Alfred Adler- Individual Psychology

Alfred Adler- Individual Psychology

Rabea Ehrlich, Rosa Marrime & Esra Yildiz (BP/16)

The Inferiority Complex

Capron (2004)

• Overindulgence: persistent parental gratification → tyrannical, manipulative

• Overpermissiveness: allowing children to behave as they → disregard of social rules and the rights of others

• Overdomination: exclusive parental decision-making → lack of self-confidence, tendency to become dependent on others

• Overprotection: excessively warning children of potential dangers → generalized anxiety, tendency to avoid or hide from social situations

Now it is your Turn

A condition that develops when a person is unable to compensate for normal inferiority feelings.

• organic inferiority
• spoiling
• neglect

Kasler and Novo (2005)

Dream Analysis

• This Social Interest Inventory measures a student’s level of interest in social issues and how willing they are to help people in need.
• INSTRUCTIONS:
• We will hand out the inventory
• You have to choose ONE of the words in each pair
• For this you will have approximately 15 minutes
• We will help define words that might be unfamiliar
• And: the word you choose should answer the question: “I would rather be…”. The word you choose does not have to be a trait you think you already possess.

• Psychologists have developed tests to measure Adler’s concepts of social interest and style of life.
• The Social Interest Scale (SIS):
• consists of pairs of adjectives
• participants choose the word in each pair that best describes an attribute they would like to possess.
• The Social Interest Index (SII):
• self-report inventory
• participants judge the degree to which statements represent themselves
• The Basic Adlerian Scales for Interpersonal Success (BASIS-A)
• 65-item self-report inventory
• five personality dimensions measured are social interest, going along, taking charge, wanting recognition, and being cautious

• early recollections in adults from the US and Israel predict career paths

• e.g. physicists, mathematicians and psychologists have themes like curiosity, independent thought and skepticism

• support for Adler’s theory that early recollections reveal one’s current life of style

Research Methods for Social Interest

Reflection

• Adler agreed with Freud: The value of dreams in understanding personality but disagreed on the way in which dreams should be interpreted

• dreams involve our feeling about current problems and what we intend to do about it

RESULTS

• 0-1 key words circled = LOW SI
• 2-3 key words circled = AVERAGE SI
• 3-4 key words circled = ABOVE AVERAGE SI
• 5-7 key words circled = HIGH SI

imaginative - rational

neat - sympathetic

intelligent - considerate

respectful - original

generous - individualistic

capable –tolerant

forgiving –gentle

practical - self-confident

alert - cooperative

realistic - moral

sympathetic - individualistic

reasonable - quick-witted

helpful - quick-witted

level-headed - efficient

self-reliant - ambitious creative - sensible

responsible - original

trustworthy –wise

efficient - respectful

capable - independent imaginative - helpful

considerate - wise

ambitious –patient

neat – logical

Striving for superiority

The Superiority Complex

Social Interest

• Our innate potential to cooperate with other people to achieve personal and societal goals.

• “Gemeinschaftsgefühl”

• influenced more by our social than biological forces

• individual must cooperate with society to realize goals

• mother’s role is vital in developing the child’s social interest

A condition that develops when a person overcompensates for normal inferiority feelings

• “Alfred Adler becomes more and more correct year by year. . . . As the facts come in, they give stronger and stronger support to his image of man” (Maslow, 1970)

• public recognition declined after his death

• many concepts have been borrowed without acknowledgment

• Adler’s psychology was oversimplified

• inconsistent and unsystematic in his thinking; theory contains gaps and unanswered questions.

• Are inferiority feelings the only problem we face in life? Do all people strive primarily for perfection? Can we become reconciled to a degree of inferiority and no longer attempt to compen- sate for it?

• Individual Psychology: The Journal of Adlerian Theory, Research and Practice is published quarterly (North American Society of Adlerian Psychology)

• Adlerian training institutes in New York and Chicago

The Style of Life

The urge toward perfection or completion that motivates each of us

->human motivation as expectations for the future

Fictional Finalism

The idea that there is an imagined or potential goal that guides our behavior

• exhausting
• manifested by individual and by society

A unique character structure or pattern of personal behaviors and characteristics by which each of us strives for perfection.

• develops until the age of 5
• depends on social interactions

Creative Power of the Self

Social Interest

• Those with no feeling of social interest may become neurotics or even criminals

• Adlers’ most contribution was the idea that order of birth is a major social influence in your childhood

The ability to create an appropriate style of life.

• dominance of conscious attitude toward experiences

Dream Events and Dream types

Basic Styles of Life

• Dreams involving falling: demotion or loss e.g. fear of losing self-esteem

• Flying: Sense of striving upward, ambitious style of life

• Combination of falling and flying: fear of being too ambitious thus failing

• Being chased: feeling of weakness

• Naked: Fear of giving oneself away

the dominant type

ruling attitude with little social awareness

the getting type

expects to receive satisfaction from other people

the avoiding type

makes no attempt to face life's problems

the socially useful type

cooperates with others and acts in accordance with their needs

Source of Human Striving

Hankoff (1987); Davidow and Bruhn (1990)

• Anxiety neurotics

• Psychosomatic

• Alcoholics

• Adult criminals

• Young criminals

• Psychiatric patients

• Abandonment

• Illness

• Threats; not being in control

• Aggressive interactions with others

• Trouble forming social relationships

• aggression

Geiser, Greenberg and Harrison (1972)

• Participants high in social interest reported…
• high empathy and popularity
• high in spirituality
• high in agreeableness, strong sense of purpose of life and self-determination
• high overall life satisfaction, as well as satisfaction with friends and family

Strano and Petrocelli (2005)

Research using the SIS

• Two groups were exposed to an unsolved puzzle

• Group A: permitted to dream

• Group B: wasn’t permitted to dream; was woken up during REM sleep

• Conclusion: Group A recalled more of unsolved puzzle; it was easier for them to solve it the following day

• Dreaming enabled participants to deal effectively with the current ”threatening” situation (failure)

Breland (1977), Schacher (1963), Mellor (1990)

Individual Psychology

Inferiority Feelings

• normal condition of all people
• the source of human striving

->compensation:

motivation to overcome inferiority;

strive for higher levels of development

• begins in infancy
• inescapable

• study on American College Student

• comparison of e.g. grade-point average

• adults with low inferiority feelings tend to be more successful, self- confident and persistent to achieve a goal

• First-borns tend to attain greater intellectual achievement in academic settings, as well as greater power and prestige in their careers

• Only-borns report higher levels of: achievement, intelligence, social/ emotional adjustment, aspirations, initiative and self-esteem

• Kristensen (2007)
• 240,000 male army recruits
• Older siblings scored higher on an IQ test than did younger siblings

Research using the SII

• Persons high in social interest …
• also score high in self-actualization
• have a stronger immune system, fever colds and lower blood pressure

• On average mixed race and mixed culture participants scored higher than single race/ culture participants

Adler's belief of Early Recollection

Birth Order

Assessing Adler's Theory

[people] remember from early childhood (a) only images that confirm and support their current views of themselves in the world . . . and (b) only those memories that support their direction of striving for significance and security. [His] focus on selective memory and lifestyle emphasize what is remembered. In contrast, Freud’s approach to interpret early memories emphasizes what is forgotten through the mechanism of repression.

(Kopp & Eckstein, 2004, p. 165)

• First-Born
• happy, secure existence until “dethroned" by second child
• when dethroned: stubborn, ill behaved, destructive
• oriented toward past; locked in nostalgia
• role of teacher
• become: good organizers, detail oriented, conservative

• Adler developed his theory by analyzing his patients
• through verbalization and behavior during therapy sessions
• his approach was informal compared to Freuds – more like a conversation between friends
• When an adolescent patient told Adler he felt guilty when he masturbated, Adler replied: “You mean to say you masturbate and feel guilty? That is too much. One would be enough: either masturbate or feel guilty. But both is too much” (Hoffman, 1994, pp. 209, 273).

Birth Order

• Second-Born
• older sibling as either model or threat
• parents usually change rearing attitudes (less concerned and anxious)
• become: competitive, ambitious and tries to surpass older sibling OR underachiever, when older sibling can never be surpassed

Birth Order

• Youngest Child
• never feels shock of getting dethroned
• develop at very fast rate
• become: high achievers OR when excessively pampered, may retain helplessness and dependency

Birth Order

• Only Child
• never loses position of primacy and power
• always center of attention
• mature early; manifest adult behaviors and attitudes
• never learned to share and compete

If it were possible to choose, which birth order position would you select for yourself in your family? Why?

Childhood & Adolescence

The Source of Human Striving

Striving for Superiority

The Style of Life

Social Interest

Birth Order

Early recollections

Dream analysis

Early Recollection

Adler's Experience with Early recollection

• Our Personality is created during the first 4 or 5 years of life

• Our memories from that period, indicate the style of life that continues to characterize us as adults

• Adler's view on ER: “the most satisfactory single indicator of lifestyle”

• He was 5 years old and just started school

• Was fearful of path towards school that went through a cemetery

• Became terrified to walk past – confused that the other children didn't notice the cemetery

• This experienced heightened his sense of inferiority

• 30 years later he realized and accepted his memory of the incident was faulty

Adulthood

• *7. February 1870 in Vienna

• suffered from rickets

• death of younger brother

• jealousy of older brother

Contents

• studied medicine in Vienna

• Opthamologist
• General medicine
• Psychology

• 1902: first assocation with Freud

• 1910: president of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Socety

• 1912: founded the Society for Individual Psychology

• served in the army during WWI

• 1929: moved to New York, USA

References

Adler vs. Freud

• Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2016). Theories of personality. Cengage Learning.

• The Life of Adler

• Individual Psychology

• Research on Adler’s Theory

• Questions About Human Nature

• Reflection

On what points did Adler differ with Freud?