ego ideal

American  

noun

Psychoanalysis.

1. a more or less conscious ideal of personal excellence derived from a composite image of the characteristics of persons, initially those of the parents, with whom the individual identifies.

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ego ideal British  

noun

1. psychoanal an internal ideal of personal perfection that represents what one wants to be rather than what one ought to be and is derived from one's early relationship with one's parents See also superego

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Etymology

Origin of ego ideal

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

If the work groups have an ideal that is not antagonistic to the ego ideal, the basic assumption groups have an ideal that utterly destroys the ego ideal and takes its place.

From Newsweek • Mar. 9, 2015

She gives Arianna Huffington as an ego ideal.

From The Guardian • Mar. 13, 2013

He envisioned an even more dire situation in which employees despair of ever reaching their full potential — in psychological parlance, when they face a wide gap between their self-image and their ego ideal.

From New York Times • Jun. 28, 2012

For the hardhats, the flag is an ego ideal purified of all doubts and contradictions.

From Time Magazine Archive

A primary group of this kind is a number of individuals who have substituted one and the same object for their ego ideal and have consequently identified themselves with one another in their ego.

From Group Psychology and The Analysis of The Ego by Freud, Sigmund