Final answer:
Freud's concept of the id is considered primarily unconscious, with the majority of mental activities occurring outside our conscious awareness. The ego and superego are the mechanisms that mediate the impulses from the unconscious id.
Step-by-step explanation:
False. Freud's concept of the id is predominantly unconscious, with no significant portion of it being conscious. According to Freud, the id is the source of our most primitive drives or urges, including those for hunger, thirst, and sex, and operates on the pleasure principle seeking instant gratification. However, its demands are reined in by the ego and the superego, which develop through social interactions and internalize society's rules respectively.
Freud compared the mind to an iceberg, stating that only a small part of our mental activities is conscious and the vast majority is submerged in the unconscious. The unconscious mind houses repressed memories and desires. These aspects of the unconscious sometimes surface in slips of the tongue, also known as Freudian slips, or manifest in our dreams.
The rational part of our personality, the ego, operates based on the reality principle. It tries to balance the impulsive demands of the id and the moralistic rules of the superego, while taking into account the realities of the world. The superego, acting as a moral compass, counterbalances the id's quest for pleasure with ideals and the guilt associated with failing them. Freud's depiction of these psychic structures laid the foundation for subsequent psychological theories, despite specific elements of his theories being heavily critiqued or falling out of favor in modern psychology.