165x Filetype PPT File size 0.26 MB Source: www.rrscollegemokama.ac.in
Alfred Adler (1870-1937) Core of Personality I. Core Tendency: A. Will to Power (early, up to around 1908) - emphasized poser and aggression. B. Striving for Superiority or Perfection (after 1912) - "Probably, the greatest source of unhappiness is the failure to meet expectations". 1. Similar to self-actualization, but for Adler, this process always occurs within a social context. 2. Teleology - views motivation according to some final purpose - looks for ideal or final design. a. Adler: "We cannot think, feel, or act without the perception of some goal" b. Aristotle: "Everything has a telos (purpose or goal). Thus, every acorn has the essence of a tree". c. "Pull Theory" (by some goal) as opposed to "Push Theory" (Causality & Freud). II. Core Characteristics: • A. Organ Inferiorities: Physiological defects that can trigger strong feelings of inferiority. • B. Feelings of Inferiority: Normal and inevitable feelings of weakness, which result from our helplessness during childhood. Are not necessarily pathological or undesirable (may work to overcome). • C. Inferiority Complex: Exaggerated and pathological feelings of weakness, including belief that one can not overcome one's difficulties through appropriate effort. • D. Compensation: The process of overcoming real or imagined inferiority through effort and practice, or by developing abilities in different areas. • 1. Positive Compensation: always healthy, and within a larger social context. Helen Keller, Demonesthenes, etc. • 2. Overcompensation: carried to an extreme. Unproductive for the individual or society. • 3. Superiority Complex: A false feeling of power & security that invariably conceals an underlying inferiority complex. From attempt to evade one's problems rather than face them. II. Core Characteristics: • E. Fictional Finalism: possibly fictional goals that guide behavior. Examples might include: • 1. Men (women) are superior to women (men). • 2. Aryans belong to a super race. • 3. World is out to get me. • 4. God, Heaven, Hell exist • 5. Doctors care about their patients. • 6. Honesty is the best policy. • F. Style of Life: The unique ("Individual") mode of adjustment to life that influences almost everything a person does. G. Social Interest: an innate sense of kinship with all of humanity. This is the key difference between the way neurotics & normals strive for superiority. Normals are aware of other and have high social interest. Neurotics are basically selfish with low social interest. • H. Creative Self: A later concept, refers to the freedom to choose between alternative life-styles and fictional goals. "Heredity and environment provide the bricks; the final form of the building is up to us". Development • Adler does not have a stage approach. He says that adult lifestyles are influenced by temperament, family atmosphere, and family constellation. • I. Temperament: Adler maintained that he could observe differences in temperament in children shortly after birth. Although he did not get more specific, recent researchers have identified three temperaments which the believe are the basic building blocks of personality and appear to be stable into adulthood. They are: • A. Emotionality: excitability & arousal - to both positive (pleasurable) and negative (anxious, fearful) emotions. • B. Activity: amount of physical energy and vigor. • C. Sociability: for contact & interaction with others. • II. Family Atmosphere: The emotional aspects of the family is important in determining whether the child will be active/passive or constructive/destructive.
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