superego

American  

[soo-per-ee-goh, -eg-oh] / ˌsu pərˈi goʊ, -ˈɛg oʊ /

noun

Psychoanalysis.

• superegos
  plural

1. the part of the personality representing the conscience, formed in early life by internalization of the standards of parents and other models of behavior.

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superego British  

/ -ˈɛɡəʊ, ˌsuːpərˈiːɡəʊ /

noun

1. psychoanal that part of the unconscious mind that acts as a conscience for the ego, developing mainly from the relationship between a child and his parents See also id 1 ego

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superego Cultural  

1. In Freudian psychology, the part of the psyche that incorporates parental or community values and standards and acts as an inner check on behavior. The superego and ego, responding to social demands, are often in conflict with the primitive impulses of the id.

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• superegos
  plural

Etymology

Origin of superego

1890–95; translation of German Über-Ich (Freud); see super-, ego

Explanation

In psychoanalysis, the superego is the part of a person's mind that helps keep the id in check, guiding the person to follow learned rules rather than impulses. Sigmund Freud invented the terms ego, id, and superego when he developed his theories of psychoanalysis. They represent three parts of the human psyche, or mind. The superego is where morals and conscience come from, according to Freud. Your superego comes from what you've learned from parents, teachers, and other adults in your life. The word superego is the closest literal translation from the original German über-Ich.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

superego superegos

Guy and Bruno constitute the two halves of a single personality, the yin and the yang, the superego and the id.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026

As I previously stated, it's his id, his ego and his superego.

From Salon ● Nov. 6, 2023

In “The Age of Guilt: The Super Ego in the Online World,” he turns to the psychoanalytic concept of the superego to understand why so many are obsessed with judging themselves and others.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 27, 2023

“I often wonder,” Tillman reflected recently in the course of an email conversation, “how conscience, a superego, develops, and how becoming conscientious evolves. … My conscience led to my sense of obligation.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2022

The latter includes all our defence mechanisms and most of the superego.

From Terrorists and Freedom Fighters by Samuel Vaknin

Readers with overactive superegos that will torment them if they spend the “extra” time of quarantine reading anything but classics may be struggling with War and Peace right now.

From Slate ● May 22, 2020

Most people's superegos dictate that we cannot go around doing whatever we want.

From Salon ● Aug. 16, 2019

In reexamining the basics of corporate management, and the bosses who built it, we have an opportunity to disentangle our sense of selfhood from the systemic superegos that surround us.

From Forbes ● Sep. 5, 2014

The psychoanalytic view was that children didn’t have the mental capacity for depression; their superegos were not sufficiently developed.

From New York Times ● Aug. 26, 2010

The only way you outer-directed moles will accept individuality any more even in a fictional character, without your superegos getting seasick, is for them to be crazy.

From The Creature from Cleveland Depths by Fritz Leiber

Related Words

• shame