5 Steps to a 5 AP Psychology, 2010-2011 Edition - Laura Lincoln Maitland [127]
Alfred Adler’s Individual Psychology
Another contemporary of Freud, Alfred Adler, was also a Viennese psychiatrist. While Freud emphasized sex, and Jung emphasized ancestral thought patterns, Adler emphasized social interest as the primary determinant of behavior. He made consciousness the center of personality in his individual or ego theory of personality. Adler’s self is a personalized, subjective system that interprets and makes meaning from our experiences, trying to fulfill our unique style of life, the system principle by which the individual personality functions. Our creative self constructs our personality out of the raw material of heredity and experience. Adler believed that people strive for superiority to be altruistic, cooperative, creative, unique, aware, and interested in social welfare. He thought that we all try to compensate for inferiority complexes based on what we see as physical, intellectual, or social inadequacies. Social interest is the inevitable compensation for all of our natural weaknesses. Adler thought that birth order was an important factor controlling personality. He hypothesized that the oldest child (who is prepared for the appearance of a rival) is likely to develop into a responsible, protective person; the middle child is likely to be ambitious and well adjusted; and the youngest child is likely to be spoiled.
Karen Horney’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Although she never studied with Freud, Karen Horney is also considered a neo-Freudian. She brought a feminist perspective to psychoanalytic theory and sharply attacked the male bias she saw in Freud’s work. Her counterpart to Freud’s penis envy in females was the male’s womb envy or desire to procreate. She thought that males and females both are envious of attributes of the other sex, but that women were more envious of men’s societal status than their penises. Horney proposed that youngsters feel helpless and threatened, and learn to cope by showing affection or hostility toward others, or by withdrawing from relationships. Adults who use all three strategies are healthy, whereas according to her theory, using only one strategy leads to mental illness.
Humanistic Theory
Unlike the deterministic psychoanalytic theories, Abraham Maslow’s and Carl Rogers’s more optimistic humanistic theories of personality stress the importance of our free will in determining who we want to be.
Abraham Maslow’s Holistic Dynamic Theory
Trained as a behaviorist in the 1920s, Maslow thought that behaviorism could not account for his observations of developing children. He asserted that we are born good and move toward self-actualization as our goal. Self-actualization is reaching toward the best person we can be. (See Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in Chapter 12.) Humanists think that society sometimes causes us to choose goals that lead us away from self-actualization. Self-actualizers who have met their deficiency needs and accept themselves and others have a realistic attitude, are autonomous, independent, creative, democratic, and have a problem-centered rather than self-centered approach to life.
Carl Rogers’s Self Theory
The key concept of Rogers’ self theory is the self, an organized, consistent set of beliefs and perceptions about ourselves, which develops in response to our life experiences. Experiences that are inconsistent with our self-concept cause us to feel threatened and anxious. If we are well adjusted, we can adapt by modifying our self-concept. Rogers believed that we are all born with a need for unconditional positive regard, for acceptance and love from others