Are academic psychologists right to reject psychoanalytic theories of personality? Argue your case.
The basic premise of this theory is that much of what individuals think and do is driven by unconscious processes and in my opinion the psychoanalytic account of personality remains the more comprehensive and influential theory of personality ever created. Its impacts extend well beyond psychology influencing the social sciences, the humanities, the arts and society generally. Many of its ideas have been absorbed into the mainstream of psychological thinking, Freud’s ideas are still valid, some are, and some are not.
Closely allied with Freud’s focus on unconscious processes was his belief in the determinism of human behaviour. Freud maintained not only that all psychological events are caused but also that most of them are caused by unsatisfied drives and unconscious wishes. The most central idea usually attributed to Freud is the importance of unconscious processes, according to Freud, we are most often unaware of why we do what we do. For along while, mainstream academic psychology rejected this notion. Modern thinkers now believe that unconscious processes are central and account for most of our behaviour (Graf & Masson, 1993).
His iceberg model was too simple to describe the human personality, so he develop a structural model, which divided personality into three major systems that interact to govern human behaviour the id, the ego and the super ego. Model that help personality psychologists in assessing unconscious wishes, motivations, and conflicts resulting in a more therapeutic relationship for psychotherapy, there can be no doubt of its impact on the culture, or of the value of some of its scientific contributions.
For example, Freud’s method of free association opened up an entirely new database of observations that had never before been explored systematically. In addition, the recognition that our behaviour often reflects a compromise between our wishes and our fears accounts for many of the apparent contradictions in human behaviour better than any other theory of personality.
And Freud’s recognition that unconscious processes play an important role in much of our behaviour is almost universally accepted although these processes are often reinterpreted in learning theory or information processing terms (Funder, 2001)
The remarkable feature of Freud’s theory is how well it managed to transcend its narrow observational base. For example, many experimental studies of the defence mechanisms and reactions to conflict have supported the theory in contexts quite different from those in which Freud develop the theory.
Freud’s contributions to psychology are extremely significant, the method of analysis, though others sophisticated it, the structure of the psyche as the superego, the ego, and the id, help to have a better insight and understanding of the unconscious processes in humans meaning beliefs, fears, and desires that a person is unaware of but nonetheless influence behaviour. Freud combined cognitive notions of consciousness, perception and memory with ideas about biologically based instincts to forge a bold new theory of human behaviour.
What are the cultural factors that affect personality and intelligence?
As human our personalities and intelligence can be affected by different factors
Personality and intelligence are not defined by a single factor, but by many factors. Some of those factors are psychological, while others are physical, biological, and hereditary.
For instance cultural environment affects our personality because every culture has a set of ethical and moral values , beliefs and norms that can significantly affects our behaviour and thought. Cross-cultural researches have indicated the significance of cultural environment in shaping an individual personality.
For instance, Individuals of certain cultures are more generous and warmer, whereas individuals of other cultures are introvert and self-centred. Likewise, certain cultural communities are more susceptible to development of certain abnormal behaviours as compared to others, probably due to the influence of geographical, dietary, hormonal or genetic influence within that community.
Another cultural factor influencing intelligence and personality is religion, this factor is significant as beliefs and practices have become a part of the routine of life for many individuals in different cultures, mostly yielding a positive outcome but something can influence negative thoughts or behaviour towards others.
Values play an important role in the way we behave and think about others, it also shapes our ways of thinking about society and what to expect from it, are standards that shape our behaviour and helps us to decide to what is wrong and what is right. Culture is transmitted through language and the modelling of behaviour when situations allow individuals to communicate through shared language, do not account for most of the variance.
Environment has an effect in the cultural aspect the cultural view, which in turn influences the socialization models, which affect some of the variance of personality. Family also plays an important role in the way our personality and intelligence is shaped, as this is part of an individual life, for instance in some cultures when parents are more close and affective to their children like hugging or comforting, the children are more sociable and emotionally stable, have high self-esteem, feel self-adequate, and have a positive world view.
However, when this is not the case in all cultures and When parents are rejecting or use any sort of physical discipline such as hitting or using sarcastic language, humiliating and abandoning, these children are more propense to become adults who are aggressive, insensitive, unstable ,immaturely dependent, and have a low self-esteem and a negative world view.
Traditions are also part of the way we think and behave, this is what is show to us and beliefs that are pass to other generations. This of course have an effect in our intelligence as it depends of what activities we do as individuals for instance some individuals tend to introduce their kids to extracurricular activities or the fact that a child come from two different backgrounds as their brain will start to learn two different languages in the household.
As individuals we tend to observe others around us, more like the way they are, personalities rather than their social intelligence, we look at person’s value system as these values are expressed in everyday social interactions. As individuals we decide and judge another person and how well the individual lives up to the cultural values that have been learn we from our parents, teachers, and the others of significance around us
