Deprivation of love

Deprivation of any emotion is harmful to the personality, but deprivation of love is especially damaging. As Jersild says, “there is something emotionally satisfying about being, loved, and there also is something very practical about it”. Harlow speaks of love as “a wondrous state, deep, tender and rewarding”. Love includes not only the condition of being loved but also the act of loving. If it is to contribute positively and maximally to personality development, it must be developmentally appropriate in terms of quality, quantity, and method of expression.

In the early years of life, the child tries to behave in such a way as to gain parental warmth and acceptance. Later, he learns behavior patterns which bring him parental approval and, at the same time, provide him with effective ways of gratifying his own needs. This frees him from some of the vulnerability that emotional dependence brings. Emotional warmth from love likewise serves to stimulate intellectual development.

Deprivation of an affectionate relationship is most damaging in early childhood. Deprivation at this time may come from institutionalization of the baby or child, owing to the economic or marital status of the parents, the health of the baby or mother, the death of one or both parents, or some other cause. A child may be rejected or neglected by his parents because they favor a sibling or have other things to do. Some parents believe that showing affection for the child will “spoil” him and make him feel too important. “under-the –roof alienation”-¬¬¬as this kind of deprivation is called is more common in the American culture than deprivation due to institutionalization show some common causes of deprivation of love.

Many adults experience deprivation of love, especially in old age and after the death or divorce of a spouse. Deprivation can be almost as damaging to the self-concept in adulthood as in childhood.

Just as a child can suffer under-the-roof alienation, an adult may continue to live with a spouse but be “emotionally separated” from him. In many such cases, the individuals try to compensate for their own deprivation of love by focusing their affection on a child or by having extramarital love affairs.

Unmarried adults, too, experience deprivation of love, whether their failure to marry is due to choice or inability to attract a member of the opposite sex. Devotion to aging parents or to the children of relatives and friends rarely compensates for lack of an enduring affectionate relationship with a member of the opposite sex.

In old age, as in childhood, the major source of affection is normally the family. Even elderly people who are happily married and have interests of their own are rarely able to achieve emotional independence from their children. But in many cultures, the elderly are psychologically, if not economically, rejected by their children and grandchildren. This deprivation of affection is especially damaging when failing health, loss of a spouse or former friends, or the necessity of moving into an institution or into the home of a family member brings about social isolation from non family members who might otherwise supply the elderly person with some of the affection he needs and craves.

Patterns of show behavior

One of the most common forms of showing of is boasting about one’s achievements, possessions, and social contacts. Whether it id the child who boasts of his larger and better toys, the adolescent who boasts of his romantic conquests, or the adult who boasts of his important friends, often subtly by name dropping, the fundamental source of satisfaction is the ego inflation he hops to achieve from the admiration of others. It is more likely to lead to social disapproval than to admiration.

Clowning, in any situation and at any age, can be counted on to get a laugh. However, the laugh often turns to disapproval scorn, or contempt. Even children soon become annoyed at the class clown’s disruption of what they wanted to do and are contemptuous of his silliness and showing off. The life of the panty discovers that the temporary social attention he wins does not effectively increase his social acceptance.

Making derogatory comments and name calling and show-off techniques that are often substituted for clowning. By adolescence, these techniques of ego inflation are both common and situation his peers likewise criticize, such as teachers and the school, he wins far less social disapproval than if he directs then toward a member of the peer group of a popular adult.

The daredevil who takes unreasonable chances and defies authority has a marked feeling of personal inadequacy which he is trying to compensate for. By accepting dares and doing things that most of his peers and afraid do, he hops to win both admiration and acceptance. While both boys and girls engage in daredevil acts, they are far more common among boys. They are more common among children than among adolescents, who have discovered that dare deviltry, like clowning, wins only temporary admiration and may lead to injuries.

Accident proneness may be regarded as a danger signal of personality sickness. If a person has more than his share of accidents because of his tendency to show off and try to steal the lime relight, it is an indication that he feels neglected, a feeling that encourages self-rejection. In speaking of accident prone children who feel hopeless about making themselves understood tend to do something to get attention, smash things or hurt themselves, until. If no one comes to the rescue, they get the habit.

Dyeing authority, in the forms of rules and laws laid down by parents, teachers and law- enforcement authorities, is a common show- off technique. Some of the ways self reject ant young people try to inflate their ego are by smoking, drinking –glue-sniffing, driving faster than the legal speed limit and using narcotics. Since smoking not forbidden by law, many adolescents substitute if for t he more dangerous forms of showing off that they may lead to conflict with the law.

Which form of defiance young people will use to inflate their egos will depend largely of what meets their personal needs best and which forms will have the greatest defiance value. As adolescent smoking is far more common and more widely accepted than formerly, it has lost much of its show-off value in favor of drinking, which is still disapproved by parents and teaching and governed by rules in many schools and colleges and by laws in the states. Here is one explanation of the present popularity of marijuana smoking as form of show-off behavior.

Part of pot’s attraction is “doing something illegal together”. To most psychiatrists, the increase in marijuana smoking represents not so much a search for now thrills as the traditional, exhibitionist rebellion of youngsters against adult authority. Parents who are agreeable to students, drinking almost always boggle at drugs. There is not much that students can do that is defiant. They think with some degree of glee about what their parents would think if the know they were smoking marijuana.

Effects of names on personality

While most people think of names as a way of identifying others, there is evidence that names also a psychological aspect- names play a role of some importance in our mental life, and may even influence our conduct is subtle ways which we fail to recognize. Scientific evidence of the psychological effects of names of the bearer’s self-concept is a relatively recent, but there is historical evidence that as early as 2000 B.C. people thought proper names had the power to determine the bearer’s destiny.

The effect of names on personality begins at birth and extends throughout life.

A child’s name, like his somatstype, is generally a settled affair when his first breath is drawn and his future personality must then grow with in its show. A powerful meromorphic boy must experience a different world from his puny counterpart: and similarly a boy who answers to a unique, peculiar or feminine name may well have experiences and feelings in growing up that are quite unknown. One would expect these different childhood experiences to be reflected in the subsequent personality. It is plausible and confirmed by clinic experience to assume also that some individuals are seriously affected as a result of a peculiar name.

Names and Nicknames

Names have always been used as symbols to identity people and to indicate status in the group, family, connection, religious affiliation occupation and other personal details. This is true of primitive as well as civilized people.

It was Freud, however, who first emphasized that names are symbols self in that they are representations of the personality pattern of the bearer and as such, are used by others in making their judgment of him. Following this beginning, many studies have shown that names are not only a symbol but are also a determinant of his personality.

The symbolic role of names was stressed further by Freud in his explanation of the forgetting of names. Freud stated that the motivation for forgetting is to repress unpleasant association with the person who bear a for getter name. When the name touches off or is connected with some unpleasant association, the person may forget, distort, or repress the unpleasant association.

While Freud’s interpretation of forgetting is questioned by many psychologists today, it is a useful reminder of the symbolic value of names. If a person is known to others only by his name, they will judge him by it and endow him the pleasant and unpleasant qualities which they associate with his name, whether the qualities fit him or not. Thus, his name may be either an asset or a barrier to his socialization.

All port has referred to names as an “anchorage point or self hood” names are identity symbols. Murphy is justified in saying that on of the most important parts of a person is his name/p.