Read through the following lists and check those items that apply to you in comparison with your brothers and sisters. If you are an only child, check those items that apply to you in comparison with your peers. 7. be closer to your parents 8. like nurturing professions 9. consult others when making a
decision
10. be less aggressive
11. associate more with others 12. receive high expectations from
your parents
13. have similar values to your parents 14. seek help or nurturance from
others 7. fight, “get into trouble” more 8. be a better mixer
9. like more dangerous activities 10. be less verbal
11. be less likely to seek help from others
12. be less conforming 13. “slide by” more
14. have been brought up less strictly by your parents
15. be more of a “loner”
16. have been given less attention by your parents
Total __________.
Add up your totals in each list. If you are an only or a firstborn child, the research indicates that more of the items on List A will apply to you. If you are a later-born child (but not the youngest in a large family), more of the items on List B will apply. If you are the youngest child in a large family, your pattern will be closer to that of a firstborn. If you are a middle child, you will show a combination of the characteristics of both lists.
How do your findings compare with the research predictions? Can you think of alternative explana-tions for some of the birth-order effects? For example, firstborns are exposed to more adult language, which may be a simpler explanation for their tendency to do better in school. Can you think of other factors in your family constellation that have helped to shape your personality? Today, many students live in families other than the traditional nuclear family. They may live with a single parent, gay or les-bian parents or have stepparents and step- or half siblings. How might these constellations further influ-ence personality?
Alfred Adler (1870–1937) 91
actively or passively, constructively or destructively, in the quest toward superiority. Adler thought children who are pampered or neglected are particularly predisposed to a faulty style of life. The pampered child is one who is excessively spoiled, overindulged, and pro-tected from life’s inevitable frustrations. Such a child is being deprived of the right to become independent and learn the requirements of living within a social order. Parents who pamper a child make it difficult for the child to develop social feelings and become a useful member of society and culture. The child grows to dislike order and develops a hostile attitude toward it. The neglected child is one who feels unwanted and rejected.
Such a child is virtually denied the right to a place in the social order. Rejection arouses resistance in the child, feelings of inferiority, and a tendency to withdraw from the impli-cations of social life. Adler pointed out that child-rearing practices frequently consist of a continuing alternation between indulgence and rejection. The pampered child often demands undue attention and regard, which eventually leads to parental anger and pun-ishment that are often interpreted by the child as rejection. Though few parents actually reject their children, many children feel humiliated and defeated.
Although parental “rejection” is overcome when parents learn alternative ways of handling their children that avoid pampering or neglect, Adler stressed that the individ-ual is fully responsible for the meaning attached to parental behavior and action. Many of us harbor deep feelings of having been rejected by our parents when they actually gave us their best efforts. Thus, in the end, only the person can assume responsibility for his or her style of life.
The Creative Self
Adler considered the concept of creative self the climax of his theory (1964). It is the self in its creative aspects that interprets and makes meaningful the experiences of the organ-ism and that searches for experiences to fulfill the person’s unique style of life. In other Adler suggested that the personalities of oldest, middle, and youngest children in a family often differ greatly. The firstborn tends to assume a nurturing and leadership role. The last-born child risks remaining the “baby” of the family. The middle child often seems confused as to his or her place in the family.
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words, the creative self establishes, maintains, and pursues the goals of the individual.
Adler’s concept of the creative self underscored his belief that human nature is essentially active, creative, and purposeful in shaping its response to the environment.
The concept of the creative self also reinforces Adler’s affirmation that individuals make their own personalities from the raw materials of their heredity and environment.
In his concept of the creative self, Adler restored consciousness to the center of person-ality. Adler believed that we are aware of everything we do and that, through self-examination, we can understand why we behaved in a certain way. The forces of which we are unaware are simply unnoticed; they are not buried in a sea of repression.
Adler’s position regarding consciousness was in direct contrast to that of Freud. Adler did not deny unconscious forces, but he minimized them by reducing unconsciousness to simple temporary unawareness. He opposed Freud’s determinism by emphasizing the vast extent to which people can achieve conscious control over their behavior. People, Adler argued, may become largely aware of their deepest impulses and fictional finalisms, and with conscious intent create their own personalities and life-styles that will achieve their highest goals. In the end, Adler’s position was almost the complete opposite of Freud’s, which emphasized that our behavior is largely determined by forces of which we are unaware. Freud offered his followers the hope of being able to endure or live without crip-pling fear of one’s unconscious conflicts, but he never offered freedom from them. By restoring consciousness to the center of personality, Adler aroused Freud’s anger. To Freud, Adler was encouraging the very illusion that Freud had sought to destroy.
For many people, Adler’s optimistic view provides a welcome contrast to the pessi-mistic and conflict-ridden picture of human nature shown in Freudian psychoanalysis and reinstates hope to the human condition. In his optimism, Adler foreshadowed the theorists to be discussed in the chapter on humanism and existentialism; in his emphasis on the creative self as organizing behavior and emotions, he foreshadowed the cognitive-behavioral theorists.
ADLERIAN PSYCHOTHERAPY
Neuroses, according to Adler (1929b), entail unrealistic life goals or fictional finalisms.
Goals are not realistic unless they take into account our capacities, limitations, and social environment. A person who felt extremely inferior or rejected as a child may set goals that are too high and unattainable. A person of average intelligence cannot expect to per-form at a consistently outstanding level in academic work. Some individuals adopt goals that are unrealistically low. Having felt defeated and unable to cope with certain situa-tions, such as school, people may seek to avoid situations in which they could develop and perfect those skills that would enable them to perform effectively.
Neurotics also choose inappropriate life-styles as a means of attaining their goals. In their efforts to offset feelings of weakness, neurotics tend to overcompensate. Compensation entails making up for or overcoming a weakness. For example, blind people learn to depend more on auditory senses. Overcompensation refers to an exaggerated effort to cover up a weakness that entails a denial rather than an acceptance of the real situation (Adler, 1954).
The bully who persists in using force may be overcompensating for a difficulty in working cooperatively with others.
Adler’s terms inferiority complex and superiority complex, phrases that have become commonplace in our vocabulary, also describe neurotic patterns. Individuals who feel highly inadequate may be suffering from an inferiority complex. In Adlerian terms, there is a gulf between the real person and excessively high life goals. Individuals who exaggerate their own importance may be suffering from a superiority complex.
In Adlerian terms, such individuals have overcompensated for feelings of weakness.
Alfred Adler (1870–1937) 93
Both complexes originate in a person’s responses to real or imagined feelings of inferiority.
Adler suggested that neurotics actually live a mistaken style of life, or life lie. Neuro-tics strive for personal aggrandizement. Their style of life belies their actual capacities and strengths. They act “as if” they were weak, “as if” they were doomed to be losers, when in fact they could create a constructive existence for themselves. They capitalize on imagined or real weaknesses and use them as an excuse rather than a challenge to deal constructively with life. They employ safeguarding tendencies, compensatory devices that ward off feelings of inferiority in a maladaptive rather than adaptive fashion.
To be sure, we all use such protective defense mechanisms at times, but neurotics employ them in an exaggerated manner and degree.
Adlerian therapy aims at restoring the patient’s sense of reality, examining and dis-closing the errors in goals and life-style, and cultivating social interest. Radical changes occur when an individual adopts new goals (cf. Durbin, 2006). Adler did not establish strict rules or methods for treatment; he believed that the patient’s life-style should deter-mine the procedure. On the whole, Adler’s approach was somewhat more informal than Freud’s. He abandoned the use of the couch, suggested that the patient sit facing the therapist, and reduced the frequency of contact between patient and doctor to once or twice a week.
The first goal of the Adlerian therapist is to establish contact with and win the confi-dence of the patient (1929b). Such conficonfi-dence is won by approaching the patient as a peer, thus soliciting cooperation. Whereas Freud viewed the transference as essential to the effectiveness of treatment, Adler suggested that therapy is effective because healthy features of the physician-patient relationship are carried over into the patient’s life.
Such transference need not have regressive features and is really another name for the cultivation of social interest.
Second, the therapist seeks to disclose the errors in the patient’s life-style and provide insight into the present condition. The patient is led gently and gradually to recognize the errors in personal goals, life-style, and attitude toward life.
Adlerian therapy seeks to encourage the patient to face present problems and to develop constructive means of dealing with them. The therapist hopes to instill (or pro-mote) the courage to act “as if” the old limiting fictions and mistaken life-styles weren’t true. The therapist who does not make decisions or assume responsibilities for the patient may structure or suggest situations that will assist in cultivating the patient’s own skills.
Such encouragement enables the patient to become more courageous and to accept new tasks and responsibilities. In this sense, the therapist plays the role of an educator who reeducates the neurotic in the art of constructive living. Additionally, Adler sought to min-imize latent feelings of rejection and resentment and to cultivate feelings of social interest and good will. Adler believed that only by subordinating our private gain to public welfare can we attain true superiority. The true and inevitable compensation for all the natural weaknesses of individual human beings is that of social justice for all.
Many of Adler’s concepts have been used to develop more effective methods of child rearing and education (Dreikurs & Soltz, 1964; Bitter, 1991). Adler would most definitely encourage prospective parents to engage in parental training, and his work is reflected in such programs (e.g., Dinkmeyer & McKay, 1976). As creative selves, we construct the primary forces that shape our existence: our goals and life-styles. We can change these, should they become inappropriate, through insight into our errors. Through education, Adler believed, our innate and shared concept of social interest and justice could be made to flower and to provide the final and most appropriate form of compensation for our individual weaknesses. However, Adler, who consulted with school systems regu-larly, felt that schools frequently compound the problem of inferiority feelings through
the extensive use of tests that have a built-in mechanism for failure. In order to establish a ceiling, many tests, such as the SAT, include questions that almost no one can answer and that lead to feelings of frustration and failure. Adler was active in child guidance clinics and involved in penal reform. He was attracted to the political movement of socialism, and many hours of his later years were devoted to specifying ways of educating for social justice. Adler “was radically opposed to the kind of therapy which overemphasized independence and egocen-tricity” (May, 1991).
ASSESSMENT AND RESEARCH IN ADLER’S THEORY
Adler’s theory, like that of many others, stemmed from clinical observations. Like Freud, Adler paid close attention to patients’ nonverbal behavior as well as to what they said.
He noted how they stood, walked, sat, or shook hands. He believed that nonverbal com-munication or behavior is indicative of a person’s life-style. Adler himself conducted lit-tle systematic empirical research to validate his ideas. Instead, he viewed the importance of these data in terms of their relevance as clinical observations. Adler referred to the study of birth order, early memories, and dreams as the “three entrance gates to mental life”; these three tools constituted Adler’s primary techniques of assessment.
Many early researchers attempted to test Adler’s birth-order theory. Not all of the research supports Adler’s findings, but his theory was valuable in stimulating further research and discussion. Zajonc and Markus (1975) theorized firstborns are more intelli-gent because the intellectual climate of a family decreases as the number of children increases (see also Zajonc, 2001). Steelman (1985, 1986) countered that educational, occupational, and income levels of the parents could be the primary reason (see also Zajonc, 1986). A large and well controlled Norwegian study in 2007 also showed that the more older siblings, the lower the IQ (Kristensen & Bjerkedal, 2007).
Thinking Critically Should prospective par-ents be required to get training? See the Thinking Critically box “A License to Parent?”