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Sigmund Freud Biography Sigmund Freud was born on 6 th May 1856 in Moravia's town Freiberg. He lived the most of his life in Vienna. Freud was always a brilliant student in his classes. He went to a medical school and became involved in man researches lead by a professor of psychology named Ernst Bruce. Freud was a very good researcher and made new discoveries about his topics. From there he went on with many great psychiatrists like Charcot in Paris and Bernheim in Nancy.

He found out a lot about hypnosis and hysterics. After studying abroad in Berlin, he cam back to Vienna and married Martha Bernays. Freud gained fame by writing many books and giving lectures about topics of psychology. During World War II, Freud came to England as Vienna was not a safe place for Jews. Soon after, he died from a mouth cancer disease. But by now Freud had discovered a lot about psychology and today people read his theories and believe in it.

Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Freud introduced many theories of personality. Some of the main theories include: 1. The idea of conscious versus the unconscious. 2. The id, the ego, and the superego. 3. Life and Death instincts 4. Anxiety 5.

The defense mechanisms 6. The stages 7. The Oedipal crisis 8. Character The first theory is the idea of conscious versus the unconscious.

Freud defines the conscious mind as what one is aware of at any given moment, ones present ideas and views, fantasies, thoughts, memories, and feelings. However Freud suggests that the conscious part of our brain is smaller than the unconscious. The unconscious part is the largest and it includes the things that one is not aware of, for example our instincts, memories, emotions, and things that we cant bear to look at. Freud also says that the unconscious is what gives us motivation for desires of food or sex. The id, ego, and the superego is one of the famous theories introduced by Freud. The first of these is the id.

The id works just to keep us pleased and happy. The id demands to take care of our immediate needs, for example if there is someone elses food kept somewhere then the id forces the hungry person to take the food and dont care about the consequences. The ego works with the reality principle. The ego takes care of a need by finding rational solutions that might not have harsh consequences, for example if there is someone elses food kept somewhere then the ego forces the hungry person to take some of it and leave some. The superego works with the respect principle. So if there is food the superego will not take the food because it respects other peoples property.

Sigmund Freud also introduced the theories on life and death instincts. The life instinct is referred to as the life of an individual motivated to seek food and water. The life of the species is motivated to have sex. As Freud believes that the goal of life is death. Freud thinks that near the life instincts there is a death instinct and that everyone is this world has a wish to die. Freud believes that although this wish might even be unconscious but it is present in everyones mind.

Freud mentions three different kinds of anxieties in his anxiety theory. The first one is called realistic anxiety, which means that if one person is faced with something fearful, like a snake, they would experience fear in their minds. The second kind of anxiety is known as the moral anxiety which means that the threat comes form the social world of the superego. With this threat the person feels guilt, shame, and fear. The last one is the neurotic anxiety which means that the threat comes from within a person. For example the person would fear if he or she is about to lose temper.

Freud also contributed to the introduction of the defense mechanism theory. This theory includes the ways a person can use to defend his or her actions. There are many ways a person can defend, here is a list, Denial, Repression, Asceticism, Isolation, Displacement, Turning against the self, Projection, Altruistic surrender, Reaction formation, Undoing, Introjection, Identification with the aggressor, Regression, Rationalization, and Sublimation. Sigmund Freud also introduced a theory on the development of humans through various stages. In the oral stage the source of pleasure is the mouth.

In the anal stage the source of pleasure is the anus. In the phallic stage the pleasure is gained from the genitalia. In the latent stage the pleasure is to learn new thing and gather knowledge. In the final stage, the genital stage, the pleasure is gained from having sex drives.

Freud also introduced the theory of Oedipal crisis. In this theory Freud mentions that a young boy has sex drives for his mother and a young girl has sex drives for her father. Freud introduced the character theory. In this theory Freud says that ones experiences contribute to the development of their personality and character. These experiences help a young adolescence become an adult and take responsibilities and contribute to the society.

Alfred Adler Biography Alfred Adler was born on 7 th February in Vienna. He was born to Jewish parents and when he was five he almost died because of pneumonia. However the disease was cured and from there on Alfred decided that he would become a physician. Alfred was not a very intelligent student in his school but he more popular and outgoing. However he still managed to gain a medical degree from the University of Vienna.

During his college studies he also found a girl for himself. He and Raised Epstein got married in 1897 and had four children. To start his medical career he became an ophthalmologist but soon his interests turned towards general practice and then he opened a small office in Vienna. Then soon afterwards Alfred turned towards psychology and joined the group of Sigmund Freud. He and Freud had many debates over several things related to psychology. During World War I, Alfred was a physician in the Austrian Army and after the war he was involved in many social projects.

Eventually, Alfred Adler died of a heart attack on 28 th May 1937. Contribution to the Theories of Personality Some of the main theories introduced by Alfred Adler are listed below. 1. Life style 2. Teleology 3. Social interests 4. Inferiority 5.

Psychological types 6. Childhood 7. Birth Order The first of these theories is related to life style. According to Adler Life style refers to how one lives, tackle problems, and handle personal relationships. He looked at people as a whole and not as parts.

According to Adler the style of life of a tree is the individuality of a tree trying to show itself in an environment. This basically means that every one of us tries to fit in the society and alter our behaviors. This theory is very simple in its meaning and it just says that we change our life styles for fitting with others. Alfred Adler described a new idea in this theory called Teleology. Adler sees motivation as a reason to move closer towards things a person wants to achieve instead of being driven by the past. Adler thinks that we are all drawn towards our goals in life.

He thinks that we always try to go closer to what purpose or ideas we want to achieve. Adler calls this theory Teleology. Alfred Adler also introduced the theory of Social interest. For Adler striving for perfection is the priority but the second most important thing is the idea of social interest or social feeling.

He thinks that one cannot achieve his or her goals without having a social community to compete in. It is the social environment of person that thrives him to do something, to get to his goal. The theory of Inferiority mainly means that a person feels under the pressure of other people. If things are going well for a person, he is getting closer to his goals, competing in the society, and then everything is fine. But is the person is not having any of these things then he looks to himself and starts to feel inferior to other people. Adler believes that every one of us have a stronger and a weaker side.

In this theory a person shoes and represents his weaker side. In this theory Adler also describes the inferiority complex and the superiority complex. Adler introduced many types of psychological types. The first is the ruling type, form childhood a person feels dominant over others and is aggressive. The second is the learning type, sensitive person who forms a shell around himself for protection and relies on others for facing lifes difficulties. The third type is the avoiding type, a person who has the lowest levels of energy and avoids facing others in life.

The final and fourth type is the socially useful type, this is a person who is both socially active and participating and has high levels of energy. Adler also believed that each person is a unique individual so he or she may be a mixture of these personality types. Adler's theories on Childhood are also very interesting. Alder like Freud believed that lifestyle and personality is developed in the early years of a persons life. In fact he thinks that when a person is five then their attitude is fixed for life. Adler feels there are three basic childhood situations that contribute to a lifestyle.

The first one is organ inferior ities, the second is pampering, and the third is neglect. Adler also has some interesting views about the birth order. There are four situations in which a persons character is affected. If parents have an only child then the child is likely to be pampered. If its the first child then he gets all the attention from his parents and when the second child arrives then that first child fights for his lost attention form parents. The second child is usually competitive, and tries to become more superior to the first child.

The youngest child is the most pampered in the family, he feels inferior to all and every one is always ahead of him. Carl Jung Biography Carl Gustav Jung was born on 26 th July 1875 in a Swiss village of Kessewil. He was always surrounded by educated and intelligent family relatives. Jung studied many languages in the early years of his life like Latin, Sanskrit, and many other European languages. In his teenage years Carl didnt care much about school, he went to a boarding school in Basel, Switzerland.

Although he choose to study archeology, he still went on to study medicine. Then after working under the famous neurologist Krafft-Ending, he went on to pursue his career as a psychiatrist. Jung also met Freud in Vienna in 1907 where they talked a lot about psychology and its concepts. They analyzed each others dreams and they always had an interesting conversation. But then came World War I, and Jung traveled to Africa, America, and India. He retired in 1946 and began to stay away from the public and press as much as possible.

His wife died in 1955 and eventually he died on 6 th June of 1961. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Jung introduced many theories of personality. These theories include: 1. Archetypes 2. The mother archetype 3. Mana 4.

The shadow 5. The persona 6. Anima and animus 7. The dynamics of psyche 8. The self 9. Synchronicity 10.

Introversion and Extroversion 11. The functions 12. Assessment The first of these theories is related to archetypes. The contents of the collective unconscious are called archetypes.

Jung also called them dominants, images, mythological or primordial images, and a few other names, but archetypes seems to be the most appealing over these. An archetype is an unlearned tendency to experience things in a certain way. The archetype is like a black hole in space. You only know its there by how it draws matter and light to itself. The mother archetype is a very good example of a theory. All of our ancestors had mothers.

We have developed in an environment that included a mother or mother-substitute. We would never have survived without our connection with a nurturing-one during our times as helpless infants. So the mother archetype is our ability to recognize a certain relationship, that of mothering. Jung says that this is rather different, we are likely to show the archetype out into the world and onto a particular person, usually our own mothers. The mana theory is also interesting. One must understand that these archetypes are not really biological things.

Unlike Freud's instincts they are more spiritual demands. For example, if you dreamt about long things, Freud might say these things represent sex. But Jung might have a very different interpretation. Even dreaming about a penis might not have much to do with sex according to Jung. The mana usually symbolizes this kind of spiritual power. The shadow theory is also introduced by Jung.

Sex and the life instincts in are of course represented somewhere in Jung's psychological system. They are a part of an archetype called the shadow. It derives or comes from our past, when our concerns were limited to survival and reproduction, and when we weren't very self-conscious. Meaning we didnt car much about many other things except food and sex. The other theory is related to the persona.

The persona represents a persons public image. The word, persona, is obviously related to the word person and personality, and it comes from a Latin word for mask. So the persona is the mask you put on before you show yourself to the outside world. According to Jung it is all a part of collective unconscious. Another theory is related to Anima and Animus.

A part of our persona is the role of male or female we must play and for most people that role is determined by their physical gender. The anima is the female aspect present in the collective unconscious of men, and the animus is the male aspect present in the collective unconscious of women. The anima may be represented as a young girl, a witch, or as the earth mother. It is likely to be associated with deep emotions.

The animus may be represented as a wise old man, a sorcerer, or a number of males. Jung gives us three types of dynamics of the psyche. The first one is the principle of opposites. In this every wish immediately suggests its opposite. If a person had a good thought then he cannot help but have in him somewhere the opposite bad thought. The second is the principle of equivalence.

In this the energy created from the opposition is given to both sides equally. The third is the principle of entropy. This is the capability for oppositions to come together, and energy to decrease, over a person's lifetime. The next theory is all about the self. The goal of life is to realize the self, as described by Jung. The self is an archetype that represents the things of all opposites, so that every aspect of your personality is expressed equally.

You are then neither and both male and female, neither and both conscious and unconscious. Jung gives us theories on synchronicity also. Among the people discussed in many books, behaviorists tend to be mechanist's, while the humanists tend to be tele ologists. Jung believes that both play a part in the development of a persons personality. But he also adds a third alternative called synchronicity. Synchronicity is the occurrence of two events that are not linked causally or teleological ly but they are related.

Jung also introduces the introversion and the extroversion. Jung developed a personality theory that has become so popular that some people don't realize he did anything else. It begins with the difference between introversion and extroversion. Introverts are people who prefer their internal world of thoughts, feelings, fantasies, dreams, whereas extroverts chose the external world of things and people and activities, they are more social. Jung says that there are four basic functions. The first is senses, getting information from senses.

The second is thinking. Thinking means evaluating information or ideas logically. The third is intuiting. Intuiting is a kind of perception that works outside of the usual conscious processes.

The fourth is feeling. Feeling is a matter of evaluating information. Jung also introduced the Assessment. This is a test that has four scales. The first one is Extroversion-Introversion, the second one is Sensing-Intuiting, the third is Thinking-Feeling, and the fourth is Judging-Perceiving. Erich Fromm Biography Erich Fromm was born in 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany.

His father was a moody person and a successful businessman. His childhood wasnt very happy. Erich was a very religious person. When he was 14, World War I came, and he experienced something new in his life. There was a lot of nationalism around him and where he lives. However, with all this media pressure, Fromm hated war and it frightened him.

This event made him curious about several things. Now he wanted to find out many things as to why people react the way they do. Fromm received a PhD from Heidelberg in 1922 and began his career as a psychotherapist. Then he moved to the US and settled in New York. There he met great psychological experts like Karen Horney, with whom he had an affair for sometime. Nearing the end of his career, he moved to Mexico City for teaching.

Eventually he died in Switzerland in 1980. By now he had collected a lot of information about psychology and made many new theories. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Fromm introduced many theories of personality. Some of the famous ones are: 1. Escape from freedom 2. Families 3.

The social unconscious 4. Evil 5. Human needs Erich Fromm describes three ways in which a person can escape from freedom. The first one is Authoritarianism. In this we seek to avoid freedom by keeping ourselves away from others, by becoming a part of an authoritarian system like the society of the Middle Ages. The second one is Destructiveness.

In this authoritarians respond to a painful existence by eliminating themselves: If there is no me, how can anything hurt me. It is basically a concept of keeping away from others. The third one is Automaton conformity. In this authoritarians escape by hiding within an authoritarian hierarchy.

Even though our society puts pressure for equality, people usually ignore these. Fromm introduces two kinds of unproductive families. One of them is the Symbiotic families. Symbiosis is the relationship two organisms have who cannot live without each other. In a symbiotic family, some members of the family are ignored by other members, so that they do not fully develop personalities of their own. The second one is called the Withdrawing families.

The main alternative is most notable for its cool indifference, if not cold hatefulness. Although withdrawal as a family style has always been around, it has come to dominate some societies only in the last few hundred years, that is, since the merchant class arrived on the scene. The social unconscious theory is also very interesting. Fromm believes that our social unconscious is best understood by examining our economic systems. He defines, and names, five personality types, which he calls orientations, in economic terms.

Here is a table: Orientation Society Family Escape from Freedom Receptive Peasant society Symbiotic (passive) Authoritarian (masochistic) Exploitative Aristocratic society Symbiotic (active) Authoritarian (sadistic) Hoarding Bourgeois society Withdrawing (puritanical) Perfectionist to destructive Marketing Modern society Withdrawing (infantile) Automaton conformist Productive Humanistic communitarian socialism Loving and reasoning Freedom and responsibility acknowledged and accepted The evil theory is also very interesting. Fromm was always interested in trying to understand the really evil people of this world and not just one's who were confused or mislead or stupid or sick, but the one's who, with full consciousness of the evil of their acts, performed them anyway: Hitler, Stalin, Charles Manson, Jim Jones, and so on, large and small. All these people had plans to become evil. Here is a table describing two kinds of evil in a person: Biophilous Necrophilous Having Mode Receptive Exploitative Hoarding Marketing Being Mode Productive Like many other psychologists, Fromm also believes that we have human needs, so he introduced a theory about it.

He lists five main human needs. In Relatedness, as human beings, we are aware of our separateness from each other, and seek to overcome it. In Creativity, Fromm believes that we all desire to overcome another fact of our being. We want to be creators. In Rootedness, we need to feel at home in the universe, even though, as human beings, we are somewhat different from the natural world.

In A sense of Identity, this need is so powerful that we are sometimes driven to find it, for example by doing anything. In a Frame of Orientation, we need to understand the world and our place in it. We need to understand our culture. Karen Daniel ssen Horney Biography Karen Horney was born on 16 th September in 1885. Her father worked as a ships captain who was also a religious man and an authoritarian. Karen Horney's childhood was filled with misperceptions.

When she was nine her approach to life, Karen became rather ambitious and rebellious. In her early adulthood, she was very stressed at most times. In 1906 she entered a medical school without the permission of her parents. There she also met a law student called Oscar whom she married in 1909. They had three daughters and in 1911 Karens mother died. After this Horney entered the field of psychoanalysis.

Due to the harsh attitude of Oscar towards his children, Karen and the three daughters left the house in 1923. They eventually settled in Brooklyn, USA. It was there where she met other psychoanalysts like Erich Fromm, Harry Sullivan. She wrote and taught at various institutions and Karen eventually died in 1952. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Horney introduced many theories of personality. These theories include: 1.

The neurotic needs 2. Development 3. Self theory According to Horney we have about ten neurotic needs. 1. The neurotic need for affection and approval, the indiscriminate need to please others and be liked by them. 2. The neurotic need for a partner, for someone who will take over one's life. 3. The neurotic need to restrict one's life to narrow borders, to be undemanding, satisfied with little. 4.

The neurotic need for power, for control over others. 5. The neurotic need to exploit others and get the better of them 6. The neurotic need for social recognition or prestige. 7. The neurotic need for personal admiration. 8.

The neurotic need for personal achievement. 9. The neurotic need for self-sufficiency and independence. 10. The neurotic need for perfection and unassailability. Horney also introduced the theory on development.

It is true that some people who are abused or neglected as children suffer from neuroses as adults. What we often forget is that most do not. Horney's says parental indifference is a lack of warmth and affection in childhood. Even occasional beatings or an early sexual experience can be overcome, if the child feels wanted and loved. Most children, however, find themselves overwhelmed by basic anxiety, which in children is mostly a matter of fear of helplessness and abandonment.

These children are completely ignored. Horney also has a theory on Self... For Horney, the self is the core of your being, your potential and ability. If you were healthy, you would have an accurate conception of who you are, and you would then be free to realize that potential. Here is a diagram that describes it: Albert Bandura Biography Albert Bandura was born on 4 th December 1925 in a small town of Mundane in Alberta, Canada.

Although he studied in a local and rather cheap and inexpensive school, he was remarkably successful. After high school, he worked as a construction worker, selling holes in an Alaska Highway. He got his bachelors degree from the University of British Columbia. He got his degree in 1949 and then he went on to do his PhD in 1952 in the University of Iowa. It was this place where he became more aware of several things like the learning theory.

He also met Virginia Van who was an instructor in a nursing school. Then they married and had two children. After that Bandura took a job of a teacher at the Wichita Guidance Center in Kansas. In 1953 he started the teaching job at Stanford University. He also wrote his first book called Adolescent Aggression. Bandura was also the president of the APA in 1973 and received an award for his contributions.

He is still working at the Stanford University in the present day. Contribution to the Theories of Personality In his life Bandura introduced many theories of personality. Some of these theories are: 1. Observational learning or modeling 2.

Self regulation Bandura believed that there were some certain step that were involved in Modeling. 1. Attention. So if you are going to learn anything, you have to be paying attention. Likewise, anything that puts a damper on attention is going to decrease learning, including observational learning. Some of the things that influence attention involve characteristics of the model. If the model is colorful and dramatic, for example, we pay more attention.

If the model is attractive, or prestigious, or appears to be particularly competent, you will pay more attention. 2. Retention. One must be able to retain and keep what you have paid attention to. This is where imagery and language come in: we store what we have seen the model doing in the form of mental images or verbal descriptions... 3. Reproduction. Youre just sitting there daydreaming.

You have to translate the images or descriptions into actual behavior. So you have to have the ability to reproduce the behavior in the first place. I can watch Olympic ice skaters all day long, yet not be able to reproduce their jumps, because I cant ice skate at all. Many athletes, for example, imagine their performance in their minds eye prior to actually performing. 4.

Motivation. With all this, youre still not going to do anything unless you are motivated to imitate, that is. until you have some reason for doing it. Bandura mentions a number of motives can make a person do something. The self-regulation theory is also introduced by Bandura. If you did well in comparison with your standard, you give yourself rewarding self-responses.

If you did poorly, you give yourself punishing self-responses. These self-responses can range from the obvious (treating yourself to a sundae or working late) to the more covert (feelings of pride or shame). A very important concept in psychology that can be understood well with self-regulation is self-concept (better known as self-esteem). If, over the years, you find yourself meeting your standards and life loaded with self-praise and self-reward, you will have a pleasant self-concept (high self-esteem). If, on the other hand, you find yourself forever failing to meet your standards and punishing yourself, you will have a poor self-concept (low self-esteem). Harry Stack Sullivan Biography Harry Sullivan was born in 1892.

He was an American psychiatrist, noted for his theory of interpersonal relations. Sullivan was born in Norwich, New York, and studies at the Chicago College of Medicine and Surgery. In 1919 he began psychiatric work at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D. C. , and, from 1923 to 1930 he was involved in clinic research at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Towson, Maryland. He taught psychiatry at the medical schools of the University of Maryland and Georgetown University. He also worked as director of the William Alanson White Foundation from 1934 to 1943 and the Washington School of Psychiatry from 1936 to 1947.

He was influenced by the American psychiatrist William Alanson White. Sullivan. Sullivan wrote many books about psychology some of these are, The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry in 1953 and Clinical Studies in Psychiatry in 1956. A...


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