Character structure

A character structure is a system of secondary traits that are manifested in the specific ways that an individual relates and reacts to others, to various kinds of stimuli, and to the environment. A child whose nurture and/or education cause them to have conflict between legitimate feelings, living in a illogical environment and interacting with adults who do not take the long-term interests of the child to heart will be more likely to form these secondary traits. In this manner the child blocks the unwanted emotional reaction that would have normally occurred. Although this may serve the child well while in that dysfunctional environment, it may also cause the child to react in inappropriate ways, by developing alternate ways in which the energy compulsively surfaces, ways damaging to his or her own interests, when interacting with people in a completely independent environment. Major trauma that occurs later in life, even in adulthood, can sometimes have a profound effect on character. See post-traumatic stress disorder. However, character may also develop in a positive way according to how the individual meets the psychosocial challenges of the life cycle (Erikson).

Freud's first paper on character described the anal character consisting of stubbornness, stinginess, and extreme neatness. He saw this as a reaction formation to the child's having to give up pleasure in anal eroticism. The positive version of this character is the conscientious, inner directed obsessive. Freud also described the erotic character as both loving and dependent. And the narcissistic character as the natural leader, aggressive and independent because of not internalizing a strong super-ego.

For Erich Fromm character develops as the way in which an individual structures modes of assimilation and relatedness.The character types are almost identical to Freud's but Fromm gives them different names: receptive, hoarding, and exploitative. Fromm adds the marketing type to describe individuals who continually adapt the self to succeed in the new service economy. For Fromm, character types can be productive or unproductive. Fromm notes that character structures develop in each individual to enable him or her to interact successfully within a given society and adapt to its mode of production and social norms (see social character), and may be very counter-productive when used in a different society.

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