These are the concepts learnt during my MBA days in Organizational Behaviour-I. Id, ego, and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche.
Something happened in the workplace 4-5 days back which made me read the concept again and pen down my own views on it here.
Lets start with the definitions:
The id comprises the unorganised part of the personality structure that contains the basic drives. The id acts according to the "pleasure principle", seeking to avoid pain or unpleasure aroused by increases in instinctual tension.
The Ego acts according to the reality principle; i.e. it seeks to please the id’s drive in realistic ways that will benefit in the long term rather than bringing grief.
The Super-ego aims for perfection. It comprises that organised part of the personality structure, mainly but not entirely unconscious, that includes the individual's ego ideals, spiritual goals, and the psychic agency (commonly called "conscience") that criticises and prohibits his or her drives, fantasies, feelings, and actions.
In simple words, Id is unconscious set of thought processes, while Ego and Superego are partly conscious and partly uncounsious. Ego keeps on floating between consious, pre-conscious and unconscious stages.
Now, id is something which everyone carries since birth. basically id tells you to react without thinking of the consequences of what will be the effect on others. So, a child if hungry will cry inspite of its parents sleeping beside him. later in life Ego and Superego develops which makes the decision maker think about their consequences.
Ego is the most strongest in almost all human beings. it makes sure that id is not ignored and take superego alongwith for any decision...
an example will make it clear:
Two colleauges are at the same level in an organization and one gets a promotion and the other does not get promotion.
Now, if id gets too strong then the person submits resignation and goes off. if the superego gets too strong then the sub-conscious will say that you are worth this much only and hence would get nothing more in future as well. Here is where comes Ego. Ego satisfies the Id by going to the Boss and speaking the mind out regarding the propmotion... also ego makes sure that superego is not upset by speaking internally that this is not the end of the world and coming years will be better.
So its a myth that ego is the reason because of which person is not able to forget that his peer got promotion etc. in fact it is ego only which is making sure that the decisions are not taken either by id or superego and hence helping in a more structured and consious decision.
For more readings google it on net... happy reading :)
