Comparative Analysis: Freud and Eysenck's Personality Theories

This essay provides a comparative analysis of Sigmund Freud's and Hans Eysenck's personality theories, highlighting their key differences and approaches to understanding human behavior. Freud's theory emphasizes the conflict between the id, ego, and superego, and the importance of the unconscious mind in shaping personality. In contrast, Eysenck's theory focuses on higher-order traits such as extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism to explain personality development. The author argues that Eysenck's theory offers a more comprehensive view of personality development by incorporating factors like emotional stability and self-control, which are crucial in determining an individual's behavior and overall psychological maturity. The essay concludes that Eysenck's traits provide a more practical framework for assessing and understanding personality traits compared to Freud's focus on the unconscious.

Running head: COMPARISON BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAITS
COMPARISON BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAITS
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Author Note

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COMPARISON BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAITS
The study will discuss about the difference between the personality theories of Freud
and Eysenck and identify the development of personality in individual.
Freud had developed the theory of personality development which argues that
personality is formed when these three fundamental structures conflict in human mind: id,
ego, super ego. He emphasized on the importance of the unconscious mind and he also
believed the fact that the unconscious mind governs the behaviour to a higher degree than
what is suspected by the people. He had kept a goal to make the unconscious part to be
conscious. According to him the human personality is complex and have more than a single
component (Dweck, 2013). The different component of personality are Id, Ego and Super
ego. He states the Id is present in an individual since birth and completely unconscious. Ego
is related to deal with reality. It works in both the cases, conscious and unconscious (Lewin,
2013). Super ego can be termed into two parts where the ego ideal is the rule for good
behaviour and includes approval from parents but the conscience includes information that
might not be readily accepted by the parents. It can have some negative impact.
On the other side Eysenck’s theory of personality defines two dimensions of higher order
traits, extraversion Vs introversion and emotional stability Vs neuroticism and
psychoticism Vs self -control. The term extroversion describes a person to be more free to the
outer world and more outgoing, sociable and expressive in comparison to the introversion
who are more withdrawn, reserved, retiring, and deliberate. The term Neuroticism means
person who are not stable with their emotional value and they require more stability in their
emotional decision and lifestyle. On the other hand emotionally stable defines a person who
is capable of maintaining a constant reaction and can be predicted easily (Eysenck, 2014).
Psychoticism is a situation when the person is characterized by aggression, aloofness and anti

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-social behaviour. On the other hand self -control is a situation that defines when the personal
is able to control their physical, emotional and social behaviour.
According to me the personality theory that represents the development of
personality is the theory of Eysenck as it includes the personal traits that combines all the
major factors that can determine the behaviour of an individual. The theory of Freud only
states the ego and Id part but that is not the only factor that can determine the personality
development of an individual. There are few other factors that are important and influences
the behaviour of the individual. The factors like self -control, emotional stability determines
how mature and strong the person is. It also proves how much endurance power the
individual has (Eysenck, 2014). The person being an extrovert or introvert will determine
how reserved or free the person will be. Thus these factors determine the personality
development of an individual in a better way than the other theory as per me. I strongly
believe if I have to define the personality trait of an individual I will look for these factors
instead of looking for Id and ego in the person.

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References:
Dweck, C. S. (2013). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development.
psychology press.
Eysenck, H. (2017). The biological basis of personality. Routledge.
Eysenck, M. (2014). Anxiety and cognition: A unified theory. Psychology Press.
Lewin, K. (2013). A dynamic theory of personality-selected papers. Read Books Ltd.