unconscious
Summary
In Freud's psychoanalytic theory, the unconscious is the level of mind holding wishes, urges and memories outside awareness, often because they are threatening. The testable point: it is said to shape behavior indirectly, through dreams, slips and defense mechanisms such as repression.
Detail
Meaning: In Freud's topographic model the mind has three levels. The conscious holds what you are aware of right now. The preconscious holds material you can bring to awareness with a little effort. The unconscious holds material, often anxiety-provoking, that is not readily accessible. Freud proposed that it still influences behavior, for example through dreams, slips of the tongue and defense mechanisms such as repression. Jung added the collective unconscious, a shared store of inherited archetypes.
On the MCAT: A passage may describe a person who cannot recall a distressing event yet becomes anxious around related cues, and ask which level of mind or which defense mechanism is involved. Another setup uses "unconscious" for a state with no awareness, such as a coma or general anesthesia, which differs from sleep, where the brain remains active. Modern cognitive psychology treats much processing as nonconscious (automatic processing, implicit memory) without Freud's idea of motivated repression.
Common confusion: Students mix up preconscious and unconscious. Your phone number is preconscious because you can recall it on demand. Unconscious material cannot be recalled easily. Also, being unconscious in the Freudian sense does not mean being asleep or knocked out.
Sources
- Psychology (Myers)
- Psychology (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner)
Written for the MCAT and checked before it was published. For study reference only. Spotted an error? Let us know.