Three Human Personality Pioneers: Freud, Jung and Rogers

The contributions of Freud, Jung, and Rogers are important to understanding the personality traits of humans, and they are still used as the foundation for studies today. Freud was the man who created the perspective of studying human behavior from an unconscious standpoint, rather than simply using conscious thought to analyze behavior (Axia College, 2009). Jung, on the other hand, agreed with the concept of the libido, but he stated that the libido controlled all behavior traits, and not just the sexual ones. And Rogers made people understand that a human was born with a set personality, and that behaviors could be changed, or controlled, once understanding was achieved.

Sigmund Freud was the best known psychodynamic theorist, and his ideas still form the basis for psychoanalysis, which is a method of mind investigating and the information that is gathered from this investigation (AROPA, 2009). In Freud's view, the human personality is made up from the id, the ego, and the superego, which operate according to the pleasure principle, which means that everything revolves around avoiding pain and increasing pleasure. The id is based solely on the pleasure principle, the egois the conscious part of the mind that keeps the idand the superegohappy, and the superego is the area that maintains morality and prevents any wrong actions (Nehemiah, nd). These three factors, according to Freud, make up the human personality.

Freud also thought that people use defense mechanisms to deal with thoughts and emotions that were unwanted, and they include; denial, repression, projection, identification, regression, intellectualization, reaction formation, displacement, and sublimation (Axia College, 2009). These defense mechanisms can be used during a study to analyze a specific person's personality, and how that person reacts under different situations.

According to Freud, there are three stages within the human growth patterns, and each stage can cause different impacts upon the human personality. The oral stage is the first, the second is the anal stage, and the final stage is the phallic stage. A balance has to be maintained within these stages, and throughout the changing of the stages, or negative behavior can be instilled within a person.

Carl Jung, who was an analytical theorist, had the idea of the collective conscious, which is the belief that all people have the same basic patterns of behavior (Wikipedia, 2009). He claimed that our minds, as well as our bodies, have adapted and grown through the centuries; therefore basic human personalities are the same because they have been handed down through human genes since the beginning of time.

Jung also grouped people into two general attitude groups, the introverts and the extroverts. In his views, introverts are concerned with themselves and extroverts are concerned with everything around them (Axia College, 2009). He claimed that all people contained aspects of both of these groups, but one of the two aspects is always more dominate. This dominate attitude is the basis for a person's personality, and people with the same types of attitudes will be similar when it comes to how they think and act.

Carl Rogers was another influential person on human personalities, and his views were based upon humanistic theories. He believed that human personalities were based on experiences that they had during their life. Rogers felt that all people were born with set behaviors and that people lived life in an effort to achieve the highest acceptance of these qualities. Once a person reached their fullest potential, then they were accepted as a fully functioning person. He felt that people were more likely to become fully functioning if they were raised in an unconditional positive environment, rather than in a conditional environment (Axia College, 2009). This basically means that children raised in a home were they were accepted, and praised, are more likely to live a long, healthy life as a fully functioning human.

Freud, Jung and Rogers were pioneers when it came to human personalities and what affected them. Each theorist had their own views, but they all paved the way for personality studies that are still used today. The combination of theories and ideas that these three men implemented have made human personality more understandable, and it allows people to change in order to increase there positive personalities, while allowing any negative traits to be overcome.

AROPA Psychoanalysis freudfile.org
Axia College Psychology: An Introduction Axia College of Phoenix University
Yitzhak Nehemiah Introduction to Sigmund Freud helium.com
Wikipedia Collective Consciousness Wikipedia.com