Freud versus Eysenck Theories of Personality

 

 

            Theories of personality that were developed throughout the 20^th century were varied in approach and substance. There were four major schools the psychodynamic, humanistic, trait theorists, and the social cognitive perspective (Gedney-Rubel, 2014). This paper will compare and contrast two perspectives, the psychodynamic and the work of Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939) with trait theory and the work of Hans Eysenck (1916 – 1997).

As its name suggests, psychodynamic theory is centered on the idea that there’s a continuous dynamic conflict between the conscious and the unconscious mind (Deal, 2007). This perspective was pioneered by Freud, who relied heavily on his clinical observations with his patients in order to develop his theories (Ciabattari, 2014). Freud also proposed two personality models, the topographic and the structural models. The first is composed of the mental layers, the conscious, pre-conscious, and the unconscious. The structural model includes the id, ego, and superego. Both models overlap, where the id and the superego are unconscious drives, and the ego is the conscious mind that mitigates between the unconscious desires of the id, and the unconscious moral compass of the super-ego. When the dynamic conflicts of the unconscious can’t be resolved, a state of neurosis presents itself.

Freud’s theory relied heavily on the influence of the unconscious, but because he relied heavily of self-report, introspection, and other subjective techniques to form his theories, they were deemed unscientific due to the difficulty of testing them empirically.  (Twenge & Campbell, 2017).

Trait theory on the other hand was propelled forward by Gordon Allport, who defined personality through conscious motivations and behavior patterns, also by using traits as descriptive measures of personality rather than attempting to explain it (Rosenzweig & Fisher, 1997). Hans Eysenck was a trait theorist whose work revolved around the notion that people’s traits are inborn and is rooted in biology, he designated those traits as temperaments (Eysenck, 1967) Eysenck was also the first trait theorist to use the statistical tool of factor analysis to determine personality traits, he developed what is known as the Eysenck 3 factor model . In it, people’s personalities are measured on a sliding scale between two opposite traits. The three main factors are neuroticism vs calm, introversion vs extroversion, and psychotic vs impulse control (Costa & McRae, 1995). Eysenck theorized that high scores on the neuroticism scale meant that people will be more likely to suffer from neurotic problems, and not neurotic themselves. As for introversion and extraversion, he hypothesized that extraverted brains required more external stimulation than introverted brains, which are more sensitive to external stimuli. As for high scores on the psychoticism scale, they indicate that in certain environments, the individual will have very low impulse control and a tendency to be out of touch with reality (Cooper, 2010).

Eysenck’s 3 factor model was later developed by Paul Costa and Robert McRae into what is now known as the 5 factor model, which is the revised and updated scientific approach to measuring personality (Costa & McRae, 1995). However, Freud, even though was unscientific in his approach, he was the first to emphasize unconscious drives, which shape personality (Deal, 2007).

 

References

Ciabattari, J. (2014, April 22). Does Sigmund Freud still matter ? Retrieved July 31, 2018, from BBC: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140421-does-freud-still-matter

Cooper, C. (2010). Biological, Cognitive and Social Bases of Personality. In Individual differences and personality (pp. 96–117). London: Hodder.

Costa, P., & McRae, R. (1995). Primary traits of eysenck's p-e-n system: three- and five-factor solutions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 308.

Deal, K. H. (2007). Psychodynamic theory . Advances in Social Work.

Eysenck, H. J. (1967). The biological basis of personality. Springfield: Thomas Publishing.

Gedney-Rubel, S. (2014). Exploring personality theory: past, present, and future considerations. New Hampshire: Southern New Hampshire University.

Rosenzweig, S., & Fisher, S. L. (1997). "Idiographic" vis-a-vis "idiodynamic" in the historical perspective of personality theory: Remembering Gordon Allport, 1897-1997. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences , 405-419.

Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2017). Psychodynamic approaches. In Personality Psychology: Understanding Yourself and Others (pp. 142-176). New York: Pearson.

 

Introduction to Personality Theory

 

The goals of psychology as a discipline are concerned with describing, explaining and predicting people’s behavior, with the aim of supporting and helping people with their lives (Poznań , 2014). One way of approaching those goals is by studying individual differences, which are split into two categories, traits and states. Traits are concerned with personality and ability whereas states are concerned with mood and motivation (Cooper, 2010).

Personality is comprised on an individual’s usual pattern of feelings, thoughts and behavior (Cooper, 2010). Prior to the emergence of personality theory however, psychologists in the 20^th century had what was called the person-situation debate, where they debated whether the person’s distinct characteristics determined behavior or the specific environment the person is in, or situation is a better determinant of behavior (Epstein, 1985). Modern psychology places somewhat equal weight on both the person and the situation (Judge & Zappata, 2015).

Also throughout the 20^th century, there were several approaches that dealt with personality theory, from both the quantitative and the clinical or therapeutic schools of psychology. Since psychology as a science was not well developed in the beginnings of the 20^th century (Chung & Hyland, 2012), personality was first approached by schools that belonged to the therapeutic tradition. Some of the most notable schools were the psychodynamic and the humanistic schools of psychology (Laureate online education, 2016).

The psychodynamic school of thought was founded by the famous Austrian psychologist, Sigmund Freud. Freud’s theory focuses on the dichotomy between the conscious and unconscious mind and their respective dynamic conflicts (Deal, 2007). Freud also proposed two personality models, the topographic and the structural models. The first is composed of the mental layers, the conscious, pre-conscious, and the unconscious. The structural model includes the id, ego, and superego. Both models overlap, where the id and the superego are unconscious drives, and the ego is the conscious mind that mitigates between the unconscious desires of the id, and the unconscious moral compass of the super-ego. When the dynamic conflicts of the unconscious can’t be resolved, a state of neurosis presents itself. Freud also developed the concept of defense mechanisms, and the role of defense mechanisms is to prohibit undesirable unconscious thoughts from entering the conscious mind. Most Freudian theories do not meet the scientific standards of modern psychology because they have been very difficult if not near impossible to test. However, some defense mechanisms, such as denial and reaction formation have substantial scientific literature to back them up (Twenge & Campbell, 2017).

As for the humanistic schools of thought, it was founded by Abraham Maslow and expanded by Carl Rogers, it was formed to some extent as a rebuttal to psychodynamic theory and the early 20^th century behaviorism. Humanism focused on the idea that humans are conscious beings whereas the others focused more on unconscious drives (Twenge & Campbell, Self-actualization and humanistic psychology, 2017). Carl Rogers developed the Self-Theory, which is split into two modes, the congruence and the incongruence modes. In the first the ideal self is equal to the true self. In the later there are the ideal self, self-image, and true-self. Most people are incongruent and aim to be congruent (JP, 2018).

Even though both humanistic and psychodynamic schools are unscientific by modern standards, they have certainly contributed greatly to the advancement of personality psychology.

 

 

References

Chung, M. C., & Hyland, M. E. (2012). Evaluation of the idea that psychology is a science: what is science ? In M. C. Chung, & M. E. Hyland, History and Philosophy of Psychology (pp. 76 - 79). West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Incorporated.

Cooper, C. (2010). Introduction to individual differences. In Individual Differences and Personality (pp. 1-6). London: Hodder.

Deal, K. H. (2007). Psychodynamic theory . Advances in Social Work.

Epstein, S. (1985). The person-situation debate in historical and current perspective.  Psychological Bulletin , 98(3):513-37.

JP. (2018). Revisiting carl rogers theory of personality. Retrieved from Journal Psyche: http://journalpsyche.org/revisiting-carl-rogers-theory-of-personality/

Judge, & Zappata. (2015). The person-situation debate revisited: effect of situation strength and trait activation on the validity of the big five personality traits in predicting job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 1149–1179.

Laureate online education. (2016, November 10). Week 5: conceptual and historical paradigms in psychology: a critical analysis. part 1. gestalt psychology. Mind, Brain and Behavior. Netherlands: Laureate Online Education B.V.

Poznań . (2014). On the method of psychology. an introduction to the comparative methodology of scientific research. Poznań studies in the philosophy of the sciences and the humanities, p. 61.

Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2017). Psychodynamic approaches. In Personality Psychology: Understanding Yourself and Others (pp. 142-176). New York: Pearson.

Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2017). Self-actualization and humanistic psychology. In Personality Psychology (pp. 189-191). New York: Pearson.