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Freud's theory of psychology
freud's view of human nature
sigmund freud theory of structure of mind
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Genocide is a mass murder in which a particular group of people are targeted due to religious or racists reasons. Weak minded subjects may think that there is a necessary need to conform to the orders of a cruel leader or follow the opinion of the majority. Consequently, the individual loses his or her own identity and then conforms to the identity of the group. For instance, according to Janis, the term groupthink is “the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action” (qtd. in Myers 291). So, group think is the phenomenon in which an individual does not question and goes along with the belief of the group in order to be part of the inner circle. For the purpose of this paper, I will be discussing Freud’s personality theory in relationship to genocide, the relationship between groupthink and genocide and the prevention of groupthink.
According to Freud, the personality is made of three major structures: the id, the ego, and the super ego. The id is mainly controlled by the two basic drives known as sex and aggression. So, the ego attempts to compromise with the id and attempts to fulfill its need in realistic ways. “The aim of the reality principle is to prevent the discharge of tension until an object which is appropriate for the satisfaction of the need has been discovered” (Hall and Lindzey 34). Therefore, in relation to genocide, an individual may feel the aggressive desire to want to obtain control over a particular population, thus instilling fear on those who attempt to deviate from the opinion of the majority. The ego decides in what manner it will satisfy the needs of the id, for t...
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.... New York: Boni And Liveright, 1856. 1-110. eBook. .
Glass, James. "Group phantasy: its place in the psychology of genocide." International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. 5.3 (2008): 211-21. Web. 15 Jan. 2014.
“Genocide: The Authoritarian Mind.” Genocide. n.d. Web. 16 February 2014.
Hall, Calvin, and Gardner Lindzey. Theories of Personality. New York: John Wiley & Sons, INC., 1957. 29-75. eBook. .
Monroe, Kristen Renwick. "Cracking The Code Of Genocide: The Moral Psychology Of Rescuers, Bystanders, And Nazis During The Holocaust." Political Psychology 29.5 (2008): 699-736. PsycINFO. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Myers, David. "Group Influence." Trans. Array Social Psychology. . 10. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 266-304. eBook.
Bruno Bottelheim, “Helpless Victims,” in The Holocaust Problems and perspectives of Interpretation, ed. Donald L. Niewyk (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. 54-59.
Following the beginning of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union would start what would become two of the worst genocides in world history. These totalitarian governments would “welcome” people all across Europe into a new domain. A domain in which they would learn, in the utmost tragic manner, the astonishing capabilities that mankind possesses. Nazis and Soviets gradually acquired the ability to wipe millions of people from the face of the Earth. Throughout the war they would continue to kill millions of people, from both their home country and Europe. This was an effort to rid the Earth of people seen as unfit to live in their ideal society. These atrocities often went unacknowledged and forgotten by the rest of the world, leaving little hope for those who suffered. Yet optimism was not completely dead in the hearts of the few and the strong. Reading Man is Wolf to Man: Surviving the Gulag by Janusz Bardach and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi help one capture this vivid sense of resistance toward the brutality of the German concentration and Soviet work camps. Both Bardach and Levi provide a commendable account of their long nightmarish experience including the impact it had on their lives and the lives of others. The willingness to survive was what drove these two men to achieve their goals and prevent their oppressors from achieving theirs. Even after surviving the camps, their mission continued on in hopes of spreading their story and preventing any future occurrence of such tragic events. “To have endurance to survive what left millions dead and millions more shattered in spirit is heroic enough. To gather the strength from that experience for a life devoted to caring for oth...
The crime of genocide is one of the most devastating human tragedies throughout the history. And the word genocide refers to an organised destruction to a specific group of people who belongs to the same culture, ethnic, racial, religious, or national group often in a war situation. Similar to mass killing, where anyone who is related to the particular group regardless their age, gender and ethnic background becomes the killing targets, genocide involves in more depth towards destroying people’s identity and it usually consists a fine thorough plan prearranged in order to demolish the unwanted group due to political reasons mostly. While the term genocide had only been created recently in 1943 by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-Jewish legal scholar, from the ancient Greek word “genos” meaning race and the Latin word “cide” meaning killing , there are many examples of genocide like events that occurred before the twentieth century. And this new term brings up the question as whether genocide is a contemporary description defined through current perspectives towards the crime act or is it just a part of the inevitable human evolutionary progress caused by modernity.
Making a person look less like a human being and taking away their unique features, makes them a target of violence. After dehumanizing someone, a person has less guilt when they have to kill because it is like they are not even killing an actual person but something that is deemed as less than human. Historian Philip Pomper uses the term “instrumentalization” to represent the ability to coerce an entire group of people into doing what another person wants. Pomper described instrumentalization as taking “depersonalization one step further by making subjects tools of group projects or cultural tendencies” (Pomper 287). Once dehumanizing has happened, those in power, like Hitler or the Khmer-Rouge, use instrumentalization to get the people they control to kill. The use of this tactic is apparent in the Holocaust. The thousands of Nazis who would follow Hitler’s every order did so because the mentality of a group is substantially different than the mentality of an individual. In a group, each person is seen as an instrument used to achieve a bigger objective rather than each individual having their own
Feist, J., Feist, G. J., & Roberts, T. A. (2009). Theories of personality. New York:
Levi, Neil, and Michael Rothberg. The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Print.
Thinking back on the history of mankind, there is a well known pattern of barbarian and aggressive behavior inherent in human beings. The desire to conquer and control their environment has been proven to be existent in human nature. Although mankind’s conscience manages to keep these instincts in check, they can become unleashed if provoked. Often when faced with adversity, humans tend to regress and lose their sense of rationality giving rise to an emergence of their “id” personality. According to Adam Roberts analysis of the unconscious mind, “the id works outside the realms of logic or reasonableness, it just wants, and it doesn’t care how or why” (Roberts 56). Therefore, the “id” makes up the subconscious of an individual’s consciousness where all primitive desires and urges derive from. It is not attainable to conscious thought, yet it affects all of a person’s actions.
Schultz, D. P., & Schultz, S. E. (2013). Theories of personality (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage/Wadsworth.
In addition to Freud’s stages of development his best-known concepts are those of the id, ego, and superego (Crain, p. 268). The id personality called ‘the unconscious” is the personality that focuses on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain through reflexes and drives such as hunger or bladder tensions (Crain, pp. 268-269). The id concept is impulsive, chaotic and unrealistic.
Freud believed that human nature is basically deterministic, and largely dependent on the unconscious mind. Irrational forces and unconscious motivations drive the human mind to a unique conduct and performance. Freud believed the choices we make are determined by biological and instinctual drives. The purposes of instincts are for survival and aggression. In the field of psychiatry, Freud founded his type of psychoanalytic therapy on curing mental illnesses. The basis for Freud’s work on treating mental patients was on an illness called hysteria. One popular case that Freud began the majority of his work on was the Anna O. case. She suffered many symptoms from repressed ideas that were outwardly from no physical cause. Repression is a way of excluding unconscious desires, wishes, or unpleasant memories into the conscious mind by holding them in the unconscious mind. “According to Freud, repressed ideas often retained their power and were later expressed without the patient's awareness of them. Through ps...
Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory was based on the opinion that human personality is made up of three components: the id, ego and superego. These three components are arranged along a hierarchy order with the id at the basal end, the ego in the middle and the super ego at the pinnacle. The id at the base, seeks instantaneous pleasure and fulfillment, driven by the pleasure principle. The id wants what it wants, when it wants it; regardless of whether or not it is possible to satisfy that particular want or need. The presence or logics of reality or societal behavior has no effect on the id. For example, if an infant is thirsty and sees a bottle of water he will take the bottle and drink even if it belonged to someone else and he did not
Hergehhahn, B. R. and Olson, M. H. (1999). An Introduction to Theories of Personality. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Throughout time, many psychologists have had their own views about different theories. Theories direct and guide our perception of thinking. The similarities and differences can be broken down through different forms of development by Erik Erikson, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Bandura. Sigmund Freud emphasized the influence of the id, believing that the ego acts only out of borrowed energy and acts best as a commander. Sigmund Freud perceived aggression as a universal human behavior. According to Freud, we, humans are unaware of its presence because we are suppressed by the superego. In Erikson’s theory, he explains how the ego is the part of the mind that gives coherence to experiences, conscious or unconscious. Erikson agreed with Freud that the ego is responsible for human behavior and aggression. On the other hand, social learning theorist Albert Bandura suggests that behavior is learned through observation either accidentally or on purpose. This paper examines how Erikson’s psychoanalytic theory of the Ego compares and contrast to Bandura’s social learning theory.
Schultz, D.P. & Schultz, S.E. (2009). Theories of Personality, Ninth Edition. US: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
In Sigmund Freud's observation, humans are mainly ambitious by sexual and aggressive instincts, and search for boundless enjoyment of all needs. However, the continuous pursuit of gratification driven by the identification, or unconscious, directly conflicts with our society as the uncontrolled happiness. Sigmund Freud believed that inherent sexual and aggressive power prevented from being expressed would cause our "society to be miserable and the forfeiture of contentment." Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic view of personality theory is based on the perception that greatly of human behavior is determi...