Personality Structure

While reading chapter fourteen in the Lilienfeld text, the topic I found most interesting was Freud's thoughts on the structure of personality. Freud came up with the idea that our personality consists of three components: the id, ego, and superego. Those three components can combine to form a personality. The first component, id, is unconscious. The id possesses our most basic drives, which are aggression and sex. The id is also aiming to obtain instant gratification. The second component, the ego, would be considered the primary component of personality. This is true because the ego makes most of the decisions that determine personality. The ego deals with real world problems that it must face every day. The ego is also dominated by the reality principle, which delays gratification. This is unlike the pleasure principle which tries to obtain instant gratification. An example of the reality principle in action would be someone suppressing their urge to punch an annoying person. The last component, the superego, sets our moral standards. The superego helps us determine what is right from wrong. In order to have a healthy personality, it is necessary for there to be an interplay, or even conflict between the three. For example, a bank robber would probably have a highly developed id, but his ego and superego would probably not be well developed. This is true because the bank robber would act out of aggression on impulse in dealing with his desire for money. Not everyone has personality structures on the spectrum of criminals, but no two people have exactly the same personality.