Responsible for dealing with reality, the Ego develops from the ID and ensures the ID’s demands are communicated in a suitable manner in the real world. The Ego is able to function in the conscious and unconscious mind and functions on the reality principle. This allows the Ego to endeavour to please the demands from the ID in a social and realistic way. The Superego, which develops from the age of five in children, contains all the human’s internalised moral standards and ideals which are gained from authority figures and society, allowing human’s to sense right from wrong, as well as offering guidelines for making judgements. (Cherry 2012)
Defence mechanisms are in place to protect the ego from the unconscious demands of the ID and the Superego. There are six different mechanisms, displacement, rationalisation, reaction formation, regression, repression and denial. Freud implied these defence mechanisms where in place to change events and scenarios that are a threat to the individual to make them more acceptable. For example, if a teenage boy was using drugs but his parents didn’t believe the headmaster when told about the problem, the denial defence mechanism would refuse to admit external unpleasant events were happening to protect them whereas if Mary started college away from her family and began sleeping with her teddy bear again her regression defence mechanism would return her mind back to more primitive levels of behaviour. (McLeod 2008)
The development of the individual is through the critical negotiation via each specific psychodynamic stage of development. Freud proposed five stages of development and suggested at each stage the child was seeking to gain gratification from a certain part of their body. However, too much or too little gratification could lead to certain personality traits. The psychosexual stage begins with Oral, between birth and 1 year. The baby seeks gratification with its mouth by enjoying feeding, suckling and putting things in its mouth but this could cause conflict if the baby is force fed or weaned too early, the consequence of this fixation could lead to smoking, overeating and verbal hostility in later life. The second stage, Anal, ages 2-3, the child seeks pleasure from expelling or withholding faeces. This could cause conflict by toilet training the child which could lead to anal explosives or obsessive tidiness in later life. Stage 3, Phallic, ages 3-5, the child seeks pleasure by masturbation, but could cause conflict if the child has an abnormal family set up which leads to unusual relationships with the mother or father. This could cause men to feel anxiety over sex in later life and women to feel envy of the penis. Stage 4, ages 5-puberty, the child’s sex drive is repressed, which results in interactions with the same sex peers but there are no consequences as there is no fixation at this stage. Stage 5, ages puberty-death, the adult seeks pleasure from their genitals either by masturbation or sexual intercourse but there are no consequences as fixation should happen, this indicates a healthy adult. (Johnson 2012)
In Freud’s traditional psychoanalytic therapy, transference is used to describe the client’s unconscious feelings which are projected on to the opaque therapist. These feelings provide a foundation used for identifying, accepting and discussing the therapist’s interpretation of the problems without disclosure however in counter-transference therapy, it follows the same merits as transference but the therapist instead disclosures the information to someone else. (Hill 2009)
The primary paradigm of psychology between the 1920s-1950s, behaviourism, also known as the behavioural approach, focuses on the external observable behaviour which can be scientifically and objectivity measured through controlled methods. Behaviourists believe there is no such thing as free will as all animal and human minds are born with a ‘tubula rasa’ so behaviour is learnt through their environment by either operant or classical conditioning. Behaviourists believe behaviour is a result of a stimulus-response which can be broken down to its simplest form no matter how complex the behaviour is. (McLeod 2007)
Ivan Pavlov, (1849-1936) a Russian physiologist discovered classical conditioning by accident. He was experimenting with his dogs by giving them signals before food to produce saliva to try to understand the digestive system, from this he discovered that unconditional responses could be triggered with stimuli. Pavlov was reward the Nobel Prize in 1904 for his contributions towards Physiology. Burrhus Skinner, (1904-1990) an American psychologist and behaviourist came up with the theory of operant conditioning. He believed his approach fully understood human and animal behaviour by looking at the causes of action and its consequences. Skinner based his theory on the works of Edward Thorndike, whose theory was the ‘Law of Effect’ which studied learning in animals using a puzzle box. Skinner is now regarded as the father of operant conditioning. (McLeod 2007)
To show how an unconditioned stimulus produces an unconditioned response, Pavlov conducted a subjective experiment in where he used a bell to represent his neutral stimulus. Whenever he gave food to his dog he rang the bell and measured the dogs salivary secretions, he repeated this process until eventually the bell was rung but no food was presented but now the sight of the bell on its own still caused an increase in salivation in the dog. From this, Pavlov’s dog learnt an association between the bell and the food, so a new behaviour was learnt. The dog’s response was conditioned so the bell, which was the neutral stimulus, became a conditioned stimulus. Pavlov also discovered that the dog learnt to associate any object or event with food and still produced the same response. (McLeod 2007)
Skinner conducted an objective experiment known as ‘Skinner’s Box’ to show how positive reinforcement could work in operant conditioning. He placed a hungry white rat into his ‘Skinner’s Box’ which was made up of a chamber with levers, lights, a pellet dispenser and an electrical grid. Once the rat was placed into the box it would move about and occasionally knock the lever, causing a food pellet to be released into the chamber. The rat rapidly learnt to knock the lever to get food after being placed into the box a couple of times. The consequence of receiving food when the rat pressed the lever ensured the rat would repeat the knocking action again and again. Skinner also demonstrated how negative reinforcement could work in operant conditioning by repeating the same experiment as above, but this time he placed the white rat into the chamber and subjected it to electrical currents causing the rat some discomfort, but when the rat knocked the lever it caused the electrical current to switch off. Again, the rat rapidly learnt to knock the lever after being placed in the box a few times to switch the electrical current off. The consequence of avoiding the electrical current ensured the rat would repeat the knocking action again and again. (McLeod 2007)
Freud’s theory has contributed significantly towards psychology because his theory is still used today, after 100 years of being developed. His theory highlighted the importance of having a balanced childhood, how the minds defence mechanisms protect humans from their own ID and the importance of healthy development through the psychosexual stages. His theory on psychological therapies has drawn attention to the causes of psychological mental disorders while later psychodynamic theories have attempted to solve and develop the weaknesses to make the theory stronger. (Hill 2009) The theory is also seen in a positive light because it studies the internal processes to gain further understanding and awareness of the individual in regard to their motivations and experiences. (McLeod 2007) However, psychodynamic case studies of the unconscious mind and personality receive the greatest criticism for being unscientific in its analysis of behaviour because it is subjective, difficult to prove wrong and the results cannot be generalised as well as being too deterministic, allowing no room for the idea of free will. The psychodynamic approach has also been accused of ignoring meditational processes and produces vague concepts to explain everything which predicts very little. Freud’s traditional psychoanalytic therapy can also be seen as flawed if the client is unable to verbalise their experiences if they lack the cognitive ability which results in unsuccessful psychodynamic therapy. (Hill 2009)
Humanistic psychologists dismiss the behaviourists scientific method of controlled and measured variables because they imply it creates a fake environment and produces low ecological validity, however they also reject behaviourism because they believe humans are unique and they cannot be compared to animals and imply humans have a free will which allows them to make their own choices in life. Freud criticises behaviourism because it does not focus on the internal behaviour and rejects the idea humans are born with a ‘tabula rasa’ because they are born with instincts. (McLeod 2007) Ethnologists dismiss behaviourism theories because they disagree with animal testing whereas cognitive psychologists disregard behaviourism since behaviourists ignore important mental processes involved in learning. While there are many negative views on behaviourism there are a number of positive contributions towards psychology such as behaviourists use scientific and experimental methodology and provide sturdy counter-arguments to the nature side of the nature-nurture dispute. Another positive to the behaviourism theory is it has seen the social leaning theory overrule the weaknesses while using simple principles such as classical and operant conditioning to explain a variety of phenomena. (Hill 2009)
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References:
BBC. (2012). Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/freud_sigmund.shtml. Last accessed 26/10/2012.
Cherry. K. (2012). The Id, Ego and Superego. Available: http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/personalityelem.htm. Last accessed 26/10/2012.
Hill. G (2009). AS & A Level Psychology Through Diagrams . Oxford: Oxford University Press . 187.
Johnson, T. (26/10/2012). Folk psychology-short version. [PowerPoint slides]. Presented at a N2.14 lecture at Swindon College.
McLeod. S. (2007). Psychodynamic Approach. Available: http://www.simplypsychology.org/psychodynamic.html. Last accessed 26/10/2012.
McLeod. S. (2008). Defense Mechanisms. Available: http://www.simplypsychology.org/defense-mechanisms.html. Last accessed 26/10/2012.
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