id, Ralph represents the ego, Piggy represents the scientific superego and Simon represents the religious superego. The island itself represents Freud 's theories, from the dark forest representing all the darkness of the unconscious mind, to the safe sandy beaches representing the conscious
2. Is personality conscious or unconscious?
3. Is personality influenced by interior or exterior factors?
So, not only is the topic of personality complex, but it is also multi-faced, with theories both complementing and contradicting each other. To understand personality, is to understand the four major perspectives on it: Psychodynamic, Behavioral and Social Cognitive, Humanistic, and Trait.
The psychodynamic perspective views personality as primarily unconscious, or beyond awareness, and as occurring in stages. It strongly emphasizes the role of early experiences in sculpting someone’s personality. Sigmund Freud created the Psychodynamic theory around the early 1900’s. His studies stressed the importance of the unconscious mind - a key factor in his later created personality structure.
According to Freud, personality has three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id accommodates biological instincts and is completely unconscious. It operates according to the pleasure principle, which has no contact with reality, seeks pleasure, and avoids pain. The ego operates according to the reality principle, bringing an individual pleasure within the norms of society. The superego is the moral branch of the personality and is mainly conscious. Ironically, it …show more content…
In The Lord of the Flies a group of boys are stranded on an island while their sense of morality is not fully formed. The boys are removed from outside influence and left to rely on their most natural of behaviors/instincts. Jack represents the id, Ralph represents the ego, Piggy represents the scientific superego and Simon represents the religious superego. The island itself represents Freud 's theories, from the dark forest representing all the darkness of the unconscious mind, to the safe sandy beaches representing the conscious