STRIVING FOR SUCCESS OR SUPERIORITY

STRIVING FOR SUCCESS OR SUPERIORITY

  
The first tenet of Adlerian theory is the one dynamic force behind peoples behavior is the striving for success of superiority

Adler reduced all motivation to a single drive the striving for success or superiority.  Alders own childhood was marked by physical deficiency and strong feelings of competitiveness with his older brother individual psychology holds that every one begins life with physical deficiencies that activate feeling of inferiority feelings that move a person to strive for either superiority or success.  Psychologically unhealthy individuals strive for personal superiority were as psychologically healthy people or motivated to seek for all humanity early in his carrier Adler believed aggression to be the dynamic power behind all motivation but he soon become dissatisfied with the turn incidentally when Freud elevated aggression to a basic human drive after world war- I Adler who had long science abandoned the concept commented sarcastically.  I enriched psychoanalysis by the aggressive strive.  I gladly make them a present of it.

After rejection aggression has a single motivational force.  Adler use the term masculine protected which implied will to power domination of others.  However his soon abandoned masculine protect as a universal drive while continuing to give it a limited a role in his theory of abnormal development.

FINAL GOAL

According to Adler 1956 all people strive towards a final goal of either superiority or success a fictional goals that has no objective existence as a subjective ideal however this final goal has great significance because it unifies personality and renders all behavior comprehensible.

Each person has the power to create a personalize fictional goal, one constructed out of the raw materials provided by heredity and environment .  however the goal is neither genetically environmentally determine rather it is the product of creative power that is peoples ability to  freely shape their behavior and create power has develop to the point that thy can set their behavior and creative even infants have an innate drive towards growth completion or success because they are small incomplete they fell inferior and powerless.  To compensate to this deficiency they set a fictional goal to be big complete and strong.  This a person’s final goal reduces the pain of inferiority feelings and points that person in the direction of either superiority or success

If children feel neglected or pampered their goal remains largely unconscious Adler (1964) hypothecs that children will compensate feeling of inferiority in devious ways that have no apparent relationship0 to their fictional goal.  The goal of superiority for a pampered girl for ex. May be to make permanent her parasitic relationship with her mother has an adult she may appear dependant and self deprecating and such behavior may seem inconsistent with goal of superiority however it is quit consistent  with her unconscious and misunderstood goal of being   a parasite that she set at age 4 or 5 a time when her mother appeared large and powerful and attachment to her become a natural mean of attaining superiority.

In striving for their final goal people create and presume many preliminary  goals.  These sub goals or often conscious but the connection between them and the final goal usually remains unknown further the relationship among preliminary goal is seldom realized from the point of view of the point of view however they fit together self consistent pattern Adler use the analogy of the play Wright who builds characteristics abd the sub-plots of the play.  According to the final goal of the drama when the final scene is known all dialogue and every subplot acquire new meaning when an individual final goal is known all action make sense and each sub goal takes an a new significance.

THE STRIVING FORCE AS COMPENSATION:

People strive for superiority or success as a means of compensation for feeling of inferiority or weakness Adler (1630-1964) believed that all humans are blessed at birth this small weak and inferior bodies.  These physical deficiency ignite feeling of and pull by the desire for complication the minus and plus situation exist simultaneously and cannot be separated because they are two dimensions of single force, although the striving for success is innate it must be developed at birth it exist potentiality not actuality each person must actualize this potential in his or her own manner at adult age 4 or 5 children begin this process by setting a direction to the striving force and by establishing the goal either of personal superiority .   The goal provide guide lines for motivation shaping psychological development and giving it a aim.

In his final theory Adler identified two general avenues of striving the first is the socially non productive attempt to gain personal superiority the second involves social interest and is aimed at success or perfection for every one.

STRIVING FOR PERSONAL SUPERIORITY

Some people strive for superiority with little or no concern for others their goals are personal ones and the striving are motivated largely by exaggerated feeling of personal inferiority.  Murders thieves and artist or obvious ex. Of people to strive to personal gain some people create cleaver disguises for their personal striving. May consciously or unconsciously hide their self-centeredness behind the clock or social concern a college teacher for ex. ,may appear to have a great interest in his student because he establishes a personal relationship with many of them by conspicuously displacing much sympathy and concern he encourages vulnerable student to talk to him about their personal problem.  This teacher processes a private intelligence that allow him to believe that he is the accessible and dedicated teaches in his college to a casual observer he may appeared to give motivated by social interest but his actions are largely self serving and motivated by over companion.  For his exaggerated  feeling of personal superiority.

STRIVING FOR SUCCESS

Psychologically healthy people are able to move beyond striving  for personal gain.  They are motivated by social interest and are able to strive for the success all human kind.  These healthy individuals are concerned with goals beyond themselves are capable of helping others with out demanding or expecting personal pay-off and are able to see others not has opponents but as people with whom they can co-operate for social benefit their own success is not gain other expense of others, but is a natural tendency to move towards completion of perfection.

People who strive for success rather than personal superiority  maintain a sense of self of course but they can co-operate for social benefit rather than from straightly personal want age point.  Their sense of personal worth is tight closely to their contribution of human society social progress more important of them that personal credit.

SUBJECTIVE PRECPTIONS

Adlers second tenet is people subjective perception shape their behavior and personality.  People strive for superiority or success to compensate for feeling of inferiority but the manner in which they strive shaped by not by reality but by their subjective perceptions of reality.  In other words personality is not formed by organ inferiorities early experience or basic drives but the individuals view of these and other factors Adler believed people are motivated more by fiction of expectation of the future then by experience of the past.  Behavior is consistent with peoples perceptions of there fictional final goal. This goal does not exit in the future but in peoples present perceptions of the people.  It contemporary behavior because e it is subjectively persuade in the here and now.

FICTIONALISM

Personiliy is molded not by reality but by peoples subjective believe concerning the future that is by a fiction in the goal of superiority or success .  a goal they create early in life yet one they may only vaguely understand this subjective fictional final goal guides their style of life gives unity to their personality and when understood confers purpose on all their behavior.

Adlers ideas on factionalism originated with Hans vaihingers book the philosophy of as if 1911 – 1925 vaihingers believed that fictions or ideas that have no real existence yet they influence people as if they really existence one ex. of fiction might be men or superior to women.   Although this notion is a fiction many people both men and women act as if it work  a reality a second ex. might be humans have a free will that enables them t make choices again many people act as if they and other have a free will and are this responsible for their choices no one can prove that free will exists yet this fiction guides the life’s of most of us.  People have motivated not by shat is true but by they subjective perception of what is true. 

The  third ex. of a fiction might be a believe in an omnipotent god who rewards good and punishes evil. Such a believe guides the life’s of millions of people and help shape many of their actions and influences many of their believe.  Fiction needs be nether true or nor false to have a powerful influence on people.

ORGAN INFERIORITES

Because all people begin life small.  Weak and inferior they develop a fiction or belie system about how to overcome these physical deficiencies and become big strong and superior but even after their attain size strong and superiority.  They may act as if they are still small weak and inferior. 

Adler instead that the whole human race is blessed organ inferiorities these physical handicapped have little or no importance by themselves  but become meaningful when they stimulate subjective feeling of inferiority which serve has an impetus towards perfection of completion some people compensate for these feeling of inferiority by moving towards psychological healthy ad useful style of life.   Were as others over compensate and or motivated to sub-dew or retreat from others.  People and to live and essentially useless style of life.

REFERENCES

Adler A Science Of Living New York,

Baldwin AF Personal structure of personality