Tag: Freud

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10. A Systems View of Human Cognition

Three Minds in One — A Systems View of Human Cognition

Across a century of psychology, communication theory, and leadership research, the same insight keeps re-emerging: human cognition is triadic. Freud called it the Id, Ego, and Superego. Eric Berne described Child, Parent, and Adult ego states. More recently, systems thinkers speak of Ego, Eco, and Intuitive Intelligence.

Each of these frameworks highlights a different aspect of a common truth: the human mind is a layered system shaped by evolution, motivation, and reflexivity. We are driven by instinct, shaped by society, and guided by reflection. Understanding how these layers work can help us communicate better, make peace with ourselves, and grow as individuals and communities.

In my new article, I explore this recurring cognitive triad and its evolutionary foundations. I show how it maps onto brain structures, motivational needs (via Alderfer’s ERG theory), and modes of interpersonal communication. It also shows us how reflexivity and observation give us the tools to navigate these inner voices constructively.

You can read the full article in PDF format here: https://rational-understanding.com/my-books#freudandberne

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21. Socio-culturally Reinforced Psychological Defense Mechanisms

Socio-Culturally Reinforced Psychological Defense Mechanisms

Introduction

In this article, I discuss the reasons for our tolerance of leaders with dark personality traits, our tolerance of extreme economic inequality, and our inability to tackle the threats of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Why, instead of tackling these major issues, do we put so much effort into comparatively minor ones? The explanation lies in how socio-cultural attitudes are formed. These attitudes are a set of apparent beliefs, values, and practices outwardly expressed by a group of people. They have a strong influence on our behaviour but are not necessarily rational. Rather they have a strong emotional basis founded on our psychological defence mechanisms.

Psychological defence mechanisms were first identified by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. They were later developed by his daughter, Anna Freud, who published her work in the 1936 book, “The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence”. Essentially, these mechanisms protect us from anxieties brought about by contra-satisfiers, i.e., those external things that reduce the level of satisfaction of our needs. This is especially the case for those contra-satisfiers over which we feel we have no control. Thus, for example, we may deal with the anxiety of public speaking by avoiding it.

The purpose of anxiety is to motivate us to deal with its cause. However, there are times when we are powerless to do so. Defence mechanisms provide a means of escaping ongoing anxiety in the interest of our mental wellbeing. The Freuds were, of course, psychotherapists and so their principal focus was on self-induced anxiety. However, anxieties can also be brought about by external causes and the same defence mechanisms can be used to allay them. It is on the latter that I will focus. Although the Freuds’ explanation of the processes behind these defence mechanisms is no longer widely accepted, the mechanisms themselves have stood the test of time, and have been expanded upon by subsequent psychologists.

Defence mechanisms are personal rather than social, and their use varies from individual to individual. They can be broadly categorized, but in practice, they can be partially of one type and partially of another. Furthermore, an individual can use several mechanisms to address a single potential cause of anxiety.

Defence mechanisms are socio-culturally reinforced. When a common circumstance results in contra-satisfiers for a group of people, their defence mechanisms are strengthened by social interaction. The actual contra-satisfier experienced may differ from individual to individual. What is important is that all individuals suffer a contra-satisfier in one form or another, feel powerless to prevent it, and, without some form of psychological defence, would suffer ongoing anxiety.

Methods of Reinforcement

There are several ways in which socio-cultural reinforcement can occur. These can be vertical, i.e., between senior and junior individuals in a hierarchy, or they can be horizontal, i.e., between peers. The main methods are as follows.

Upbringing (Vertical) is the most powerful means of socio-cultural reinforcement. Children rely on their parents and teachers for their initial worldview and, although this can change in later life, it is highly resistant to doing so.

Propaganda (Vertical) is the provision of information, particularly of a biased or misleading nature, to promote the interests of an individual or group. It can include the provision of ready-made rationales to explain a given situation.

Coercion (Vertical) involves a more powerful individual or group persuading a less powerful one to comply with their wishes by using force or threats. This can be the threat or imposition of a contra-satisfier or the threat of denial of a satisfier.

Media & Advertising (Vertical and Horizontal) are a relatively modern and very powerful means of creating socio-cultural attitudes. Normally, they are focussed on selling a particular product or ideology, but in doing so, they often portray the product or ideology as contributing to an ideal lifestyle. This lifestyle may, in turn, involve the adoption of psychological defence mechanisms, for example regression.

Social Learning (Vertical and Horizontal) involves the emulation of role models whose behaviour is perceived as bringing them benefits that we would also like to enjoy.

Socialisation (Horizontal) comprises social reward from our peers for compliance with their values, norms, or beliefs. Values are those things that help us to decide what is right or wrong, good or bad, and norms are those behaviours regarded as being good or bad. Examples of social rewards are status, friendship, and approval. Socialisation also comprises punishment for non-compliance, such as shunning.

Emotional Contagion (Horizontal) is the unconscious mimicry of the emotional states and behavioural attitudes of others.

Types of Defense Mechanism

Numerous psychological defense mechanisms have been identified. Those which are probably most subject to socio-cultural reinforcement and the ways in which they can be reinforced are given below.

Denial is a refusal to recognise objective facts or events that would cause us anxiety. We simply block them from our awareness. When this is done unconsciously, it is referred to as repression; when it is done consciously, it is known as suppression. Clearly, we do not wish others to remind us of those facts or events. So, we discourage them from doing so by using the rewards and punishments of socialisation. In a hierarchy, coercion can also be used to encourage silence. Thus, the apparent failure of all members of a group to recognise facts or events reinforces each member of the group’s personal denial.

My articles at https://rational-understanding.com/2023/09/05/cultural-denial-or-conspiracy-of-silence/ and at https://rational-understanding.com/2024/03/20/management-denial-syndrome/ discuss the socio-cultural reinforcement of the denial defense mechanism and its consequences in more detail.

Reaction Formation is a defence mechanism in which we go beyond denial, and behave in a way that is the opposite to what we unconsciously think or feel. It can occur when we find ourselves in a culture whose values, norms, or beliefs contradict those that we hold. It is, of course, reinforced by coercion, socialisation, media, and advertising. This behaviour outwardly supports the values, norms, or beliefs that we are opposed to, and through socialisation and social learning, encourages others to also do so.

Avoidance means physically avoiding circumstances that cause us anxiety. We do, of course, rationalise our reasons for this and express our rationales to others. This can, in turn, lead to them avoiding the same situation.

Projection involves the attribution of one’s own attitudes, motives, or behaviours to another individual or group. It is frequently reinforced by propaganda, socialisation, and emotional contagion. As a consequence, minority groups have often been scapegoated.

Displacement involves the redirection of a reaction against a contra-satisfier from its originator to another less powerful individual or group. Again, this can be reinforced by propaganda and can result in the scapegoating of less powerful individuals or minority groups.

Regression involves a reversion to behaviours at an earlier developmental stage. In effect it is a reversion to the satisfaction of more basic needs whilst avoiding the higher ones that we feel powerless to satisfy. It involves a focus on simple basic pleasures and can result in overindulgence. In the extreme, this can be referred to as decadence. Unfortunately, regression is now relatively common in Western culture, due to the effect of media and advertising.

Sublimation. In the psychotherapeutic context, sublimation means the channelling of urges that would contravene social norms into more constructive activities such as work or a hobby. This defence mechanism is strongly reinforced by socialisation. However, it means that we neglect major concerns that we feel unable to tackle, but rather, focus on more minor ones on which we feel we can have an effect, for example gender issues rather than climate change or biodiversity loss.

Introjection, also known as Identification, involves making the personality traits of another person one’s own. We do so to avoid anxiety over some difficulty such as potential contra-satisfiers from that person. However, our behaviour socially reinforces the personality traits, and helps to create a culture that values them. The defence mechanism Identification with the Agressor is a particular example in which we adopt the behaviour of a more powerful person in the hope of avoiding any potential hostility from them towards us.  Ultimately, however, we begin to feel an emotional connection with and empathy towards that person. Thus, this defence mechanism plays a large part in our support for leaders with dark personality traits.

Compartmentalisation means separating the components of one’s life into different categories to avoid conflicting values or norms. It occurs when we face a culture in one part of our lives which conflicts with that in another, and which, without compartmentalisation, would cause us anxiety. Typically, for example, it can affect the behaviour of employees in a work culture that conflicts with their more general one. This can be deemed professionalism. However, the failure to criticise a work culture can socially reinforce it, even if it is generally unacceptable.

Rationalisation involves a conscious and seemingly rational distortion of the facts to justify a behaviour that contravenes our values and norms. We do this to avoid the anxiety that our behaviour would otherwise cause. Rationales can come ready made via upbringing, propaganda, media or advertising. Intellectualisation is an example of rationalisation in which we focus on the intellectual rather than the emotional aspects of a problem in order to avoid the anxiety caused by those emotions. For example, one may write a blog about social issues rather than admit to oneself the distress that they cause.

Summary

In summary, an adverse situation can result in different contra-satisfiers for different people. The psychological defence mechanisms that we use to cope with the situation also vary. However, because we all suffer a contra-satisfier of some sort and behave defensively in some way, we reinforce one another’s defence mechanisms by the way that we interact socially with one another.

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05. Group Level Natural Selection

Group Level Natural Selection

There has been much academic debate between evolutionary biologists, such as John Maynard Smith, W. D. Hamilton, George C. Williams, and Richard Dawkins, who advocate individual level selection plus rare cases of kin selection, and others, such as David Sloan Wilson, Elliott Sober and E.O. Wilson, who advocate multi-level selection. However, a consensus is beginning to emerge that a process of natural selection occurs at each biological level, i.e.: the genome, cell, organism, family, group, species, and ecosystem. Due to emergent properties, i.e., properties held by systems which are not held by their component parts, the process of natural selection at each level can differ. However, the process at each level tends to be undermined by stronger selection processes at lower levels.

E.O. Wilson described multi-level selection using the analogy of Russian dolls. The various biological levels can be likened to nested containers for competing genes. To varying degrees, the genes rely on each container for their survival and propagation. Thus, higher level selection can be a significant factor in some species and has probably played a part in human evolution.

Selection at cell level does occur within an organism. For example, recent research has shown that, in certain circumstances, cancer cells can evolve from healthy cells under pressure from the organism’s immune system. However, this form of evolution is normally a dead end. The cells act together to form the organism which is a container that they rely on for their continued existence. There may be billions of cells acting together over thousands of cell generations. However, evolution has shaped their genome to behave altruistically and, ultimately, the vast majority die out with the organism. Typically, only two or three carry the organism’s genes forward through reproduction. Thus, natural selection operates at the level of the organism rather than at the level of the cell.

Group selection forms part of the theory of multi-level selection. It is a natural selection process whereby traits evolve due to the fitness of a group of organisms, who are not necessarily kin, to their environment. The theory of group level natural selection proposes that groups which co-operate are more likely to be successful than those which do not. An individual will see it as beneficial to its own survival and ability to reproduce if it supports the group through co-operation. The concept has a long history. Darwin wrote on how groups can, but do not necessarily, evolve into adaptive units. This view was generally accepted until the mid-1960s. It was then criticised in favour of the view that evolution was based solely on the fitness of the individual. However, with advances in the science of multi-level selection, it is now returning to acceptability.

Both kin selection and group selection have, in a complex and inter-related way, had a part to play in governing human evolution. Kin selection has had a stronger influence on us than group selection. We will, for example, tend to favour a brother over an unrelated colleague. However, it is not the only factor which has determined our social behaviour. Charles Goodnight, in comparing the two, concludes that kin selection and multi-level selection should be considered complementary approaches which, when used together, give a clearer picture of our evolution than either can alone.

Together, kin and group selection explain some of the moral dilemmas that we face and how we handle them. There is often a conflict between the immediate interest of the individual, those of the individual’s kin, and the interests of the individual and its kin via the group. These interests, all of which are inherited, manifest themselves both in the form of competition between members of a group, and in the form of competition between groups. The individual must balance individual level competition and group level co-operation in a way which optimises their survival and the propagation of their genes. The way that we do so is explained by Freud’s model of the human psyche, i.e., the id, which is concerned with immediate personal interest, the super-ego which is concerned with group interest, and the ego which moderates between the two. However, because group selection is relatively recent, the super-ego is probably an inherited pre-disposition whose detailed contents are acquired through socialisation. Freud’s model is relatively universal in human beings and is probably an innate consequence of multi-level selection, therefore.

Politics provides another example which demonstrates the existence of multi-level selection in humanity. The ideology of right-wing parties is one of individualism whilst that of left-wing parties is one of collectivism. Thus, we have the same dilemma in our political institutions both at a national level and at international level. Multi-level selection pervades humanity, therefore, from our individual psyche to our highest institutions.

In my next post I will give further examples of the influence of kin and group level natural selection on humanity.