Freud also proposed three components to our personality: the id, ego, and superego. The job of the ego is to balance the sexual and aggressive drives of the id with the moral ideal of the superego.

He was also the first to recognize that much of our mental life takes place outside of our conscious awareness. Freud also said that personality develops through a series of psychosexual stages.

personality — long-standing traits and patterns that propel individuals to consistently think, feel, and behave in specific ways. ego — aspect of personality that represents the self, or the part of one’s personality that is visible to others. id — aspect of personality that consists of our most primitive drives or urges, including impulses for hunger, thirst, and sex. conscious — mental activity (thoughts, feelings, and memories) that we can access at any time.