Freud vs.

the Behaviourists

Dr Anna Scarnà
Freudian vs. Behaviourist Theory

• Freudian Theory of Personality

• Topographic and Structural Models
• Psychosexual Stages of Development
• Behaviourism: Origins, Theories & Practice
• Conditioning: Classical, Operant
• Social Learning
• Evaluation & Implications for Personality
Sigmund Freud

“ Freud, like Elvis, has been dead for a number

of years but continues to be cited with some
regularity….” (Westen, 1998)
Freud’s Ideas
• Assumes that personality and psychological
problems are driven by unconscious motives
and desires
• These can be traced to childhood
• Revolve around primitive sexual and
aggressive instincts
• We must keep these impulses hidden or our
conscious selves would be flooded with
anxiety
Sigmund Freud
• Born in Moravia in 1856
• 1873-1881 medical school,
University of Vienna
• Died in London
• Specialised in treatment of nervous disorders
• Studied hypnosis under Jean-Marie Charcot
• ‘Talking cure’ (catharsis) under Joseph Breuer
• For 40+ yrs Freud explored the unconscious
by the method of free association
Sigmund Freud
• 1900 first book The Interpretation of Dreams
• 1902 small group of followers (e.g. Alfred Adler)
met every Wed evening. Freud systematically
built up his theory and tested it with peers
• 1908 membership of Wednesday Psychological
Circle had grown, prompted Freud to form the
Vienna Psychoanalytic Society
• 1909 Freud invited to the USA to present
lectures on psychoanalysis
• 1910 International Psychoanalysis Association
Sigmund Freud
• Freud continued to refine and apply his theory,
writing 20 books and numerous papers

• 1938 Germany invaded Austria, Nazis began

persecution of Jews there, Nazis burn his books

• Freud, wife + 6 children fled to London

• 1939 September 23rd

Freud dies following long battle with cancer
of jaw and throat, aged 83
The Freud Museum, London

[Link]
What did Freud Say?

• Unconscious reasons for feelings and

actions

• Unconscious dynamics (conflict) leading

to dreams, speech errors, jokes, madness

• Radical idea: you might not know why you

do what you do
The Freudian Theory of Personality

The Topographic (Iceberg) Model

• Three levels of awareness:

1. Conscious
2. Preconscious
3. Unconscious
The Topographic (Iceberg) Model
Majority is buried under water’s surface

Iceberg
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iceberg

•10% of an iceberg is visible (conscious)

• Preconscious is approximately 10-15%
• Unconscious is approximately 75-80%
The Unconscious
• Portions of the mind outside conscious
awareness
• Freud sought to study empirically the
implications for the unconscious for
understanding people’s lives and their
problems

• The unconscious mind operates under its own

power, subject to its own motivations and
according to its own logic
Evidence for the Unconscious
According to Freud, unconscious impulses leak
out in everyday life:

• Parapraxes (Freudian slips)

random/uncontrolled forgetting
slips of the tongue
accidents
• Humour
a controlled “leak”
an essential form of sublimation

• Dreams: “the royal road to the unconscious”

The Topographic (Iceberg) Model
• Think about current feelings and perceptions
Are you bored? Tired? Hungry? Motivated?

• You have a vast number of dreams,

memories
Iceberg
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iceberg

& thoughts you can bring to mind if you wish

What were you wearing yesterday?
Name of your first best friend at school?
Earliest memory you have of your mother?
• Other memories, thoughts, urges are troubling
and distasteful
Common themes: incest, hatred towards
parents, siblings, memories of childhood
traumas
The Structure of Personality
• Psychic energy from sexual and
aggressive instincts builds up and
demands release
• Id
• Ego
• Superego
The Structure of Personality
Id (from birth)
• Most primitive part of human mind
• Source of all drives and urges
• Operates according to pleasure principle
• Demands instant gratification
• Selfish, impulsive, pleasure-loving
• Dominates during infancy
• Primary process thinking: thinking without logical
rules of conscious thought or reality
The Structure of Personality
Ego (within 2-3 yrs)

• Constrains id to reality
• Governed by the reality principle
• Ego understands that urges of the id are in conflict
with social and physical reality
• Engages in secondary process thinking:
development of strategies for solving problems and
obtaining satisfaction
• Takes into account constrains in reality about how
and when to express and urge
The Structure of Personality
Superego (approx. 5 yrs)

• Upholder of societal values and ideals

• Internalises values, morals and ideals of society
• These can be instilled by socialising agents, e.g.
parents, schools, religion
• Part of personality that makes us feel guilty,
ashamed or embarrassed when things go wrong
• Makes us feel proud when things go right
• Like id, not bound by reality. Free to set standards
for virtue and self-worth, even if they are
perfectionists
Free Association
Person being analysed allows thoughts to
come forth without inhibition or falsification

To let one’s thoughts flow freely to discover

potentially hidden associations amongst ideas

Technique as a treatment method and also

a scientific method, and provided evidence
for his theory of personality
Stages of Psychosexual Development

• Oral (0-18 months)

• Anal (18 months - 3 1/2 years)

• Phallic (3 1/2 years - 6 years)

• Latency (6 years - puberty)

• Genital (puberty - adulthood)

Psychosexual Stages

• Freud’s five stages of personality

development, each associated with a
particular erogenous zone

• Fixation - an attempt to achieve

pleasure as an adult in ways that are
equivalent to how it way achieved in
these stages
Psychosexual Stages
• Three parts to each psychosexual
stage:
- a physical focus
- a psychological theme
- an adult character type

• Fixation can occur during any of the

psychosexual stages of development
Oral Stage of Development
(0-18 mths)
• Physical focus: mouth, lips and tongue

• Psychological theme: dependency

• Adult character:
extremely dependent or highly
independent
Anal Stage of Development
(18 mths – 3.5 yrs)
• Physical focus: anus

• Psychological theme: self control/obedience

• Adult character:
- highly self-controlled, overly organised,
subservient to authority (anally retentive)
- little self-control, disorganised, hostile
(anally expulsive)
Phallic Stage of Development
(3.5-6 yrs)
• Physical focus: penis
• Psychological theme:
- Sexual identification
- Oedipus complex
‘Little Hans’ - analysis of a phobia in a five-
year-old boy’ (1909)
- Castration anxiety
- Electra complex

• Adult character: promiscuous, amoral, or

asexual, puritanical
Latency Stage of Development
(6 yrs – puberty)

• Latency stage: period of relative calm

(Sexuality is repressed as children participate

in hobbies, school and same-sex friendships)
Genital Stage of Development
(Puberty-Adulthood)
• Physical focus: genitals

• Psychological theme:
- sexual reproduction
- intellectual and artistic creativity

• Adult character: well adjusted and balanced

Defense Mechanisms
• Anxiety is painful state and we are
incapable of tolerating it for very long

• Deal with it using defense mechanisms

• Unconscious mental processes employed

by the ego to reduce anxiety
Defense Mechanisms
Protect the ego. Minimise anxiety and distress
Denial:
Stating that anxiety provoking stimuli do not exist
Repression:
Pushing anxiety into the unconscious
Regression:
Returning to a previous stage of development
Reaction formation:
Taking opposite belief as true belief causes
anxiety
Defense Mechanisms

Projection:
Placing unacceptable impulses onto someone
else

Rationalisation:
Supplying a logical reason rather than the real
reason

Intellectualisation:
Avoiding unacceptable emotions by focusing on
the intellectual aspects
Hysteria
• Blindness and deafness, paralysis, trembling,
panic attacks, gaps of memory, etc.

• These symptoms are a way of keeping

emotionally charged memories under control

• When memories are recovered, there is

catharsis - an explosive release
Measuring the Unconscious

[Link]
Measuring the Unconscious
Freud’s Theory: Strengths
1. First comprehensive theory of behaviour and
personality
2. Emphasised role of the unconscious mind and
early childhood experiences

3. Emphasised the dynamic nature of behaviour

4. Provoked further work in personality

and influenced subject matter of
personality research today

5. Developed the first system of

psychotherapy
Freud’s Theory- Weaknesses

1. Concepts are poorly designed

(e.g. What is “psychic energy”? How is it measured?)
2. Freudian theory is difficult to test empirically
3. Role of the environment is overlooked
4. Over-emphasis on sexual drive and
early experience
5. Pessimistic psychic determinism:
no free will?
Who is Right?

• Freudians explain personality in terms of

the interaction of personality components

• Behaviourists explain personality in terms

of the effects external stimuli have on
behaviour
Behaviourist Theory:
What are we?
• One of the oldest debates going
What are we?
Locke – The Blank Slate (17th c.)
• Challenged the idea of the sinful
child rooted in the religious ideas
of ‘original sin’

• Rather a blank slate on which experiences

writes a script: tragedy, comedy, farce etc.

• Parents as tutors that could shape children

to be good or bad
Rousseau
The Noble Savage (18th C)

• Inherently good, but become corrupted by

the evils of society (children are good, but
corrupted by society)
• Emphasised the role of nature
• Also stressed difference of children from
adults, different stages and characteristics
• Not just moulded by experience
Origins of Behaviourism
• Can be traced back to the philosophical
idea of ‘associationism’
• All ideas, and other mental elements, are
associated together in the mind through
experience (eg. Plato, Aristotle, Locke,
Hume etc.)
• Certain psychologists used this idea of
linking to explore how learning occurs
• Psychologists such as Watson explored
whether the idea of ‘learning’ could be
used to explain ‘all’ types of behaviour
John Broadus Watson (1878-1958)

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, and my

own specified world to bring them up in and
I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and
train him to become any type of specialist I
select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief
and, yes, even beggar-man, thief, regardless
of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities,
vocations, and race of his ancestors”
(1930)
Watson the Reactionary
• Behaviourism as a reaction
• Watson considered the father of
behaviourism. He opposed structuralism
and Freud’s psychoanalysis
• Specifically, grew out of a
reaction to Wundt’s
introspectionism which
produced unobservable
concepts such as mind, feeling etc.
Watson the Scientist
• Rigorous application of scientific method to
operationally defined concepts
• Measurement can only occur with the
outward expression of the self; thus, it is the
only variable worth exploring
• Influenced by Pavlov’s work on
conditioning of reflexes
• Pavlov illustrated how complex
behaviour could be reduced to simple
mechanisms
Classical Conditioning: Pavlov
• A dog salivates when it sees food
• Pavlov discovered: It also salivates at
other times: When it sees or hears things
associated with the food (lab assistant,
footsteps)
• Pavlov studied this in great detail over the
following years: how are associations
formed?
Classical Conditioning as
“Character Building”
• Classical conditioning can be used to explain all
learning that involves the reflexes e.g. heart
rate, perspiration etc.

• As the reflexes are associated with arousal they

are relevant to unusual or undesirable
behaviour e.g. phobias and sexual deviation

• As a result, classical conditioning has become

foundation of ‘behaviour therapy’
Behavioural therapy involves
re-learning and re-associating
(gradual exposure, desensitization, flooding )
Systematic Desensitization
• Successful therapy for treatment of phobias
• Joseph Wolpe (1958)
• Graded exposure
• Fear stimuli are imagined
• Pleasurable US is relaxation
• Patients describe what frightens them. Rank
mental images in order of eliciting fear (e.g., toy
snake – real small snake – real anaconda)
• Start with least fearful, relax completely,
proceed to next
Flooding
• Extreme form of desensitisation
• The individual is forced to encounter the CS
in an extreme situation
• They are then kept in this condition until the
maladaptive association becomes extinct
• Eg. a child who has a fear of balloons may be
forced into a room full of balloons and will not
be allowed out until she/he has burst them all
Aversion Therapy
• Aims to replace the one S–R association
with another but instead of countering a
negative response
• Aversion therapy used to counter positive
responses to negative stimuli eg. pairing an
emetic and the ‘smoking–pleasure’
association
• Has been used with a range of behaviours
ranging from hamburger addiction to
paedophilia
Skinner
• Pavlov = classical conditioning of reflexes, Skinner
explored non-reflexive or voluntary, willed behaviour

• ‘Operant Conditioning Apparatus’ (Skinner Box)

“The human organism is a machine and, like any other

machine, a human being behaves in lawful and
predictable ways in response to the external forces
that impinge on it” (1953)

• Psychology = a science of behaviour, not mind

Skinner’s Rats
• A hungry rat is placed in Skinner Box. By
chance, it presses a lever
• At first, pressing lever has no effect- baseline
• Later, food dispenser is turned on.
• If the rat presses the lever, food pellet is
received
• Result = the rate of lever pressing
significantly increases (it has become a
conditioned response)
Positive Reinforcement
• Act of pressing the lever is positively reinforced
or encouraged through use of a reward
• The rat has been ‘operantly conditioned’
• Even if food was not given every time (eg.
every 20 presses) the behaviour continued
(CR persisted even if only partially reinforced)
• Time lag btwn response and reinforcement vital
• The optimum period between response and
reinforcement was about 500 milliseconds…so
almost immediately
Reinforcement
• Aside from rewards, the absence of these
factors is also vital in conditioning i.e.
withdrawing an expected reward =
punishment
• Skinner even suggested that electric shocks
could be used to control children as they were
more controlled than other methods
• However, in Walden Two (1948): control of
human behaviour is through positive
reinforcement, rather than punishment
Negative Reinforcement
• Punishment ≠ Negative Reinforcement!

• Negative Reinforcement: strengthen

response by removing aversive stimulus

• Punishment: weaken response by

presenting aversive stimulus
Classical vs. Operant Conditioning
Classical conditioning
• US is always presented
• Response is evoked by US
• Learn about relation between CS and US
• Animal behaviour elicited
Operant conditioning
• Reward depends on proper reinforcer
• Response is chosen among many alternatives
• Learn relationship btwn response and reward
• Animal behaviour seems voluntary
Behavioural Therapy
• Persistance of anxiety disorders such as
phobias and panic attacks
• Patient has fear of being hit by a car and
decides it is safer to stay indoors
• Each day that the person stays indoors
causes their behaviour to be reinforced -
“today I didn’t go out (CR) and as a result I
didn’t get hit by a car”
• Positive reinforcement occurs (“I stayed in &
I’m still alive”) and a lack of the feared event
Underpinnings
• Skinner’s work was underpinned by a
genuine belief that through training and
behaviour modification (using operant
conditioning techniques) people could
improve their lives and create a better
society to live in

• Skinner’s utopian novel, Walden Two (1948)

Are you a Freudian or a
Behaviourist?

• Which do YOU believe in?

Problems with Behaviourism
• Mechanistic and ignores consciousness and
the subjective experience
• Deterministic. Behaviour is determined simply
by the environment
• Reductionist. Complex human behaviour is
reduced to a simple S–R link
• Behavioural therapies treat symptoms of a
disorder: they do not seek to uncover the
cause of problems as psychoanalysts might
Conclusions
• Unrealistic to base understanding of humans
on a model which excludes consideration of
mental states

• Expectations, beliefs, thoughts and attitudes

are influential to personality

• Needs explanation as to why people react in

different ways to the same stimulus