Psych 150 (P) ~Digital Portfolio

Psychoanalytic Theory, proposed by one of the known contributors in psychology - Sigmund Freud, suggests that our unconscious desires influence our present behavior and personality. According to this theory, our personality consists of desires, urges, and instincts we are not always aware of. For instance, in a romantic relationship, you may consciously put into actions or words to show your love for a person. However, when asked why you love that person, you may catch yourself not fully understanding why and may even seem irrational. This unexplainable thought that keeps lingering in our minds is the work of our unconscious. This theory plays a vital role in how we construct our personality.

The main actors of the psychoanalytic theory that structures our personality are the id, the ego, and the superego. These three play a huge part in constructing decisions, and most of the time, they play in confusion, as depicted by my chosen learning artifact. The id is the core of our personality entirely in the unconscious that consists of illogical, primitive, and chaotic thoughts and urges. Its role is to feed our pleasure, much like the bad actor of the mind who only wants happiness and avoids suffering. Applying it to my personal experience, the id is the side of me who consistently want to watch Korean dramas while lying in bed with a tub of ice cream on the side for a straight week or two. However, another actor that also needs attention is the superego. The superego is the good actor in the unconscious, very moral and idealistic. It is driven by our conscience (judgment of right or wrong) and ego-ideal (what we want to become). Personally, the superego is the one telling me never to watch Korean drama because I have to study 24/7 in order to be an honor student. Given this dilemma, one has got to mediate; and that is the role of the ego. The ego is the only one with contact with the conscious, our reality. It is the decision-maker that considers the need of the ego and superego. Its job to reconcile both claims is never easy. The dilemma drives us to act humanly, which is to be anxious, and we either suppress them using different defense mechanisms or feel a sense of guilt.

“We are the captain of our own ship”. This quote would best describe Alfred Adler’s Personality Theory called Individual Psychology.

In a nutshell, Adler’s theory proposes that people are born weak, leading to feelings of inferiority. This feeling of inferiority pushes a person to strive more in life. What we strive for is then influenced by both our heredity and environment. Adler discussed five tenets to fully describe the Individual Psychology theory of personality, which I found very close to my personal belief in life.

First tenet states that the dynamic force behind people’s behavior is the striving force for success or superiority. Due to our feelings of inferiority, we are either motivated to strive for personal superiority or success for all humanity. Personally, the fact that I was deprived of emotional and mental support as I was growing up motivated me to establish a more compassionate world where mental health is talked about and mental support is of reach. This is why I chose Psychology as my undergrad. This is a channel not just for me but to help others fight their everyday mind battles.

The second tenet states that people’s subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality. Adler’s idea is that how we strive is shaped by our subjective perception of reality, or by fiction. Basically, we hold our own truth.  As for me, my reality goes like “I need to study hard and land a job that I love so that I can help my family”. The fact that we are a middle-class family with enough capabilities to just let ends meet motivated me to be ambitious, hardworking, and persistent to have a better life. Being a UP student, affiliating myself to different organizations, and doing side hustles are some of the steps to reach my goal of a better life.

The third tenet states that personality is unified and self-consistent. This simply implies that inconsistent behavior is inexistent, and all our feelings and actions serve a single purpose. My final goal is to live by expressing the true Seine. I may have a lot of characters and varying life decisions, I will always be directed towards a life of my own reality.

The fourth tenet states that the value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest. Here, you cooperate yourself to strive for social advancement rather than personal gain. This, for me, is upholding kindness and extending help where needed. I do not only work to suffice my personal needs but to serve other people along the way. I always express my compassion, especially to my family and friends whom I hold close to my heart.

Analytical Psychology states that we are not only motivated by past experiences but also by emotionally toned experiences we inherited from our ancestors across mankind. He called this the collective unconscious. There are numerous images formed in the collective unconscious, but the ones that are highly developed are called archetypes. The goal is to balance these various opposing archetypes to achieve what Jung called “the archetypes of all archetypes”: the self. Since Jung’s theory focused on the compilation of opposites and dualities, he believed that all humans have two varying personalities. We are both introverted and extroverted, rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious, and are motivated by past events while being dragged by future expectations.

Jung’s major contribution to his theory is the notion of the collective unconscious, which up to this day brings uncertainty and debatable discourse. However, keep in mind that the collective unconscious is our innate tendencies to act in certain ways whenever experiences trigger an inherited response, not an inherited idea consistent and continual to everyone. The highly developed tendencies that had evolved through our ancestors' repeated experiences were summarized by Jung into five kinds. Among these five, what represent me are the persona, shadow, animus, and the great mother, which I have discussed in the Jungian Mandala activity. Creating a mandala made me realize how to balance all these forces to create a healthy self. However, as Jung stated, nearly no one has ever reached perfect self-realization. This means that everyone, including myself, is in a continuous pursuit of attaining self-realization all throughout our life span.

In Analytical Psychology, balancing these opposing forces is crucial to achieving self-realization. To do so we must adapt to both our inner and outside environment. This is why Jung believes that people are innately both introverts and extroverts. Personally, I can agree with this. As much as I enjoy the company of my friends and family, I also love spending some alone time doing things that I love by myself. For example, as an extrovert, I spend my weekends with friends, joining different organizations, and generally putting myself out there. On the other side, I enjoy my own company by watching Korean Dramas, stanning Kpop idols, and studying.

Contrary to Freud’s Psychoanalysis, which focused more on biological-based drives such as sex, Melanie Klein’s Object Relations theory of personality emphasized internal personal relationships and relatedness rather than sex. Specifically, it focuses on the interpersonal relationship between the infant and the nurturing mother. To further elaborate this theory, I provided my personal infant experience and related it to Klein’s concepts

Object, in the Object Relations context, is a person, a part of the person, or a thing in which an infant aims his/her drive to be satisfied. For instance, hunger drives look for breasts as the object while sex drives aim for sexual organs. According to this theory, our mother’s breast is the first thing we cling to and form a close relationship with, which dictates our future relationship with other individuals. Hence, it matters how the child interprets their mother's breast as “good” or “bad” breasts. This conflict that the infant faces of the dichotomy of the good and bad, forces them to organize their experiences into positions so that they can deal with the stress and anxiety of their internal and external world.

The first position is the Paranoid Schizoid, where the child controls the object of the drive. I remember my mother once told me that there are times where I sucked her breast aggressively during feeding, which made her mad. So instead of offering me her breast, she opted to use infant milk. In some days this would be the case, but my mom also told me that there are days where I was a good girl, gently and peacefully sucking her breast. This infant tendency, according to Klein, is feelings the infant feels towards the object of the drive. It is important to split the persecutory breast and the ideal breast and control only the ideal breast to retain love, comfort, and gratification. This control is what paranoid-schizoid means, where the infant organizes experiences into a good or bad one.

The second position is the depressive position. During this time, the infant fears losing her mother and is guilty of his/her previous desire of destroying her. I remember there was a point in my life where I was overly protective of my mother. I'm not too fond of it when men talks to her. I hate it when she’s working. And I hate it when she leaves the house without telling me, which will bawl my eyes out. On the other hand, I feel guilty for causing her pain. Klein stated that children feel depressed for failing to protect their mothers, and I can say that I agree to this. It is crucial then to resolve this depressive position to gain back trust with our mothers and to develop empathy in interpersonal relationships.

Karen Horney is considered one of the female alphas among personality theorists.  She objected and challenged Freud and stressed out that psychoanalysis should be beyond instinct theory. It should emphasize the importance of social and cultural factors in shaping personalities. With this, she proposed the Psychoanalytic Social Theory. According to this theory, during childhood, a child's life is crucial and needs feelings of safety and satisfaction from their parents. If their parents are unable to provide a healthy relationship with their child, this will cause basic hostility and anxiety among children.

The concepts underlying this theory would be greatly explained by one of the well-portrayed and well-written Korean drama- It’s Okay to Not Be Okay. More than its rom-com genre, this drama’s main focus is circling around mental health issues. Among the main characters- Ko Moon-young and Moon Gang-tae, which I will be focusing on, have deep stories to tell that can be understood from a psychoanalytic social perspective.

Moon-young is diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, explicitly told in the drama. She was a famous children’s book writer, but ironically she hates being around children. She was portrayed to be apathetic, unable to understand other people’s feelings, and self-centered. This character of her was explained later on in the drama in which her childhood experiences with her mother have contributed significantly to who she is at the moment. Her mother was controlling, strict, and generally did not treat Moon-young as a daughter; instead, as a possession she was overly-protected about. Given this, Moon-young had a neurotic need for affection and approval. Ironically, the way she managed this is through moving against people. In the story, she constantly fights with other characters and even has murderous thoughts.

On the contrary, the love team of Moon-young, Gang-tae, has an entirely opposite personality. His character was more on living a normal life, without any underlying mental illness. However, it was evident that although he portrays a radiant character, there was sadness behind his every smile. Gang-tae is a caregiver in a mental hospital, and one of the reasons behind this career path was because of his autistic brother which he took care of most of his life. His story was described by putting others first while disregarding his feelings. With this, he has a neurotic need for approval and affection, and social recognition. The reason for this is that his mother did not give him enough love and care because the attention was more focused to the needs of his brother. However, unlike Moon-young, who moved against people, Gang-tae chose to move towards people. He was building a relationship with others and had a lot of people who adored and supported him.

In forming Humanistic Psychoanalysis, Erich Fromm questioned human personality with this question – Why do humans still choose to act irrationally amidst the capabilities to act rationally? To answer this Fromm theorized that, unlike animals, modern-day humans have been “torn away” from their prehistoric union with nature. We don’t have the ability to acquire powerful instincts to adapt to a changing world. Because of this, we developed the ability of reasoning or what Fromm called “human dilemma.” To be separated from nature, we had the chance to have self-awareness which led to experiencing existential dichotomies/dilemmas and demanding human needs. To further explain these, I compared the lives of humans and animals.

According to Fromm, reasoning is both a blessing and a curse. Animals who lack reasoning live their lives instinctively and through the curse of their animal nature. Though humans used reasoning to adapt to different environments, it pushed us to solve unsolvable dichotomies. One of these existential dichotomies is that we know that we are living, but we also know that we are going to die one day. Animals do not think like this; hence they do not get anxious or scared about death. To combat this kind of dilemma, humans evolved to form existential needs in an attempt to find answers

Erik Erikson, a post-Freudian theorist, focuses his personality development theory in extending the Freudian psychoanalysis. He proposed eight stages of psychosocial development which people progress in his/her entire lifespan. The term “identity crisis” was coined by Erikson because a specific psychosocial struggle influences the formation of personality in each stage. Success to resolve the crisis in each stage will produce basic strength, while failure to produce core pathology. 

One of the movies close to my heart that opened me to a different perception of love, career, and self-identity is the movie Alone Together. Starred by Liza Soberano as Tin, an idealist Arts student of the University of the Philippines – Diliman and Enrique Gil as Raf, a realist Medical student of the University of Sto. Tomas. Their story is a cross path of different life crises- individually and as romantic partners, which can be deeply explained through psychosocial development. 

During adolescence, Raf and Tin both went through Identity vs. Role Confusion. Tin has a strong view of herself and is firm with the career she wants to pursue. Her goal was to change the world through art. On the other hand, Raf is more of a live-in-the-moment type of guy and is struggling to decide for the life he wants. These varying views of identity posed a conflict between their relationship and have eventually led to a break-up. Tin produced faith in her view of the future, while Raf lacked belief in himself and was confused about the role he should portray.

Fast-forward, in their young adult life, they met again, having completely different lives. Tin, who was expected to be stable in her career, is now struggling and is in a toxic relationship with someone she just loves out of necessity. On the other hand, Raf became a doctor but was not entirely living the life because he still was unsure of his career. He is also in a relationship with someone, but he knows he was still inlove with Tin deep inside. Raf wanted to pursue Tin and is ready to be in an intimate relationship. However, Tin isolated herself because of the fear of commitment she developed with her previous partner. Basically, Raf has the capacity to love, but Tin is struggling to find and show love.

Under the Humanistic Theories of Personalities, Abraham Maslow distinguished the basic human needs that correspond to the biological needs of Freud. With this, he proposed the Holistic Dynamic Theory, which states that people are continually motivated by various needs. By fulfilling these needs, people can be psychologically healthy through self-actualization. Maslow visualized these needs in a pyramidal form which indicates hierarchy.

As its name implies, Person-Centered Theory focuses on the person's current subjective understanding of their feelings and emotions. Its proponent – Carl Roger’s- was on the quest to answer “How can I help this person grow and develop?” instead of “What caused this person to develop in this manner” as focused in psychodynamic theories where some unconscious motive drives the interpretation of the person’s situation. Roger refused past interpretation because he found it more useful for the client to focus more on the present to achieve personal growth and eventually to self-actualize. During a person-centered psychotherapy, a vulnerable or anxious person must contact a therapist with whom they feel congruence and perceive unconditional acceptance and accurate empathy.

In modern days, mental health awareness and services are progressively focused and actioned, and more people accept seeking professional help from psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health therapists. However, situating it in the Philippines, there is still a general reluctance attitude towards formal help-seeking despite continuous high rates of psychological distress. A recent 2020 study of Martinez about Filipino help-seeking for mental health problems and associated barriers and facilitators revealed that mental illness is the third most common disability in the country. 6 million are estimated to be living with depression and/or anxiety. Suicide rates are at 3.2 per 100,00 population. What is alarming is that government spending on mental health is only at 0.22% of total health expenditures. The rate of help-seeking attitude is relatively low at 10.72% and even far below the global prevalence rate of 30% of people with mental illness receiving treatment. Filipinos also tend to use informal help (from family and/or friends) to supplement professional help because of financial constraints, self-stigma, and social stigma.

The statistics and discussion provided by Martinez's study only reveal how person-centered therapy should be more focused and normalized by Filipinos. Mental illness is not something we can eradicate with a good night sleep. It is real; hence it should be professionally seeked out. Like how a physically pained person visits a professional doctor to be treated, there should also be no shame in visiting a professional therapist to address mental illnesses. It is only when we become more accepting and eradicate the underlying stigma that we become a better people of tomorrow.

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“What is the meaning of a good life?”

“Is the most important purpose in life to find happiness?”

Existentialism is the struggle to work and emerge through life’s crisis and to grow toward becoming fully human. To exist means to search the meaning of our lives in our world, which is written as being-in-the world. This theory proposes that to exist is not an easy task and people tend to suffer from anxiety and despair due to the alienation of ourselves from the world. The philosophical questions mentioned  are the foundation of Rollo May’s theory - Existential Psychology.

From a personal perspective, just like anyone my age, I have gone through a lot of existential crises that made me question my very existence. Though generally, I have no underlying issues regarding my relationship with the natural world, there was this specific point where I dealt with an overwhelming surge of self-doubt that caused me anxiety. It was when I was unsure of what course and university to pursue in college. This may be a shallow problem for others, but with imposed pressure and expectation they have for me, finding and choosing the right answer to this question was impossible for me during that time. It was expected of me to study in the University of the Philippines; hence I was anxious if I will pass the UPCAT or not. This feeling of anxiousness was recurring, which pilled up my self-doubt. I was questioning whether I was really intelligent enough to pass the entrance exam, more so, if I wanted to be in UP or if I just wanted to live to the expectations of others. I was lost and empty. However, through this existential dilemma, I discovered different meanings of my life that I would not have known if I had not been faced with such a personal hardship. Like May, who began to explore the true purpose of his life when he was faced with death, the struggle I went through was also a turning point for me to assess my life.

Gordon Allport theorized the Psychology of the Individual with the belief that the attempts to generally describing people rob them of their unique individuality. The morphogenic method shall then be used to gather data on an individual level. In the structure of personality, the individual characteristics are referred to as personal dispositions, which is a neuropsychic structure that renders and guide consistent forms of adaptive and stylistic behavior

Allport presented levels of personal dispositions. First is the cardinal disposition, which is the ruling characteristic that dominates a person's life. From a personal perspective, my cardinal disposition includes being passionate. I have known myself to be passionate in all things that interest me. If I set my mind to pursue a certain goal, I assure myself that I do it with passion. However, I believe that sometimes it is difficult to be driven by a single personal disposition. Hence, my central dispositions come into play. This includes being goal-oriented, kind, strong, brave, ambivert, and smart. These central dispositions of mine are the most outstanding that can be easily distinguished. These are also the characters that most of my family and friends have known me. Another category is the secondary dispositions that are less noticeable and present themselves in certain situations. For example, I am easy-going when it comes to situations where I am comfortable with the people around me. However, I tend to be shy and awkward if I am around unknown people and if, generally, the situation is unfamiliar.

Hans Eysenck offered a theory of personality that emphasized the importance of heredity and genetics in forming our ability to learn and adapt to the environment. Contrary to Cattell, who identified sixteen primary personality factors, Eysenck narrowed these down to three, focusing more on higher-order factor analysis. These are extraversion/introversion, neuroticism/stability, and psychoticism/superego. Each of this aspects of personality can be tracked to a different biological cause. Thus in this theory, personality is dependent on the balance between the excitation and inhibition process of the autonomic nervous system.

In extraversion/introversion, extroverts inherit an under-aroused nervous system; hence they seek stimulation. This is made through being sociable, carefree, optimistic, and impulsive. Conversely, introverts are reserved and can control their actions and emotions, serious and pessimistic because they are already over-aroused and stimulated.

In neuroticism/stability, the level of neuroticism is observed through the reactivity of the person’s sympathetic nervous system. Stable people have a less reactive, calm, and composed character. Their nervous system is observed to be stable amidst stressful situations. On the flip side, neurotic people’s nervous system is unstable and responds quickly to stress. They are prone to overreacting, anger, and fear.

The Five-Factor theory also called the Big Five Model, is by far the most widely accepted personality theory today. This theory presents that personality boils down to five core factors. These are openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, which go by the acronym OCEAN.

Unlike other personality theories that classify individuals into binary categories, mostly black or white personalities, the big five model presents personality in a spectrum. This recognizes that a person’s personality may lie at a certain point of the spectrum and not necessarily in the polar ends. The use of a spectrum in identifying the levels of personalities is deemed effective and more representative of the individual. The model is also applicable to other cultures and languages which eradicated the tendency of personalities to be described in a westernized perspective. Above all, the big five model is predictable and stable across lifespan, which can effectively predict general patterns of behavior.

Evolutionary Theory of Personality rests with the thought that evolution is the origin of personality and is caused by the interaction between the environment and the body and brain. This assumes that individuals belonging to a group of species vary from each other and have evolved using adaptive strategies. The prominent theorist of evolutionary psychology is David Buss. He proposed that personality formation revolves around adaptive problems and their solutions or mechanisms.

Psychologist BF Skinner presumed that in determining human behavior, instead of rooting it with internal motivations it should be subjected and controlled within the laws of science and experimental results. Psychologists should then focus on the conditions and factors that caused the occurrence of the behavior. This assumption became the foundation of behavioral analysis. Skinner believed that behavior operates on the environment hence it is shaped by the consequences it entails. This is called operant conditioning, where consequences shape human behavior.

In operant conditioning, reinforcer and punishments distinguish the formation of behavior. Reinforcers strengthen a behavior. Positive reinforcement is a stimulus added to a situation that increases the occurrence of a behavior. Personally, my achiever behavior was formed through positive reinforcement. My family would always give me treats, buy my favorite toys, and shower me with compliments every time I did well in school. As time passes, I am always motivated to achieve more so I can receive gifts and compliments. For negative reinforcement, something is removed to increase the occurrence of a behavior. As an achiever, I oftentimes work more than I should. I get guilty if I have not done any work, even during weekends, but I knew that this was unhealthy, so I needed to rest. So what I did was I removed work during weekends to prioritize my personal time. Doing so increased my work productivity during weekdays because I took the time to give myself some rest.

BF Skinner’s Behavioral Analysis proposes that behavior can be controlled and predicted in a given environment with the use of science rejecting the individual’s internal perspectives such as thoughts, emotions, feelings, etc. However, human factors hold importance in constructing behavior. Here comes Albert Bandura with his Social Cognitive Theory, where he provided in-depth analysis about personality without disregarding the concepts of behaviorism.

In Social Cognitive Theory, Bandura believed that people learn by observing the actions and consequences of others. The phrase “ learn from other’s mistakes” describes the kind of learning he proposed called Observational learning. Modeling is crucial in observational learning where an individual tries to imitate another individual's observed behavior depending on the consequences of the behavior he/she has received. A prominent experiment that aided me in how modeling occurs and how social behaviors can be learned through observation is Bandura’s bobo doll experiment. One of the Bobo doll experiments, Bandura tried to combine the ideas of modeling and conditioning. There were 3 groups of children. The first group watched a video of an adult being aggressive to the bobo doll and was given a reward. The second group watched the same video, but the adult was punished. The third group watched the video without the adult receiving anything. The conclusion is that children are more likely to learn an observed behavior based on its consequences. Children became aggressive when they saw that this action was rewarded while less aggressive when punished. Consequences influence you to decide what behavior to portray once caught in the same situation in the future.

The birth of Social Cognitive Theories pushed other theorists to draw interest in social learning. Among them is Jullian Rotter who proposed the social learning theory, and Walter Mischel with Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS). These theories' underlying importance is the emphasis on personal motivation and cognition in developing human personality.

Rotter’s Social Learning Theory suggests that cognitive factors play a role in shaping people's reactions to environment forces. He believed that people’s behavior could be predicted based on subjective perceptions such as values and goals and their interaction with meaningful environments. To predict a specific behavior, he even came up with a formula: BPs = f(E + RV). To explain this, I have anchored my knowledge through a situation. Let say you were so hungry and there was leftover food. You were debating if you will eat it or not. “BP” stands for behavioral potential, the likelihood of you eating the leftover food. The “s” stands for the psychological situation. In the situation, it is your complex pattern of cues, such as you being so hungry or lazy to cook or buy other food. Both factors are a function (f) of or depend on the expectancy (E) that I will be full and reinforcement value (RV) or the need for me to be full because of so much hunger. So if there is a high expectancy and reinforcement value, the higher probability that I will do the behavior, in this case, eating the leftover food. This formula can be used in other situations, which can help us predict the probability of doing a behavior and observe general patterns of personality.