Psychology for Dummies (37 page)
Read Psychology for Dummies Online
Authors: Adam Cash
Tags: #Psychology, #General, #Body; Mind & Spirit, #Spirituality
Ever wondered where someone’s dark impulses come from? Do you sometimes feel like you’re not yourself, that you’re living out someone else’s life? If so, then call Shirley Maclain. She’ll have you convinced that you’re feeling that way because you’re really King Henry the XIII reincarnated. However, before you get too carried away, I’d like to bother your highness with an alternative explanation.
A psychologist named Carl Jung (
young
) brings us one of the most metaphysical and esoteric theories of personality around. It’s popular though, because it’s almost as if it speaks to things that we’ve known are there personally but couldn’t quite put our fingers on. Jung was conventional in one way, he too talked about the
Ego
and the
unconscious.
But he challenged a lot of people’s thinking with his other major component of personality theory, the
collective unconscious.
Jung’s Ego was seen as the center of conscious awareness. There’s been a lot of talk by other theorists about the Ego’s role in adaptation. Jung was no different. His Ego is the center of all conscious and willful attempts at adaptation, and the Ego can only work with things that a person is currently aware of. It only deals with the known. So what else is out there other?
The
personal unconscious
and the
collective unconscious
represent the unknown parts of a person’s personality for Jung.
The personal unconscious:
Consists of forgotten information and other memories that are not currently conscious to the Ego. The personal unconscious is comprised of everyday information and our own mundane personal histories. Remember that day you skipped school and decided to go the beach instead? No? Well, don’t worry. All of your forgotten memories are being kept safe in your personal unconscious. Lucky you!
The collective unconscious:
If the personal unconscious contains information from your personal history, what does the collective unconscious contain?
It contains the history of humankind inherited in the structure of our minds. All the common themes and struggles since the days when we chased woolly mammoths and grunted instead of spoke are kept there, influencing our behavior in ways that we often don’t realize. The collective unconscious is unavailable to normal consciousness. In fact, only artists and visionaries have much access to it. Jung felt that they were tapping into something much deeper and more important than the personal trials and tribulations of an individual.
Within the collective unconscious exist primeval images and symbols that give rise to the fairytales, myths, and other stories passed on from generation to generation. Jung called these images and symbols
archetypes.
Jung spent a lot of time emphasizing three in particular: the shadow, anima, and animus.
The
shadow
represents the darker side of humanity. It challenges a person’s typical moral conception of himself. The shadow may or may not represent the “devil inside,” but it definitely challenges anyone’s view of himself as basically good. Jungian psychotherapists will often work to get their patients in touch with this part of themselves. So, if you’re not up to the task, avoid seeing a Jungian therapist!
The
anima
represents the essential feminine energy and aspects of an individual. It’s like the yin of the yin and yang. (Or is it the other way around? I always get confused.) Either way, the anima produces mood and guides our actions based on emotion. The anima within us allows for us to be more social and conscious of our relations to things and people. Both men and women have anima. So for you tough guys out there, don’t fight getting in touch with your feminine side.
So if the anima represents the feminine side of our unconscious, the
animus
must represent the masculine side. The animus is the rational force or guide in our lives. A man or woman who is pure animus is exacting, judgmental, and is a “know-it-all.” Remember, all of us have both the anima and animus in our collective unconscious, complementing each other and working together to guide us in a balanced approach to life.
That brings us to a final point on Jung’s contribution to the realm of personality psychology, his theory of
introversion
and
extraversion.
Are you cautious, contemplative, and hesitant? Do you get excited when faced with the unknown and just dive right into things without much thought, shooting first and asking questions later?
Introverts are thoughtful and deliberate. They don’t like taking chances and sometimes have a hard time adapting to our fast-paced world because they’re stuck overly analyzing things. Extraverts on the other hand are spontaneous and sometimes thoughtless, which can sometimes get them into trouble at times. They’re generally good in new situations, but they sometimes make unnecessary mistakes.
The good news is that Jung thought that each of us has some relative mixture of both. It’s not an either/or thing. It’s like something my students say when I ask them if they agree with some of the psychological theories I’m going over, “It depends.” Or when I ask them if they would rather have an in-class or a take-home final, “It depends.” Here’s a tip: “It depends” is a pretty safe answer because take-home finals can be deceptively hard. They’re “sneaky hard.”
The subject of television and violence has caused a lot of controversy over the last few years. Many people feel that the constant barrage of violent images is creating a more violent character for our society. There’s little argument that violence in our schools is higher today than ever before, but why? This is a complex issue, and many causes and explanations have been put out there. Some explanations have even suggested that there are simply more violent personalities in the world. After all of the personality theories discussed so far, what do you think about the concept of a “violent” personality?
In 1977, Albert Bandura conducted a now-famous study looking into this concept of a “violent” personality and turned his theory into a broader theory of personality in general. The experiment is now called the Bobo Doll study. Bobo dolls are those plastic blow-up figures with a weighted bottom that bounce back when you hit or kick them. The experiment consisted of an adult punching and kicking a Bobo doll while a young child watches. Then, the child is put into the room with the Bobo doll by himself. Can you guess what happens? Little Johnny turns into Little Rocky. He punches and kicks that Bobo doll just like he saw the adult do it.
Bandura’s
social-learning theory
explains this phenomenon. Basically, people can learn something just by watching or observing it. This is one of those “no duh!” theories in psychology. But hey, no one else put the theory out there the way Bandura did. Social-learning theory has become a powerful theory of personality and its development. Our personalities are a product of our observational learning experiences from those around us. We’re all just a bunch of copycats. If you saw your parents being obnoxious, you’d be obnoxious too.
Bandura continued to add to his copycat theory of personality by addressing the question of why we do what we do. In other words, what motivates us to act in the ways that we do? He introduced two very important concepts to address this:
Self-efficacy
is a personal belief in one’s ability to successfully perform a behavior. This belief is based on what Bandura called the
self-appraisal process.
This process is simply an analysis of one’s actions and evaluation of successes and failures. A sense of one’s capabilities arises from this: How does a particular behavior develop and a belief formed? We’re motivated by these beliefs and inhibited by our expected failures. We do what we think we can do and vice versa.
Self-reinforcement
is as simple as giving yourself rewards for doing things. Some parents give their children rewards or reinforcement for doing their homework or cleaning their room. Bandura believed that we all do this for ourselves as well. So the next time you do something, give yourself a little reward. It will help your self-efficacy.