TheoPer1 (Adler, Horney, & Allport)

• Alfred Adler


  Individual Psychology
• Individual Psychology


  • Focused on the uniqueness of each person
  • Denied the biological motives and goals
• Each individual is a social being
• Ways Adler differed from Freud

  • People motivated by social influences (striving for success or superiority)
  • People responsible for who they are
  • Behavior shaped by view of future
  • Consciousness important
• Major tenets of Individual Psychology

  • The one dynamic force behind people's behaviors is the striving for success or superiority
  • People's subjective perceptions shape their behavior and personality
  • Personality is unified and consistent
  • The value of all human activity must be seen from the viewpoint of social interest
  • The self-consistent personality structure develops into a person's style of life
  • Style of life is molded by people's creative power
• Inferiority Feelings


  Present as a motivating force of behavior
• Inferiority Complex


  Inability to overcome inferiority feelings
• Organ Inferiority


  Exaggerated strivings caused by feelings of unmanliness
• Organ Dialect


  Deficient organ expresses the direction of the individual's goals
• Masculine Protest


  Compensation behaviors
• Masculine Behaviors


  • Assertiveness
  • Independence
  • Dominance
• Feminine Behaviors


  • Passivity
  • Dependence
  • Submissiveness
• Superiority Complex


  Exaggerated opinion of one's abilities and accomplishments
• Striving for Superiority


  • Fundamental act of life
  • A drive for perfection
  • An effort to perfect ourselves, to make ourselves complete of whole
• Finalism


  • The idea that we have an ultimate goal, a final state of being, and a need to move toward it
  • The goals we strive are potentialities
• Fictional Finalism


  The notion that fictional ideas guide our behavior as we strive toward a complete or whole state of being
• Style of Life


  • Unique pattern of characteristics, behaviors, and habits
  • Determined by social relationships
  • Creative Power of the Self (we create ourselves, our personalities, our character)
• Four Basic Styles of Life

  • Dominant Type
  • Getting Type
  • Avoiding Type
  • Socially Useful Type
• Social Interest


  An individual's innate potential to cooperate with other people to achieve personal and societal goals
• Gemeinshaftsgefuhl


  Community feeling
• External Factors in Maladjustment

  • Exaggerated Physical Deficiencies
  • Pampered Style of Life
  • Neglected Style of Life
• Safeguard Tendencies


  • Excuses
  • Aggression
  • Withdrawal
• Depreciation


  Undervalue other people's achievements and to overvalue one's own; evident in criticism and gossip
• Accusation


  Tendency to blame others for one's failures and to seek revenge
• Self-accusation


  Self-torture and guilt, including masochism, depression, and suicide, as means of hurting people who are close to them
• Applications of Individual Psychology

  • Family Constellation
  • Early Recollections
  • Dreams
  • Psychotherapy
• Birth Order Theory


  • Eldest Child
  • Second Child
  • Youngest Child
  • Only Child
• Adler's theory is high on generating research, organizing known data, and guiding action, but moderate on parsimony and low on verification, falsification, and internal consistency
• Adler's Concept of Humanity

  • Very high on free choice and optimism
  • High on social factors and uniqueness
  • Average on unconscious influences
  • Very low on causality
• Karen Horney


  Psychoanalytic Social Theory
• Personality


  • Result of social influences during early childhood
  • The social relationship between the child and his/her parents is the key factor
• Neurosis


  • Inability to adapt
  • Tendency to experience excessive negative or obsessive thoughts and behaviors
  • Used informally to describe behaviors related to stress and anxiety
  • Resulted from basic anxiety caused by interpersonal relationships
• Overview of Psychoanalytic Social Theory

  • People who do not have their needs for love and affection satisfied during childhood — suffer from basic anxiety
  • People combat basic anxiety by adopting one of the three fundamental styles of relating to others (moving toward people, moving against people, and moving away from people)
  • Compulsive behavior generates a basic intra-psychic conflict that may take the form of either an idealized self-image or self-hatred
  • The idealized self-image is expressed as: neurotic search for glory, neurotic claims, and neurotic pride
• Basic Anxiety


  A feeling of being isolated and helpless in a world conceived as potentially hostile
• Strategies to Protect Against Basic Anxiety

  • Affection
  • Submissiveness
  • Power
  • Prestige
  • Possession
  • Withdrawal
• Compulsive Drives


  Compulsive needs to reduce basic anxiety leads to behaviors that perpetuate low self-esteem
• 10 Categories of Neurotic Needs

  • Affection and Approval
  • Powerful Partner
  • Restrict one's life within narrow borders
  • Power
  • Exploit Others
  • Social Recognition or Prestige
  • Personal Admiration
  • Ambition and Personal Achievement
  • Self-sufficiency and Independence
  • Perfection and Unassailability
• Neurotic Trends (Basic Attitudes)

  • Moving Toward People (Compliant Personality)
  • Moving Against People (Aggressive Personality)
  • Moving Away from People (Detached Personality)
• Intrapsychic Conflict


  Personalities characterized by disunity and disharmony
• Three Aspects of the Idealized Image

  • The Neurotic Search for Glory
  • Neurotic Claims
  • Neurotic Pride