Question

According to Freud, what are the three components of personality? What role does each of these components play? When and how does each component develop? Provide examples for how each component operates.

Answer 1

• According to Sigmund Freud, human personality is complex and has more than a single component. In his famous psychoanalytic theory of personality,personality is composed of three elements. These,three elements of personality—known as the id, the ego, and the superego—work together to create complex human behaviors.
• Each component not only adds its own unique contribution to personality, but all three elements interact in ways that have a powerful influence on each individual. Each of these three elements of personality emerges at different points in life.
• The Id
• The id is the only component of personality that is present from birth.This aspect of personality is entirely unconscious and includes the instinctive and primitive behaviors.According to Freud, the id is the source of all psychic energy, making it the primary component of personality.
• The id is driven by the pleasure principle, which strives for immediate gratification of all desires, wants, and needs. If these needs are not satisfied immediately, the result is a state anxiety or tension. For example, an increase in hunger or thirst should produce an immediate attempt to eat or drink.
• The id is very important early in life because it ensures that an infant's needs are met. If the infant is hungry or uncomfortable, he or she will cry until the demands of the id are satisfied. Because young infants are ruled entirely by the id, there is no reasoning with them when these needs demand satisfaction.
• However, immediately fulfilling these needs is not always realistic or even possible. If we were ruled entirely by the pleasure principle, we might find ourselves grabbing the things that we want out of other people's hands to satisfy our own cravings.
• This sort of behavior would be both disruptive and socially unacceptable. According to Freud, the id tries to resolve the tension created by the pleasure principle through the primary process, which involves forming a mental image of the desired object as a way of satisfying the need.
• It is the development of the ego and the superego that allows people to control the id's basic instincts and act in ways that are both realistic and socially acceptable.
• The Ego
• The ego is the component of personality that is responsible for dealing with reality.
• According to Freud, the ego develops from the id and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable in the real world.
• The ego functions in both the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious mind.
• The ego operates based on the reality principle, which strives to satisfy the id's desires in realistic and socially appropriate ways. The reality principle weighs the costs and benefits of an action before deciding to act upon or abandon impulses. In many cases, the id's impulses can be satisfied through a process of delayed gratification—the ego will eventually allow the behavior, but only in the appropriate time and place.
• Example-Sally was thirsty. However, she knew that her server would be back soon to refill her water glass, so she waited until then to get a drink, even though she really just wanted to drink from Mr. Smith's glass.
• The ego also discharges tension created by unmet impulses through the secondary process, in which the ego tries to find an object in the real world that matches the mental image created by the id's primary process.
• For example, imagine that you are stuck in a long meeting at work. You find yourself growing increasingly hungry as the meeting drags on. While the id might compel you to jump up from your seat and rush to the break room for a snack, the ego guides you to sit quietly and wait for the meeting to end.
• Instead of acting upon the primal urges of the id, you spend the rest of the meeting imagining yourself eating a cheeseburger. Once the meeting is finally over, you can seek out the object you were imagining and satisfy the demands of the id in a realistic and appropriate manner
• The Superego
• The last component of personality to develop is the superego.
• The superego is the aspect of personality that holds all of our internalized moral standards and ideals that we acquire from both parents and society—our sense of right and wrong.
• The superego provides guidelines for making judgments.
• According to Freud, the superego begins to emerge at around age five.
• There are two parts of the superego:
• The ego ideal includes the rules and standards for good behaviors. These behaviors include those which are approved of by parental and other authority figures. Obeying these rules leads to feelings of pride, value, and accomplishment.
• The conscience includes information about things that are viewed as bad by parents and society. These behaviors are often forbidden and lead to bad consequences, punishments, or feelings of guilt and remorse.
• The superego acts to perfect and civilize our behavior. It works to suppress all unacceptable urges of the id and struggles to make the ego act upon idealistic standards rather that upon realistic principles. The superego is present in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.
• Example-Sarah knew she could steal the supplies from work and no one would know about it. However, she knew that stealing was wrong, so she decided not to take anything even though she would probably never get caught.
• It is important to remember that these are not three totally separate entities with clearly defined boundaries. These aspects of personality are dynamic and always interacting within a person to influence an individual's overall personality and behavior.
• With so many competing forces, it is easy to see how conflict might arise between the id, ego, and superego. Freud used the term ego strength to refer to the ego's ability to function despite these dueling forces. A person with good ego strength is able to effectively manage these pressures, while those with too much or too little ego strength can become too unyielding or too disrupting.
• If the ego is able to adequately moderate between the demands of reality, the id, and the superego, a healthy and well-adjusted personality emerges. Freud believed that an imbalance between these elements would lead to a maladaptive personality. An individual with an overly dominant id, for example, might become impulsive, uncontrollable, or even criminal. This individual acts upon his or her most basic urges with no concern for whether the behavior is appropriate, acceptable, or legal.
• An overly dominant superego, on the other hand, might lead to a personality that is extremely moralistic and possibly judgmental. This person may be very unable to accept anything or anyone that he or she perceives as "bad" or "immoral."
• An excessively dominant ego can also result in problems. An individual with this type of personality might be so tied to reality, rules, and appropriateness that they are unable to engage in any type of spontaneous or unexpected behavior. This individual may seem very concrete and rigid, incapable of accepting change and lacking an internal sense of right from wrong.