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accordance with reality. It works by the Ego Defence Mechanisms reality principle, and often directs the id According to Freud, much of human towards more appropriate ways of behaving. For example, the id of a boy, who behaviour reflects an attempt to deal with or escape from anxiety. Thus, how the ego wants an ice-cream cone, tells him to grab deals with anxiety largely determines how the cone and eat it. His ego tells him that people behave. Freud believed that people if he grabs the cone without asking, he may be punished. Working on the reality avoid anxiety mainly by developing defence mechanisms that try to defend the ego principle, the boy knows that the best way against the awareness of the instinctual to achieve gratification is to ask for needs. Thus, defence mechanism is a way permission to eat the cone. Thus, while the of reducing anxiety by distorting reality. id is demanding, unrealistic and works Although some defence against anxiety is according to pleasure principle, the ego is normal and adaptive, people who use these patient, reasonable, and works by the mechanisms to such an extent that reality reality principle. is truly distorted develop various forms of maladjustment. Superego : The best way to characterise the superego is to think of it as the moral Freud has described many different branch of mental functioning. The kinds of defence mechanisms. The most important is repression, in which anxiety- superego tells the id and the ego whether provoking behaviours or thoughts are gratification in a particular instance is ethical. It helps control the id by totally dismissed by the unconscious. internalising the parental authority When people repress a feeling or desire, they become totally unaware of that wish through the process of socialisation. For or desire. Thus, when a person says, “I do example, if a boy sees and wants an ice- not know why I did that”, some repressed cream cone and asks his mother for it, his superego will indicate that his behaviour feeling or desire is expressing itself. Other major defence mechanisms are is morally correct. This approach towards projection, denial, reaction formation and obtaining the ice-cream will not create rationalisation. In projection, people guilt, fear or anxiety in the boy. attribute their own traits to others. Thus, Thus, in terms of individual functioning a person who has strong aggressive Freud thought of the unconscious as being tendencies may see other people as acting composed of three competing forces. In in an excessively aggressive way towards some people, the id is stronger than the her/him. In denial, a person totally refuses superego; in others, it is the superego. The to accept reality. Thus, someone suffering relative strength of the id, ego and from HIV/AIDS may altogether deny her/ superego determines each person’s his illness. In reaction formation, a stability. Freud also assumed that id is person defends against anxiety by adopting energised by two instinctual forces, called behaviours opposite to her/his true life instinct and death instinct. He paid feelings. A person with strong sexual urges, less attention to the death instinct and who channels her/his energy into religious focused more on the life (or sexual) fervour, presents a classical example of instinct. The instinctual life force that reaction formation. In rationalisation, a energises the id is called libido. It works person tries to make unreasonable feelings on the pleasure principle, and seeks or behaviour seem reasonable and immediate gratification. acceptable. For example, when a student 35 Chapter 2 • Self and Personality Reprint 2026-27