Core study seven-Freud (the individual difference area)

Question 1

Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development

Answer 1

Freud believed that sexual impulses are present in the new born child and they seek satisfaction through their own body

Question 2

Stage one of Pyschosexual development

Answer 2

Oral- The child is fascinated with putting things in their mouth. This can manifest through thumb sucking as a replacement for the sensation of breastfeeding.

Question 3

Stage two of Pyschosexual development

Answer 3

Anal: This manifests usually during potty training when children keep their excrement inside them until they feel contractions.

Question 4

Stage three of Pyschosexual development

Answer 4

Phallic: The child starts to see difference in male/female bodies. Boys fear girls were castrated for playing with their penis.
The Oedipus Complex arises where little boys experience a sexual desire for their mother and see their father is a rival they wish would disappear.

Question 5

Stage four of Pyscosexual development

Answer 5

Latency: The child’s interest is diverted to sports, friendships, hobbies etc.

Question 6

Stage five of Pyscosexual development

Answer 6

Genital or sexual: The intensity of their sexual desire increases but they move their desire onto other people who resemble them.

Question 7

Oedipus Complex

Answer 7

Incestuous feelings supposedly felt by a son towards his mother, as well as the associated jealousy felt towards a father who is perceived as a rival.

Question 8

Phobia

Answer 8

An anxiety disorder characterised by persistent fear out of proportion to the danger & a compelling desire to escape the situation.

Question 9

Castration Anxiety

Answer 9

Part of the Oedipus complex: a boy’s fear, after seeing a naked female for the first time, that he will lose his penis.

Question 10

Psychoanalysis

Answer 10

A form of therapy that is intensive and long-term and in which the aim is to alleviate distress by giving the patient insight into unconscious mental processes.

Question 11

Aim of Freud study

Answer 11

To provide evidence for psychosexual development theory using psychoanalysis of dreams and fantasies of a child ‘Little Hans’ with nervous disorder.

Question 12

Freud used a case study what is meant by a case study?

Answer 12

Where a small group of participants are studied in depth; often the participants are unusual in some way.

Question 13

Sample of Freud study

Answer 13

Freud’s’ sample was a single boy who was given the pseudonym of ‘Little Hans’. He was:
-Studied from the time around his 3rd birthday for approximately two years (1906-1908)
-From Vienna, Austria
-Brought up with ‘minimal force’
-Described as a lively, cheerful baby from the time Freud met him before the study

Question 14

What was the sampling method used

Answer 14

Self selected sampling as Freud put out a call asking for friends and supporters to send information about their children’s development. Hans’ Father was one such supporter who volunteered his child ‘Little Hans’.

Question 15

Freud Procedure

Answer 15

Letters: Hans’ father recorded details of Hans’ behaviours and conversations, and made his own interpretations. He would then send these in a weekly letter to Freud.

Replies: Freud replied with his own interpretations of the behaviours and conversations, and would give guidance on what Hans’ father should be discussing with Hans, and which behaviours to look out for.

Question 15

Data collection method

Answer 15

Self-report as his father asked him questions about his dreams and phobias.

Question 15

Phobia: Hans has a phobia of horses biting him

Answer 15

Freudian Interpretations: Hans was concerned his widdler would be cut off- castration anxiety due to his mum’s threat 15 months earlier to get Dr A to get off his welder due to him having his hand on it.

Alternative explanations: Fearful of horses due to overhearing someone in the street say “Don’t put your finger to the white horse or I’ll bite you”

Question 16

Phobia: Hans was fearful of horses particularly what they wear in front of their eyes (blinkers) and the black but around their mouths.

Answer 16

Freudian Interpretations: The horse represents Hans’ father, with the horse’s blinkers being like his glasses and the muzzle being like his mustache.

Question 17

Phobia: Hans was fearful of carts, furniture vans and buses- fearing they would fall over when they turned.

Answer 17

Freud Interpretation: Hans’ father had asked him “When the horse fell down, did you think of your daddy?” Hans replied “Perhaps. Yes. It’s possible.” Seen as a desire for his father to die so that Hans could have his mum to himself.

Alternative explanations: Hans had seen a bus-horse fall down and kick out with its fear when out with his mother. Likely to have been a scary experiencre for a young boy-maybe he has come to associate carts buses, etc, with the fear has left.

Question 18

Phobia: Hans was afraid that when he was in the big bath his mother would let him go and his head would go under the water.

Answer 18

Freudian Interpretation: Interpreted are arising from a death-wish against his sister Hanna. Hans hoped that his mum would drop her in so he would get his mum all to himself. Han’s anxiety about the bath was then seen as a fear that he would be punished for the death-wish towards his sister.

Alternative Explanation: Young children can be frightened of water

Question 19

Fantasies: After being given his bath, Hans was being powereded around his penis by his mother, who was taking care not to touch it. Hans asked “Why don’t you put your finger there?” with her reply being “Because it’s not proper”

Answer 19

Freudian Interpretation: Hans desires his mother. This was a seduction attempt by Hans of his mother as he was asking her to touch him

Alternative Explanation: Trying understand the new world by asking questions

Question 20

Fantasies: Hans climbed into his mother’s bed one morning and said “Do you know what Auntie M said?” She said “He has got a dear little thingummy”.

Answer 20

Freudian Interpretation: Seduction attempt by Hans of his mother by expressing how other viewed him.

Question 21

Dreams: Hans has climbed into his parents’ bed one night. He explained the next mourning he had a fantasy of there being a big giraffe in the room and a crumpled one; the big one called out because he took the crumpled one away. Then it stopped calling out, and he sat on top of the crumpled one.

Answer 21

Freudian Interpretation: Han’s father decoded this by suggesting that the big giraffe represented his due to the long neck reflecting his penis, while the crumpled giraffe was Hans’ mother. The fact that Little Hans had come into his parents’ bedroom was seen as a desire for his mother and her genital organ.

Alternative explanation: Hans has visited Shonbrunn zoo five days earlier, so it could be due to him remembering seeing animal there.

Question 22

Fantasies: Hans was pre-occupied with lumf (feces)- as shown by him following his mother and Berta (one of the girls he had been playing with) to the toilet.

Answer 22

Freudian Interpretation: Hans’ father believed the interest in defecation represented little Hans’ concerns about a heavily loaded stomach (pregnancy) and the potential further competition for his mother’s affection that the birth of another child would bring

Alternative explanations: Could be explained due to him having troubles with his stools-suffering constipation until food intake was reduced under medical guidelines.

Question 23

Fantasies: Hans gave one of his imaginary friends the name Lodi

Answer 23

Freudian Interpretation: Father’s Interpretation of Lodi was the name like saffalodi (sausage), which resembles faeces. Possibly linked to concerns about his mother giving birth to another baby (and little Hans having even more competition for her affections).

Question 24

Fantasies: Hans was playing with his imaginary friends, explaining he was the children’s daddy, that his mum was their mummy, and that his dad (Hans’ father) was their grandaddy.

Answer 24

Freudian Interpretation: Suggesting a satisfactory conclusions to the Oedipus complex which allowed little Hans to be with his mother, but without having to kill his father off.

Alternative Explanations: Young children have imaginary friends as part of their normal development.

Question 25

Fantasies: Hans had two plumber fantasies. In the first one, a plumber took a big borer and stuck it into his stomach. In the second one, the plumber removed his blum and widdler with a pair of pincers and replaced them with bigger versions.

Answer 25

Freudian Interpretations:
It was suggested that the bigger widdler was behind and represented those of his father, and the fantasy reflected Hans’ desire to be like his dad. Seen as Hans having overcome the castration complex.

Question 26

Conclusions

Answer 26

Freud claimed that he had learned nothing new from studying Little Hans’ case and that the study provided support for:
1. His Psychosexual Stages of Development Theory
2. Oedipus Complex- little Hans wanted his father ‘out of the way’ so that he could have the affections of his mother all to himself.
3. Phobias come from the unconscious-The fear of his father finding out about his desires was displaced into a fear of horses.

Question 27

Strengths of sample

Answer 27

Freud could collect lots of detailed information about how Hans’ phobias developed and were then resolved by studying his case in depth.

Freud suggested Hans was a fairly typical child.

Question 28

Weaknesses of the sample

Answer 28

By only studying one boy from Vienna, it is difficult to generalise the results to all children (especially as he had developed an unusual phobia).

As Hans’ father was a friend of Freud’s the interpretations and information reported might be biased

Question 29

Self-report strengths in Freud’s case study

Answer 29

his meant Freud (and Hans’ father) was able to find much more information about Hans’s thoughts, fantasies, dreams and phobias which would not be possible through other methods

Question 30

Self-reports weaknesses in Freud case study

Answer 30

Little Hans’ father may have asked deliberately leading questions and only reported certain conversations which support Freud’s theory (or Hans may have lied himself)

Question 31

Qualitative data strength in Freud’s case study

Answer 31

Much more detailed which provided more evidence that Freud could use in support of his theory

Question 32

Qualitative data weaknesses in Freud’s case study

Answer 32

Qualitative data can be subjective and therefore less scientific. Freud interpreted the behaviour to match his theory when there were more obvious explanations.

Question 33

Ethics Kept

Answer 33

Tried to keep his identity confidential by referring to him as ‘little Hans’ (although since learn he is called Herbert Graf)

Not deceived in any way

Consent given by Hans’ father

Freud would argue the process helped Hans overcome his phobia

Question 34

Ethics broken

Answer 34

He may well have suffered from some psychological harm and embarrassment by being questioned by his father about personal issues

Question 35

Ethnocentrism

Answer 35

The experiences of a middle-class child in Austria are unlikely to be typical of children in less privileged parts of the world. Phobias are common in children across the world, perhaps the findings can be applied to children from all cultures.

Question 36

Internal Reliability (how it was reduced)

Answer 36

The procedure wasn’t very standardised as Hans’ father would just ask him questions and summarise these conversations to Freud before receiving guidance on what to discuss next

Question 37

External Reliability

Answer 37

We can’t assume that all children will progress through the psychosexual stages of development like Little Hans did. The sample is too small to establish consistent effect which reduces the external reliability.

Freud would argue the findings are consistent with those from his adult patients which increases external reliability.

Question 38

Internal Validity

Answer 38

Interpretations: There are some much simpler and more obvious explanations for the behaviours shown, that are not sexual, and so more acceptable which reduces the internal validity E.g. The giraffe fantasy may have been due to recently visiting the zoo.

Self-report: The use of leading questions which could have influenced Hans’ responses E.g. ‘When the horse fell down, did you think of your daddy?’

Question 39

External (population) validity

Answer 39

The study focused on a very specific sample and so is unlikely to represent the how all children develop, particularly not girls, different age groups and other cultures.

Question 40

Principles of the area of individual differences

Answer 40

• the ways in which people differ and the patterns in this
• normal and ‘abnormal behavior’
• how to measure differences

Question 41

Concepts of the area of individual differences

Answer 41

• mental disorders
• intelligence testing
• psychometric testing
• measuring differences
• psychosexual stages

Question 42

How does the study by Freud’s link to the principles of the individual differences

Answer 42

Freud study falls within the individual differences area because it is investigating a way in which people differ- namely by experience.

Question 43

Strength of Individual differences

Answer 43

• It enables the psychologist to find out about a wilder range of human behaviors because all behaviors, not just average ones studied.
• It can have great social benefit, improving our understanding of mental disorders and suggesting treatments
• It can help to inform the freewill determinism debate suggesting that the extent to which we have control over our behavior.

Question 44

Weaknesses of the individual differences area

Answer 44

• As it lacks a set of defining beliefs about why people behave the way they do. It is arguable that there is more disagreement in this area
• With much of the research in this area being socially sensitive, it has the potential to be but to harmful use.
• The tools for measuring differences that are developed may not always be valid.