Human Development and Personality - Essay Example

Human Development and Personality There have been many influential Psychologists since the science found its way into mainstream medicine. Amongst these Psychologists are Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, and George Herbert Meade. Each has made their contributions to philosophy and psychology that have been respected in the last two centuries. Although some of their theories are widely criticized, one cannot help but respect the hard work that each of these influential men put into learning about human personality and development. Below, you will find summaries of each of the three theories, how they compare, how they differ, and the parts they play in the nature vs. nurture debate. All have played and still play valuable roles in Psychology today when understanding cognitive development. Freud's theory of human personality Freud's theory of personality wasn't at all detailed, but at the same time was quite influential in the world of Psychology. It is said that Freud "distinguished between the conscious, preconscious, and the unconscious. The conscious is the part that we are aware of. It includes our present thoughts and activities." (Unknown, p.1) The unconscious, on the other hand, "includes all the aspects of our personality that we are not aware of" (Unknown, p.1) and "the preconscious is the part of personality that we may not be thinking about, but which we can easily remember." (Unknown, p.1) Freud believed that the unconscious and the preconscious were nothing compared to the unconscious. He thought the unconscious to be this very powerful aspect of human personality that included evil thoughts, immoralities, and "the desire to murder one's parents." These are just a few of the maniacal traits that Freud associated with the unconscious (Unknown, p.1). He felt that those terrible things that are a part of the unconscious try to intrude upon the conscious, but that there is a "censor" that distorts this information to keep it from making its way into the conscious. This censor scrambles the signal and makes the memories coming from the unconscious seem like unimportant thoughts. And he believed that this is why when we dream our dreams make absolutely no sense. He thought dreams to be that of a wish coming from the unconscious, but that the signal is distorted as a protection method for the conscious. Yet sometimes the censor doesn't succeed and a nightmare may result (unknown, p.1). Then there is Freud's legendary theory of the Id, Ego, and the Superego. When translated from Freud's native German, Id means "The It, " Ego means "The I," and Superego means "The Above-I." The Id is the part of us that tells us to do something and the superego is the idealistic one. This concept is where the metaphor of having a little devil (the Id) and a little angel (the Superego) on each shoulder pulling the unsuspecting person in two completely different directions originated from. Therefore, the Id is more into the pleasure side of life, whereas the superego is more idealistic. But it is the Ego that hears the bickering between the Id and the Superego and puts a stop to it. The Ego is not idealistic, nor is it pleasure-driven. The Ego is realistic and this realism results in the making of a decision that is in the best interest of the person (unknown, p.1). Freud believed that a newborn is primarily Id because it does not care about anything except its needs being met. It is when the child becomes aware of itself and its placement within the world that it can be said the Ego develops. By learning through parents about what is right, wrong, etc. is when the Superego develops, but Id and Superego remain within the unconscious while the Ego remains in the conscious (Unknown, p.1). Freud also put his theory to work with the fact that the demands of the Id and Superego cause the Ego to experience certain degrees of anxiety. These anxieties come in the form of reality anxiety because of the pressures of the outside world, moral anxiety that is inflicted on the ego by the superego, and neurotic anxiety which is when the Id wants to overtake the Ego and make a person do bad things (unknown, p.1). But of course Freud didn't stop at how the challenges of the Id, Ego, and Superego can cause anxiety. He also included human development in his theory of human personality. He put certain aspects of human development in stages such as the oral stage that lasts until weaning, the anal stage that is associated with toilet training, and the phallic stage in which discovery of the genitals occurs (Unknown, p.1). Freud also believes that if a conflict is not resolved and the child moves on to the next stage in development, that the child will develop a fixation that focuses upon that conflict. These fixations can result in oral fixations, an anal aggressive personality that won't clean their room, an oral personality who wants to cuss people out all of the time, or an anal retentive personality that doesn't want a single thing to be out of place (unknown, p.1). Piaget's approach to human development Like Freud and his theory on human development, Jean Piaget divided life into stages. These stages were infancy, pre-school, childhood, and adolescence. Since a child has varying views of life based on what stage of development they are in during the course of their lives, Piaget used that fact to create these stages that coincides with how a child perceives reality (Wikipedia). The four stages of development in Piaget's theory are as follows: Sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2), the Preoperational stage (ages 2 to 7), the Concrete operational stage, and the Formal operational stage. The Sensorimotor Stage is when movement and senses are what allows a child to experiences the world. Spatial abilities are developed, reflexes develop, during the primary circular reaction phase is when habits form, the secondary circular reactions phase (occurs 4 to 9 months old) is when coordination between prehension and vision occur, and co-ordination of secondary circular reactions stage (9 to 12 months old) is when Piaget felt that objective permanence developed (Wikipedia). The Preoperational Stage is the stage in which motor skills are acquired. It is this phase in which language is developed so that objects and images can be represented by words. The child only sees their own view on things rather than the views of others while at the same time developing the skills to classify objects by their appearance (Wikipedia). The Concrete operational Stage is when a child begins developing logic, which involves the following: Seriation (the ability to sort objects based on size, color, etc.), classification (naming objects by size, appearance, etc.), decentering ( child sees all aspects of a problem in order to solve it), reversibility (the child realizes that certain objects can be changed and returned to their original form), conservation (the quality or number of items is not altered despite its particular arrangement or appearance), and elimination of egocentrism (being able to view things from the perspective of another). These phases occur from the ages of 6 and 12 (Wikipedia). Finally, the Formal Operational Stage is the stage that begins around the age of 11 and continues into adulthood. This is when abstract thinking and logic becomes apparent. Unfortunately, not all adults fully develop abstract thinking and logic, so even as adults some do not escape the Concrete operational stage (Wikipedia). So in the developmental process, Piaget believed that there was this cycle in which the child learns from their actions such as organizing objects or performing repeated actions that allows the child to learn from the results. As time progresses these repeated actions allows the child to use them through each stage of their life. Mead's view of the development of the self Meade, just like Freud and Piaget, had his own philosophies are far as human development is concerned. He focused on "the development of the self and the objectivity of the world within the social realm: that 'the individual mind can exist only in relation to other minds with shared meanings.'" (Wikipedia) In Mead's book Self and Society (1934), he describes how he believes that it is from social processes that the individual mind and self is derived. He believed that before individual experience, it is the social process that comes first. The social processes, which involves communication comes in two phases which are the conversation of gestures and conversion of significant gestures (language) (TIEP, p.1). Mead used a dog fight as an example of the first phase, conversion of gestures, which has been a rather famous example throughout time. He basically stated that two dogs that are hostile approach each other and can read the hostility through each other's gestures, through their growling, etc. In other words, the actions of each dog stimulate the other dog. This communication is occurring without each dog being aware that their own actions are causing the reactions of the other dog (TIEP, p.1). But it is through language that communication is more of a conscious act, therefore bridges the gap between conversation of gestures and conversation of significant gestures. That is when one is conscious of their gestures and can deliberately alter his or her own gestures to garner a specific reaction from those in which they are communicating with (TIEP, p.1). Commonalities and differences between the three theories Although Freud's theory seems to touch upon a wider range of human development than Piaget's or Meade's theories, they all have their similarities. Freud claimed there are three phases in development, which are the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage. Then we have Piaget who also developed his theory of four stages that have their own phases within them. These stages are the Sensorimotor Stage, the Preoperational Stage, the Concrete Operational Stage, and the Formal Operational Stage. When comparing both Freud's and Piaget's stages of development, we find that each phase is similar in how a child experiences the world throughout their development. We also find similarities in what stages a child develops certain abilities such as self-discovery, which could put Freud's phallic stage and Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage in the same point of development. When we tie in Mead's theory of the self with Freud's and Piaget's theories, we find that Meade is more of a socialist, but does take into consideration that there are certain phases in human development. In his case, those phases are associated with communication through conversation of gestures and conversation of significant gestures. Now this is where Meade can relate to Freud in respect to those things that happen in a person's unconscious. Where Freud stated that Id and Superego are kept within the unconscious, Meade says that communication through conversation of gestures is done through actions rather than words. A person is not as conscious as to how their gestures make others react to them, whereas in Freud's theory the Id and Superego remain active within the unconscious. This doesn't exactly shine through the Ego, but it is possible and a person may not be completely aware of this. One can also make a small comparison with Piaget's theory in relation to Id, Superego, and conversation of gestures since the various phases in his theory deal with communication and social skills, such as the development of logic and abstract thinking. As far as the differences go, there are plenty of them between the three theories. Where Freud's theory touches upon a wide range of development ranging from the unconscious to oral fixations, the others focus on the unconscious and social interactions and how they influence development. Although this makes them sound to be the same, which they are in many cases, their differences are significant. Freud believed there to be three phases in development where Piaget's idea has four that share similarities and differences with Freud's ideas. Freud's three involve rather physical aspects such as the oral stage, the anal stage, and the phallic stage. Freud's theories are seen as some to be off the wall, whereas Piaget's and Mead's are viewed as more sensible by some in regards to logical development and the formation of abstract thinking, motor skills, and communication. Yet we do not see much in the way of motor skills in Freud's theory and very little in Mead's theory since it is mainly focused on how we use communication in our development. It is fair to say that Mead's theory deals more with the external interactions where Freud's deals with internal conflicts and Piaget is focused mainly on the developmental aspect of mental processes. Nature vs. Nurture It is easy to determine that Mead's theory is one to start the nature vs. nurture debate with. The reason for this is that he states a child learns from social interaction, which would place this in primarily a nurture category since the child needs others to communicate with, but in turn nature requires that we communicate with one another. We learn our communication skills from those around us and mainly from our parents, which is a nurturing environment. If our parents did not communicate with us, then we would not learn effective communication skills although nature makes it necessary for us to communicate in some form. As for Freud, his ideas are a bit more complicated. Where Id, Ego, and Superego can easily be classified as a nature thing, stages such as the anal stage in which Freud associates with toilet training can be classified as a nurture thing. Again, if a parent does not teach the child, then the child will not learn If a child does not develop the necessary skills to resolve a conflict, then that can be associated with both issues in nature such as an adult never reaching Piaget's Formal Operational Stage or issues in the nurture aspect that prevents a child from being able to develop those skills. Sometimes, if a child has no adult assistance they may be expected to solve their own issues, so they may develop problem-solving skills at an early age. Yet there are times in which parents may not allow their children to solve their own problems and that child does not become accustomed or, on the other hand, the child learns the necessary skills from their parents. In conclusion Again, each theory has its pros, its cons, and has certain aspects still being used in Psychology today. No matter how off-the-wall Freud may have seemed, one can easily take Piaget's Formal Operational Stage and associate it to Freud himself. Why is this Obviously Freud's mind reached an interesting point in which he could logically create these theories that have boggled the minds of people for many years. The scope in which his theory of human personality and development covers brings about similarities with those theories developed by Piaget and Meade, but also adds a completely different method of thought. Through philosophers such as Piaget and Meade, they either strengthened or disproved Freud's theories, but either way they all compliment each other in some way. Bibliography The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (TIEP) http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/m/mead.htm Unknown Author, p1 http://people.eku.edu/palmerj/200/freud.htm Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Piaget#The_stages_of_cognitive_development Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert_Mead Read More