Neurotic personality development results from which cause?

• A. Genetic predisposition
• B. Adulthood stress
• C. Incomplete resolution of one psychosexual stage
• D. Conditioning

Answer: (C)

In Freudian theory, neurotic personality development comes from not fully resolving conflicts that arise in a psychosexual stage. When a stage’s conflicts aren’t completed successfully, the person becomes fixated at that stage, carrying certain needs and patterns into adulthood. This fixation creates a tendency to cope with anxiety through specific defense mechanisms, producing lasting neurotic traits and ways of relating to others. The particular stage can shape the style of these neuroses, but the core idea is that unfinished conflicts during early development drive the formation of neurotic personality.

Genetic predisposition looks at inherited biology, which isn’t the mechanism Freud described for neurotic development. Adulthood stress can trigger or worsen symptoms but doesn’t explain how the neurotic pattern originates in early development. Conditioning falls under learning theory, where behaviors are shaped by reinforcement, not by unresolved psychosexual conflicts driving personality structure.