Social Psychology 12/1/98

Obedience to Authority

Foot-in-door effect (or, compliance breeds compliance)

Personality and Disorders I

The Basics of Personality & Personality Theories

Sigmund Freud and Psychodynamics.

Spaces in the Mind -- the Conscious, Preconscious, & Unconscious.

Structures in the Mind -- The Id, Ego, &Superego.

 

 

Milgram's Obedience Studies

What Milgram did.

When he asked psychologists to predict how many would comply, they estimated that 1 in 1000 would.

In contrast, he found that 63% obeyed to the end.

 

 

Today we focus on, "Why did so many people obey?"

 

The Foot-in-door Effect (Freedman & Fraser, 1966)

Went door-to-door eliciting support for "safe driving."

Two weeks later, all of the subjects were asked if they would be willing to place a large, hideously ugly sign saying "Drive Carefully" on their lawn.

Half the subjects were simply asked this question cold. The other half were first asked to sign a petition in favor of safe driving.

Foot-in-Door and Car Sales

 

 

 

Personality--those relatively enduring characteristics of individuals that account for their consistent patterns of responses to situations.

 

 

All personality theories talk about:

Motivation (or dynamics)--why people do the things they do.

 

Structure--how personality is organized--the core elements (e.g., trait, ideal self, ego, etc.)

 

Growth--how we develop from infancy to maturity (e.g., Freud's psychosexual stages)

 

Therapy--how and why problems in personality functioning develop and how to remedy those problems.

 

Sigmund Freud

(1856-1939)

 

Key Aspects of Freud's Early Patients

Emotional Conflict -- Wishes/Desires vs. Guilt about Wishes/Desires (which were often sexual).

"Forgetting" of the Incident --Repression.

Creation of a "psychologically-related symptom" -- symbolic, meaningful.

 

Freud's first take on the mind: The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900

Split the mind into three parts:

Conscious--part of the mind to which we have direct access--open to awareness.

 

Preconscious--part of the mind that is not in consciousness currently, but that can easily be brought to consciousness.

 

Unconscious--vast portion of the mind to which we have no direct access. Although we have no access, it does influence behavior.

 

This model is sometimes called the Topographical Model

 

Freud's "Structural Model" in The Ego and the Id (1923)

Again broke the mind into three parts:

Id

Ego

Superego

Id

Freud assumes that at our core we are motivated by the desire to gratify basic biological needs. Called this drive the libido.

 

The id motivates us toward immediate gratification.

 

The id is illogical. It operates:

 

on the pleasure principle

 

as a primary process, meaning that it ignores consequences and makes no firm distinction between reality and fantasy.

 

Resides in the unconscious.

 

Ego

Operates as an interface between the id and the world.

 

Constrained by the reality principle. This means:

The Ego is the great pragmatist

 

The Ego distinguishes between fantasy and reality (The id may be able to survive on fantasy, but the ego realizes the body can't.)

 

The Ego resides in conscious and preconscious levels.

 

Superego

The moral aspect of the self. Consists of:

the Conscience, which consists of information about what is bad and punishes such behavior

 

the Ego Ideal, which consists of information about what is good and rewards such behavior.

 

The superego is the opposite of the id in that it is moral and righteous where the id is immoral and sensual.

 

Resides at all three levels of consciousness.