ego-ideal
n. in psychoanalytic theory, the part of the ego that is the repository of positive identifications with parental goals and values that the individual genuinely admires and wishes to emulate, such as integrity and loyalty, and that acts as a model of how he or she wishes to be. As new identifications are incorporated in later life, the ego-ideal may develop and change. In his later theorizing, Sigmund Freud incorporated the ego-ideal into the concept of the superego. Also called self-ideal.