Newborn children are all instinct and biological impulse. They only learn to
control and repress immediate wants gradually, by internalizing the demands of
society imparted to them by their caregivers. The ego grows out of the id as that
part of it that has been modified by external influence. It is the decision-making
component of the personality that works on the basis of the ‘reality principle’,
which contrasts with the ‘pleasure principle’ of the id in that it encompasses the
ability to devise realistic strategies for achieving satisfaction.
Both id and ego seek pleasure and reward, but lack any moral guidelines as to
how to achieve it in an acceptable way. This is where the superego comes into
play. It contains the moral standards of the immediate and wider social
environment. Socialization consists in internalizing these standards, a process for
which Freud introduced the concept of ‘identifying with’. By striving to be like
people in their environment, assimilating their views, values, and ways of acting,
children identify with them, the first models typically being parents and siblings.
Subsequently, they transfer these properties and increasingly identify with
themselves, eventually acquiring their own identity during adolescence.
However, coming of age is not the end of psychological development. Seeking
other role models, such as political leaders, religious gurus, sports idols,
YouTube stars, diet experts, and celebrities may continue through adulthood as a
way of connecting individual with collective identity, though the propensity to
adjust values and to adopt new ideals diminishes with advancing age.
In addition to values and social norms, the superego part of one’s identity
includes an ‘ideal self’, that is, an image of what you want to be. When your
actions deviate from what you would expect from your ideal self—by getting
drunk, violating traffic regulations, or committing a crime—your superego may
interfere with your conduct and make you experience a bad conscience, a sense
of guilt or shame. The two most common strategies to deal with this painful state
of mind are repression (you consign your failure to the unconscious) and
rationalization (you find a justification for going beyond the speed limit, evading
taxes, or torturing other human beings).
When neither repression nor rationalization works and you can no longer suffer
the rupture between your ideal self and your real self, you may be in need of
professional help by a psychiatrist (or, if you are Catholic, a priest who absolves
you of your sins ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy