Final Psych. Paper - Essay on the personality assessment of a fictional character. This was written PDF

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Essay on the personality assessment of a fictional character. This was written on Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother. ...

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ANI NDEPTHANALYSI SOFBARNEYSTI NSON 

An In-Depth Analysis of Barney Stinson Fordham University

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ANI NDEPTHANALYSI SOFBARNEYSTI NSON

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 Barney Stinson, the character I will analyze in this essay, is one of the main characters of the recent show, How I Met Your Mother. He is a white male in his 30-40’s who lives in NYC (born in Staten Island). He is a very complex character who has many interesting attributes. His childhood was not very ideal. His mother, Loretta, had multiple sexual partners and was rather promiscuous in her youth, causing Barney to have a stepbrother who is African American. He did not have a father figure while he was growing up, which caused him to constantly question who his and his brother’s dad was. His mother, always avoiding the real answer to this question, told him that his father is Bart Barker, a celebrity, when in actuality that was not true. Being a naïve child, Barney went through much of his life believing that Bart Barker was his actual father. His childhood was also not very socially oriented. He was not very good at any sports, although he believed he was, which caused him to have no friends besides his own brother. For example, one year, his mother threw a birthday party for him and none of the people he invited showed up. Barney’s imperfect childhood carried on with him through his young adult life. After Barney graduated college, he worked at a small coffee shop with his girlfriend. He was quite the hippie at the time and dressed in oversized sweaters and had long hair. He was planning to join the Peace Corps with his girlfriend who, last minute, said she couldn't go because of her dad. She actually bailed on Barney because she was cheating on him with a businessman. This businessman was a regular customer at the coffee shop who had previously told Barney that the key to picking up women is money and suits, but at the time Barney resented that. This traumatic experience for Barney completely changed him as a person. Because of this, he cut his hair and began to wear suits, just like the man who stole his girlfriend.

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As an adult, Barney is quite the player. He creates different personas just so he can pick up women to sleep with. For example, in one episode he posed as Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, to a simple college girl and she actually believed him. Although he picks up copious amounts of women, he rarely settles down with them. A better way to phrase Barney’s situation is that he is afraid of commitment. Commitment is such a problem to him that after he sleeps with a girl he comes up with strategic ploys to get them out of his apartment, like pretending his “wife” is coming home. Barney is a prime example of a “womanizer” who tries to pick up girls with “daddy issues.” This could be due to the fact that he did not have a father figure growing up and so he tries to somehow find a way to be the superior figure during a relation with a female (much like fathers in society), or it could be due to the fact that girls with “daddy” issues are considered “easier” and therefore make it quicker for Barney to sleep with them. The magnitude of Barney’s phobia of commitment caused him to create a “play book” in which he has many different ways to pick up girls. This playbook involves Barney pretending to be famous celebrities as well as many other characters that aren’t him. This leads him to constantly lie to everyone around him (besides his close friends Ted, Marshall, Lily, and Robin at times). Barney is a very flashy and flamboyant man who wears designer clothing and is constantly doing magic tricks for others in order to feel accepted. He has a very dirty mind and is always telling dirty jokes. He once told a joke so dirty, his friend Lily would not speak to him for weeks. He is also very highly competitive; he always “accepts challenges” even for the least of important things (like picking up girls). He also always plays laser tag with children and stoops down to their immature level by trying to beat them all. He has very childish tendencies at times, such as the laser tag, but he works at a big bank and is always wearing suits and looking like an AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BARNEY STINSON

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adult. In this essay, I am going to be using Freud’s psychodynamic viewpoint and Erikson’s psychosocial viewpoint to help analyze Barney’s personality. Sigmund Freud’s work focuses heavily on the impact childhood has on an individuals personality. One of the basic assumptions of Freud’s psychodynamic viewpoint is, “the influence of the unconscious mind”(Carducci, 2009, p.80). According to Freud, the unconscious mind is thought to hold “thoughts, ideas, desires, and impulses that individuals find threatening, shameful or unacceptable”(Carducci, 2009, p.80). In Barney’s case, all of his dirty jokes and inappropriate comments about objectifying women that are expressed show his thoughts, ideas, and desires that are unacceptable in society. This can explain Barney’s unconscious desire to constantly be promiscuous when not engaging in sexual activities. Another basic assumption of Freud’s understanding talks about the homeostatic/dynamic nature of personality. He defines the changing nature of personality as, “several different elements work together in a homeostatic fashion; that is, one in which balance and stability are maintained among different aspects of an individuals personality”(Carducci, 2009, p.80). This can be used to explain the fluctuation of Barneys personality from being sophisticated to childish. For the most part of his day, Barney engages in very adult-oriented activities such as working at a sophisticated big bank company or engaging in sexual activities. Barney achieves a state of homeostasis when he goes to the local laser tag arena and plays with kids age’s six to twelve. In balancing the responsible and childish aspects of his life, Barney is able to achieve homeostasis. Moving past his basic assumptions, Freud placed importance to instincts when it comes to personality. He stated that personality was managed by energy, which was fueled by instincts (Carducci, 2009). Freud defined an instinct as, “a mental representation of a physical or bodily need” (Carducci, 2009, p.82). Barney’s numberAN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BARNEY STINSON

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one instinct would be sex. Most of his decisions revolve around having sex with someone, anyone for the most part. This sex is strictly to be casual and have no strings attached to them. Instincts are characterized as having aims, pressures, objects, and sources (Carducci 2009). The aim of Barney’s instinct would be to ultimately have sex and reduce sexual needs. The pressure of the instinct is very high because most of his life choices, such as the playbook, are made so he can have sex. The object that is used to accomplish the aim would be a female partner to engage in the activity with, and finally the source of the instinct would be his genitals. Barney’s life instincts would be characterized as very strong. He invests much of his energy “for preserving the organism and achieving pleasure though such activities as reducing a state of hunger or thirst…reducing sexual arousal…and seeking company when bored or lonely” (Carducci, 2009, p.83). In the chapter about Freud, Carducci (2009) talks about the 3 main structural elements of personality: the ego, the id, and the superego. When talking about Barney, you can easily tell that his superego is not fully functional. Since the superego is “conceptualized as an individual’s center of moral standards” (Carducci, 2009, p.85), it is easy to tell where Barney goes astray. Barney is very susceptible to making actions without considering the morality of it. For example, he slept with his Ted, his best friend’s, mom although Ted obviously disapproved and looked at Barney with disdain for it. Although many aspects of Barney’s personality may seem inconsistent, such as his hippie to businessman transformation, he has a very well developed ego defense mechanisms. Carducci (2009) concludes that a person with a healthy use of ego defense mechanism engages in more than one type of defense, and that is exactly what Barney does. Barney’s main source of anxiety derives from his father, or in better words, lack of. At a young AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BARNEY STINSON

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age, Barney was told that Bart Barker, the host of “The Price is Right”, was his father. Deep down Barney knew that this is not true, but because of the lack of a father figure growing up, Barney denies everything when his friends try to tell him that Bart Barker is not his real father. This is Barney employing the defense mechanism of denial (Carducci, 2009). Barney comes up with many excuses to help explain why Bart Barker could not stay with his mom and had to go work, which is otherwise known as the defense mechanism of rationalization (Carducci, 2009). In an attempt to make up for his missing father, Barney works his hardest to become a successful and rich man, unlike his absent father, exemplifying sublimation (Carducci, 2009). Another example of Barney’s use of defense mechanisms is with regression. In order to deal with the stress he has induced by his father’s absence, Barney takes a break from life and goes to play laser tag with children. This is Barney regressing to a less mature state of coping with problems (Carducci, 2009). One of Freud’s most well known theories is the one of the psychosexual stages children go through, as they grow older. Based on the fact that as an adult, Barney is unable to commit to a relationship at all and is only capable of lust shows that he is most likely fixed on one of the psychosexual stages. There are five stages: “the oral, anal, phallic, latent, and genital stages” (Carducci, 2009, p.91). Each stage has an erogenous zone and conflict that a child must overcome for successful personality development (Carducci, 2009). In Barney’s case, I can conclude that he did not successfully overcome to conflict at the genital stage. If one does not completely resolve the conflict at the genital stage they “run the risk of becoming involved with others selfishly- to satisfy their own sexual needs and desires while being unable to commit themselves to others in any emotional sense other than lust” (Carducci, 2009, p.96). This AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BARNEY STINSON

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describes Barney perfectly; he is afraid of commitment in relationships, yet all he wants to do is have sex with others to please himself. The second theorist I decided to use to help analyze Barney’s personality is Erik Erikson. He is considered a Neo-Freudian and his work focused greatly on the ego and the development of it. One of the basic assumptions of the, what he called, “psychosocial” (Carducci, 2009, p.187) viewpoint is the development of the ego. Erikson believed that “ego development through psychosocial crises is a process that continues well into the later years of life”(Carducci, 2009, p.187). We can apply this point of view to Barney because we have an insight of his life from childhood all the way up to adulthood. Erikson had created 8 stages of psychosocial development (Carducci, 2009). After completing the crises at each stage, Barney is able to achieve something called “basic virtues” (Carducci, 2009, p.188). Basic virtues are defined as “characteristic strengths that the ego can use to help in resolving subsequent crises”(Carducci, 2009, p.188). Carducci (2009) states “Erikson’s stages of development are said to operate on an epigenetic principal” (p.188). This means that the psychosocial development occurs in a particular arrangement, where each stage builds off the previous one (Carducci, 2009). I looked at Barney’s life and personality and compared it to the stages to see where he went astray. I came to the conclusion that Barney successfully resolved the psychosocial conflicts of “trust vs. mistrust”, “autonomy vs. shame and doubt”, “initiative vs guilt”, up until “industry vs. inferiority”(Carducci, 2009, p.189). During the completion of these stages Barney earned the basic virtues of “hope, well, purpose, and competency”(Carducci, 2009, p.189). I think Barney failed to successfully resolve the 5th psychosocial conflict of “ego identity vs. role confusion”(Carducci, 2009, p.191). He failed to acquire the basic virtue of ego identity. AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BARNEY STINSON

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This tends to occur during the transition from childhood to adulthood, this is where Barney’s life also becomes unstable. As a child Barney did not have many friends and did not really fit into society as a child, because he was not good at sports, and as a young adult, because he was part of the hippie culture. Barney experimented with the hippie lifestyle and was against war and objectifying women, but because of his failure to acquire the virtue of ego identity, Barney had major role confusion. As a result, Barney developed a “negative identity”(Carducci, 2009, p.191), which means he developed an identity that is in conflict of the kind of person he actually is. Barney initially did not want to be a womanizer, he actually resented people who did, but because he did not fit into societies standards and because he got his girlfriend stolen from him (due to the fact that he did not fit in), he decided to present himself in the opposite manner of whom he really is. That is, a suited-up, rich businessman who’s main goal in life is to get as many girls as he can. Because Barney did not resolve the conflict at that stage, he subsequently did not resolve the ones that followed. The stage that follows the previous one is called, “intimacy vs. isolation,” and it is at this stage that person should acquire the basic virtue of intimacy (Carducci, 2009). Because Barney failed to resolve this stage and did not attain the virtue of intimacy he has trouble connecting with another person in an intimate/emotional manner. This can be shown by looking at the constant emotionless sexual partners Barney has. This means that there is no commitment in these relations, which leads to isolation for Barney (Carducci, 2009). Barney has never been in a relationship characterized with what Erikson calls “compassionate love”(Carducci, 2009, p.193). This type of love goes beyond regular relationships and focuses on one partner being worried about the health of their partner, something Barney has never been able to do (Carducci, 2009). AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BARNEY STINSON

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It is evident that this chain reaction is not very beneficial to Barney’s personality. The last stage Barney failed to resolve is “generativity vs. stagnation” (Carducci, 2009, p.193). He is unable to acquire the basic virtue of generativity because he does not realize that it is important to help the ego development of the younger generations (Carducci, 2009). Throughout the show, Barney successfully had relations with women without having much backfire. That is until he got a woman pregnant and had a child. Even with this child, whom he never sees, Barney still constantly tries to satisfy his own needs. Carducci (2009) states that, “failing to establish virtue of care results in feelings of apathy and self-centeredness” (p.193). It is evident that Barney tends to only care about him, how he looks, and how people perceive him, so he does not have time to really look after people he is close to. For example, one of Barney’s close friends, Robin, was previously a child singer in Canada and she is very ashamed of her past. Instead of being cognizant of her feelings, Barney constantly plays her old music out loud for his own enjoyment, completely ignoring the fact that it makes Robin feel humiliated. Although Barney has not reached the age to resolve the 8th conflict, it is obvious that he will fail to resolve it in the future. Overall, Barney Stinson’s life has fluctuated quite a lot. I think the two theorists I used were very useful when it comes to explaining Barney’s personality. Since Barney had a turbulent childhood, Freud was a key figure in analyzing Barney’s personality. Freud focused on the childhood of a person and how it affects their personality later on in life. Freud’s viewpoint has some characteristic strengths as well as weaknesses when it comes to evaluating a person’s personality. Some of the strengths include, “the viewpoint’s comprehensive nature, its internal theoretical consistency” and most importantly “the attention it gives to studying complex personality processes” (Carducci, 2009, p.128). The last strength is very important when it AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BARNEY STINSON

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comes to Barney because Freud’s viewpoint helps to explain why Barney’s behavior is dirty, and why he has constant inappropriate slips of tongue. The psychosexual stages are also an example of the attention Freud’s viewpoint gives complex behaviors (Carducci, 2009). Although there is much strength to this standpoint, there are also some weaknesses. Some of these weaknesses include the negative view of human nature, and the ambiguous terms and explanations used (Carducci, 2009, p.125). Freud would see Barney as a very negative person because of his adverse view of human nature. He would claim that all Barney wants to do in life is seek pleasure, and nothing else (Carducci, 2009). It is evident that, at times, Barney is sympathetic towards others, instead of himself. For example, at one point in the show Barney was dating his friend Robin, and to show his respect for her, he threw out his playbook. Also, Freud’s viewpoint does not pay much attention to social factors that would influence Barney’s personality and behavior (Carducci, 2009). In terms of the ambiguous terms used, it is evident to see that Barney’s super ego is not fully functional. But how do you measure the function of the super ego according to Freud? You simply cannot. Even with these few weaknesses that apply to Barney, Freud’s viewpoint overall gave a very comprehensive insight to Barney’s personality. Erikson’s viewpoint was also very applicable to Barney because it was what Carducci (2009) called, “a rehash of Freud” (p.198). His theories expanded on “the role of the ego and extending the psychosocial stages” (Carducci, 2009, p.198). This would be considered one of the weaknesses of Erikson’s viewpoint. But to me, this helped me further help to explain Barney’s personality because it was like an extension to Freud. It included aspects about the ego as well as the psychosocial stages, which heavily influenced Barney’s personality. Erikson’s viewpoint would also be considered “comprehensive”, in that it combines “psychological, social, and AN IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS OF BARNEY STINSON

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historical factors” (Carducci, 2009, 198). Instead of just focusing Barney’s childhood, Erikson took into consideration the social and historical influences that may have affected Barney as a person. And there definitely are social factors that influenced Barney such as his location. For example, because he was born and raised in the city, the expectations of how one should look heavily influenced Barney in his transformation from a hippie to a suit-clad businessman. In addition, the fact that Erikson’s viewpoint expanded beyond childhood, gave it a more realistic view how the development of personality (Carducci, 2009, p.198). Erikson made it clear that middle to late adulthood is “considered active and significant times of personal growth” (Carducci, 2009, p.198). Although much of Erikson’s viewpoint is very strong, there is one weakness that has influenced Barney in his personality development. Carducci (2009) explains that Erikson’s viewpoint uses “society as a measure of identity,” which is damaging (p.198). This means that Erikson’s viewpoint encourages conformity instead of uniqueness (Carducci, 2009). In Barney’s case, he is acting like a person he never wanted to be because he wanted to fit in and become a rich and successful womanizer like the rest of the men in New York City. Again, although there were some weaknesses in Erikson’s viewpoint, it really helped me to look into the...