personal

psychology
 Inferiority Feelings: The Source of All Human
Striving

• Adler believed that inferiority feelings are a constant motivating

force in all behavior.

• Adler proposed that inferiority feelings are the source of all human
striving.

• Individual growth results from compensation, from our attempts to

overcome our real or imagined inferiorities.

• Throughout our lives, we are driven by the need to overcome this

sense of inferiority and to strive for increasingly higher levels of
development.
• The process begins in infancy.

• Infants are small and helpless and are totally dependent on adults.

• Adler believed that infants are aware of their parents’ greater power and
strength and of their own hopelessness to challenge that power.

• As a result, infants develop feelings of inferiority relative to the larger,

stronger people around them.

• It is a climate of helplessness and dependence on adults.

 The Inferiority Complex

• What happens when the child is unable to

compensate for those feelings of inferiority?

• An inability to overcome inferiority feelings

intensifies them, leading to the development
of an inferiority complex.

• People with an inferiority complex have

• a poor opinion of themselves

• and feel helpless
• and unable to cope with the demands of life.
Causes of Inferiority Complexes
• An inferiority complex can arise from three sources in childhood:

• organic inferiority,
• spoiling,
• and neglect.

1. Organic Inferiority

• Adler argued that defective organs of the body shape personality through the person’s
efforts to compensate for the defect or weakness.

• Efforts to overcome organic inferiority can result in

• striking artistic, athletic, and social accomplishments,

but if those efforts fail, they can lead to an inferiority complex.

2. Spoiling

• Spoiling or pampering a child can also bring about an inferiority

complex.

• Spoiled children are the center of attention in the home.

• Their every need is satisfied, and little is denied them.

• Spoiled children have little social feeling and are impatient with
others.

• They have never learned to wait for what they want, nor have
they learned to overcome difficulties or adjust to others’ needs.

• When confronted with obstacles to gratification,

spoiled children come to believe that they must have some
personal deficiency that is frustrating them;

hence, an inferiority complex develops.

3. Neglecting
It is easy to understand how neglected,
unwanted, and rejected children can develop
an inferiority complex.

Their infancy and childhood are characterized

by
a lack of love and security because their
parents are indifferent or hostile.

As a result, these children develop

feelings of worthlessness,

or even anger,

and view others with distrust.

The Superiority Complex

• superiority complex

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

• Persons with a superiority complex are given to boasting, vanity, self-centeredness, and
a tendency to denigrate others.

• Striving for Superiority, or Perfection

• At first, he identified inferiority with a general feeling of weakness or of femininity, in

recognition of the inferior standing of women in the society of his day.

• He spoke of trying to compensate for this feeling as the masculine protest.

The Superiority Complex

• Superiority is the ultimate goal

toward which we strive and a drive
for perfection or to make ourselves
complete or whole.

• This innate goal, the drive toward

wholeness or completion, is
oriented toward the future.

• Only the ultimate, final goal of

superiority or perfection could
explain personality and behavior.
 Fictional Finalism

• Adler applied the term finalism to the idea that we have an ultimate goal, a final state
of being, and a need to move toward it.

• In other words, we strive for ideals that exist in us subjectively.

• Adler believed that our goals are fictional or imagined ideals.

• These beliefs influence the ways we perceive and interact with other people.

• Example, if we believe that behaving a certain way will bring us rewards in a heaven or
an afterlife or the concept of God, we try to act according to that belief.

• Adler preferred the terms subjective final goal or guiding self-ideal to describe this
concept, but it continues to be known as “fictional finalism”
• There are two additional points Adler made about striving for
superiority.

• First, it increases rather than reduces tension.

• Striving for perfection requires great expenditures of energy and

effort, a condition quite different from equilibrium or a tension-free
state.

• Second, the striving for superiority is manifested both by the

individual and by society as a whole.

• Most of us are social beings.

 The Style of Life

• Adler stated that the ultimate goal for each of us is superiority or perfection,
but we try to attain that goal in many different ways.

• We develop a unique pattern of characteristics, behaviors, and habits, which

Adler called a distinctive character, or style of life.

• To understand how the style of life develops, we must go back to the concepts
of inferiority feelings and compensation.

• In these attempts at compensation, they acquire a set of behaviors.

• For example, the sickly child may strive to increase physical prowess by running
or lifting weights.
 The Style of Life

• Everything we do is shaped and defined by our unique style of life.

• It determines which aspects of our environment we attend to or

ignore and what attitudes we hold.

• The style of life is learned from social interactions and is so firmly

crystallized by the age of 4 or 5 that it is difficult to change thereafter.

• nature depends on social interactions, especially the person’s order

of birth within the family and the nature of the parent–child
relationship
The Creative Power of the Self
• We find that the style of life is determined by social relationships in the early years and
subject to little change after that.

• Adler believed that we create our selves, our personality, our character.

• We are not passively shaped by childhood experiences.

• Those experiences themselves are not as important as our conscious attitude toward
them.

• Adler argued that neither heredity nor environment provides a complete explanation for
personality development.

• Instead, the way we perceive and interpret these influences forms the basis for the
creative construction of our attitude toward life.
Four Basic Styles of Life
• Adler described several universal problems and grouped them into three
categories:

• problems involving our behavior toward others;

• problems of occupation;
• problems of love.

• Further, he proposed four basic styles of life for dealing with these problems:

• the dominant type,

• the getting type,
• the avoiding type,
• the socially useful type.
• The dominant type displays a dominant or ruling
attitude with little social awareness.

• Such a person behaves without any regard for

other people.

• The more extreme of this type

attack others and become sadists,
delinquents,
or sociopaths.

The less virulent become

alcoholics,
drug addicts,
or suicides;
they believe they hurt others by attacking
themselves.
The getting type expects to receive satisfaction from other people and
so becomes dependent on them.

The avoiding type makes no attempt to face life’s problems.

By avoiding difficulties, the person avoids any possibility of failure.

• These three types are not prepared to cope with the problems of
everyday life.

• They are unable to cooperate with other people

• and the clash between their style of life and the real world results in
abnormal behavior, which is manifested in neuroses and psychoses.
• The socially useful type, in
contrast,

• cooperates with others and

acts in accordance with their
needs.

• Such persons cope with

problems within a

well-developed framework of
social interest
 Social Interest
• Adler believed that getting along with others is the first task we encounter in life.

• He described this as the concept of social interest or “community feeling” ,

which is the individual’s innate potential to cooperate with other people in
order to achieve personal and societal goals.

• social interest is developed depends on our early social experiences.

Adler believed that people have a fundamental need to

Belong
in order to be healthy,
well functioning individuals (Ferguson, 2010).
 The Role of the Mother in Developing Social Interest

• Adler noted the importance of the mother as the first person with whom a baby
comes in contact.

• Through her behavior toward the child, the mother can either foster social interest
or thwart its development.

• Adler believed that the mother’s role was vital in developing the child’s social
interest as well as all other aspects of the personality.

• The mother must teach the child cooperation, companionship, and courage.

• Only if children feel a kinship with others will they be able to act with courage in
attempting to cope with life’s demands.
 Birth Order
• One of Adler’s most enduring contributions is the idea that order of birth is a major social influence
in childhood, one from which we create our style of life.

• Even though and live in the same house, they do not have identical social environments.
• siblings have the same parents

• Being older or younger than one’s siblings

• and being exposed to differing parental attitudes create
different childhood conditions that help determine different kinds of personalities.

• He wrote about four situations:

• the first-born child,

• the second-born child,
• the youngest child,
• the only child.
• The First-Born Child
• First-born children are in a unique and enviable situation, at least for a
while.
• The parents are usually very happy at the birth of their first child and
devote a great deal of time and attention to the new baby.

• First-borns typically receive their parents’ instant and undivided attention.

• As a result, first-borns have a very happy and secure existence, until the
second-born child appears.

• Dethronement Suddenly,
• no longer the focus of attention,
• no longer receiving constant love and care, first-borns are, in a sense,
dethroned.
• The affection and attention first-borns received during their reign will now have to be
shared with the new baby.

• For a time, first-borns may become stubborn,

• ill behaved,
• and destructive
• and may refuse to eat or go to bed.

• They are striking out in anger, but the parents will probably strike back, and their weapons
are far more powerful.

• When first-borns are punished for their troublesome behavior,

they may come to hate the second child, who is, after all, the cause of the problem.

• Example, an 8-year-old will be less upset by the birth of a sibling than will a 2-year-old.
Characteristics of First-Borns
• Adler found that first-borns are often
• oriented toward the past,
• locked in nostalgia,
• and pessimistic about the future.

• Having once learned the advantages of power,

• they remain concerned with it throughout life.

• They can exercise power over younger siblings, but at the same time they are
more subject to the power of their parents because more is expected of them.

• As the children age, the first-born often has to play the role of teacher, tutor,
leader, and disciplinarian,
• expected by parents to help care for younger siblings.
• These experiences often enable the firstborn to mature intellectually
to a higher degree than the younger children.

• Adler believed that first-borns also take an unusual interest in

maintaining order and authority.

• They become good organizers,

• conscientious
• and reliable about detail,
• authoritarian and conservative in attitude.
• First-borns may also grow up to feel insecure and hostile toward
others.
• The Second-Born Child

• Second-born children, never experience the powerful position once occupied by the
first-borns.

• by this time the parents have usually changed their child-rearing attitudes and practices.

• A second baby is not the novelty the first was;

parents may be less concerned and anxious about their own behavior and may take a
more relaxed approach to the second child.

• From the beginning, second-borns have a pacesetter in the older sibling.

• The second child always has the example of the older child’s behavior as a model, a
threat, or a source of competition.
• Characteristics of Second-Borns

• Competition with the first-born may serve to motivate the second-born, who may
try to catch up to and surpass the older sibling, a goal that stimulates language and
motor development in the second-born.

• They are more optimistic about the future and are likely to be competitive and
ambitious.

• Other less beneficial outcomes may also arise from the relationship between first-
borns and second-borns.

• If, for example, the older siblings excel in sports or scholarship, the second-borns
may feel that they can never surpass the first-borns and may give up trying.
• In this case, competitiveness would not become part of the second-borns’
lifestyles, and they may become underachievers, performing below their abilities
in many facets of life.
• The Youngest Child

• Youngest or last-born children never face the shock of dethronement by another

child
• and often become the pet of the family, particularly if the siblings are more than a
few years older.

• Driven by the need to surpass older siblings.

• Last-borns are often high achievers.

• The opposite can occur, however, if the youngest children are excessively pampered
and come to believe they needn’t learn to do anything for themselves.

• As they grow older, such children may retain the helplessness and dependency of
childhood.
• The Only Child

• Only children never lose the position of primacy and power they hold in the family.

• They remain the focus and center of attention.

• Spending more time in the company of adults than a child with siblings, only
children often mature early and manifest adult behaviors and attitudes.

• Only children may experience problems when they find that in areas of life outside
• the home, such as school, they are not the center of attention.

• Only children have learned neither to share nor to compete.

• If their abilities do not bring them sufficient recognition and attention, they are
likely to feel keenly disappointed.