Adjusted Behavior
Tension, Conflict and Threat
The man is always looking for stimulation, he prefers to be sick and tired to be without any kind of stimulation. The lack of stimuli can bring discouragement and even depression to the human being, the tension encourages him to act more effectively. An excess of tension can debilitate and leave the individual vulnerable, and can even lead to a breakdown in the face of the growing complexity of modern society.
In fact, some individuals are more likely to break down and others to make changes in their lives. It's not really the changes that bring tension, but the attitude towards them and the way they react. Changes generate tension by causing conflicts, that is, by the presence of two or more incompatible impulses.
The tension related to change is aggravated by the conflicts and dilemmas we must face as a result of it.
According to psychologists Neal Miller and Kurt Lewin, there are three ways that motives can cause conflicts between them, which are: approach-distance, approach-approach and removal-removal.
Approach-detachment
When we feel attraction and repulsion for the same object, we have an approach-distance situation. An example would be a manager who has an employee who has been standing out in the company and that's why he increases his salary to see it earn even more (closer) and at the same time he is afraid that the employee will take his place in the company (removal).
Approximation-approximation
When we have two attractive options, we have the approximation-approach conflict. An example is that of an employee who would like to buy a phone line and who is stressed at the same time. needing to take a vacation and does not know whether to take a vacation or receive the equivalent money to buy his line telephone.
removal-removal
When we have two unpleasant alternatives, we have the withdrawal-withdrawal conflict. An example could be an employee moving from the sector he likes to work, not receiving any raise in return and still having an increase in the workload.
Reactions to threatening situations
A threat for some theorists, it is a situation and experience that we perceive to be interfering with our ability to operate normally or to reach the goals set for ourselves.
Defense Mechanisms
People unconsciously defend themselves from the anxiety they feel in a disturbing situation. They can do this by distorting reality and deceiving themselves—these are two underlying processes that Freud called defense mechanisms. We all use these mechanisms to protect our self-image, which is quite common in our daily lives. We need a positive self-image, to approve of our behavior, and to justify it when necessary. Sometimes the only way to achieve this is through unconscious processes, deceiving ourselves and altering the real facts in order to preserve our self-image.
When defense mechanisms are taken to extremes, assuming a preponderant role in the lives of people, the tendency of psychologists is to regard the resulting behaviors as abnormally. disturbed. There are several types of defense mechanisms, and although psychologists differ in their exact classification, the most common ones are:
Repression
The ego's fundamental defensive measure is repression. Freud considered repression as the normal reaction of the infantile ego, whose integrative capacity is very limited. Repression consists in the exclusion of impulses and their ideational representations from the conscious. It occurs whenever a desire, impulse, or idea, on becoming conscious, provokes an unbearable conflict, resulting in anxiety. The repression of a desire, in contrast to its conscious rejection, is an inhibition on a deeper level of the personality. Being unconscious spares the conscious personality from painful conflict. The totality of the act takes place outside of consciousness. Rejection is automatic; otherwise, the unacceptable mental content could not remain unconscious. It is a reflexive inhibition that follows the principles of conditioned reflexes. It is evident that such unconscious inhibitions presuppose an internal unconscious perception, which leads to the automatic inhibition reflex.
Repression is always exaggerated and involves tendencies that the conscious ego would not reject if they became conscious. This inhibitory, automatic and excessively severe function is one of the most general causes of psychoneurotic disturbances.
Many psychoneurotic symptoms are the result of unbearable tensions caused by exaggerated repression.
The psychoanalytic study of neuroses and psychoses has shown that repressed psychological forces do not cease to exist. The ego must take defensive measures against them, measures that deplete its dynamic resources and make it less able to exercise its adaptive function of perceiving external reality. It especially loses the excess energy that is the source of creative activities, both sexual and social.
In repression there is a suppression of part of reality, that is, the individual “does not see” or “does not hear” what is happening.
Example: It is very common when a young executive is hired by an old, traditional organization, and co-workers initially react against the young man's impulses employee, who dreams of a career in the organization and tries to create projects to improve the organization and is criticized by others saying that it already works so well and doesn't need to change.
Repression
Repression is the unconscious forgetting or denying of significant details of behavior that are incompatible with the self-portrait we are trying to maintain. In repression, there is a blockage in the awareness of conflicts that generate anxiety or disturbances in motivation. They are submerged in the unconscious.
Denial
It is probably the simplest and most straightforward defense mechanism, as one simply refuses to accept the existence of a situation that is too painful to tolerate. E.g.: A manager is demoted and is forced to provide the same services he used to perform.
Sublimation
It is the most approved defense mechanism by society. When we have an impulse that we cannot express directly, we repress its original form, and let it emerge in a way that does not disturb others or ourselves. We generally use sublimation to express undesirable motives being that, like most others defense mechanisms, it operates unconsciously keeping us unaware of undesirable motives.
When a primitive impulse is unacceptable to the ego, it is modified so that it becomes socially acceptable, that is sublimation.
Rationalization
Rationalization is used in the most different situations, whether involving frustration or guilt. It occurs through the use of reason in explaining “deformed” states of consciousness. The rational is used to explain the irrational, taking meaningless positions.
When people do things they shouldn't, it's common to feel guilty, and instead of admitting the reason of their behavior, they often prefer to rationalize by inventing plausible reasons for their behavior. act. E.g.: An employee takes money from the box and is caught, says he was in great need and that next month he would return the entire amount.
Projection
Sometimes people berate themselves or feel bad for having certain thoughts or impulses. They can then attribute them to someone else, projecting their own feelings onto that person. This is very clear with regard to powerful impulses such as sex and aggression. Ex: A manager who is always late for work complains to the general superintendent that his employee never arrives on time.
Displacement
This mechanism is related to sublimation and consists in diverting the impulse from its direct expression. In this case, the impulse does not change shape, but is shifted from its original target to another. Ex: When being fired from a company, a loyal employee feels anger and hostility at the way they were treated, but usually has difficulty expressing their feelings directly.
reaction formation
Sometimes, when people feel threatened by an oppressive impulse, they can fight it by going to the opposite extreme, and denouncing it vigorously in other people. Thus, employees who work without motivation and in a relapse way, may ridicule their co-worker who made a mistake or who is also remiss.
Conclusion
The relationship between "Social Behavior" and "Defense Mechanisms" lies precisely in the use of unconscious mechanisms to justify the individual's behavior in the environment where he relates. In this approach, we focus mainly on the individual inserted in the organizational environment, taking as part their attitudes in relation to the work group, and to themselves.
For an individual, the perception of an event, the external world or the internal world, can be something very embarrassing, painful, disorganizing. To avoid this displeasure, the person “deforms” or suppresses reality - it ceases to register external perceptions, removes certain psychic contents, and thus interferes with thought. There are several mechanisms that the individual can use to carry out this deformation of reality, which we call defense mechanisms.
It is precisely these mechanisms that will regulate the behavior to an adjusted or maladjusted pattern, it may depend on the intensity to which he represses certain emotions, and/or facts he doesn't want or doesn't know to lead.
So, the use of these mechanisms is of fundamental importance for the preservation of the ego, and thus maintaining conditions constants of excitement in our organism, and also to successfully promote an integration between the individual and the world external.
Bibliography
STATT, David A. Introduction to Psychology, SP. Ed. Harbra, 1978.
ALEXANDER, Franz. Fundamentals of Psychoanalysis, RJ. Ed. Zahar, 1963.
Lindgren, Henry C. and BYRNE, Don. Psychology: Personality and Social Behavior. RJ Ed.:
National Union of Book Publishers. 1982. Translated from the American original by Ary Band.
psychology - Brazil School
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/psicologia/mecanismo-de-defesa.htm
