Other explanations of gender development: psychodynamic Flashcards
What is the third stage of the psychodynamic stages?
The phallic stage.
What happens during the phallic stage?
Gender development occurs.
What ages does the phallic stage occur?
Between ages 3-6.
Prior to the phallic stage do children have a concept of gender? And how do they categorise themselves and other people?
Before the phallic stage children have no concept of gender identity and so don’t categorise themselves or others as male or female.
What is the focus of pleasure switch to in the phallic stage?
Genitals
What do children experience in the phallic stage?
The oedipus complex or the electra complex.
What do boys develop in the phallic stage?
Incestuous feelings towards their mother and a jealous and murderous hatred for their father who stands in the way of the boy possessing his mother.
What does the boy recognise in the phallic stage?
That his father is more powerful and fears he may be castrated by his father for his feelings towards his mother (castration anxiety).H
How do boys resolve the conflict in the phallic stage?
The boy gives up his love for his mother and begins to identify with his father.
What did Freud suggest girls experience in the phallic stage?
Penis envy.
How does Freud suggest girls see themselves in the phallic stage?
As their mothers competition for their father’s love.
What do girls develop in the phallic stage?
A double-resentment towards their mother.
First the mother is a love rival in the way of the father.
Second the mother is blamed for the girl having no penis - girls believe their mother castrated them at some point.
Who came up with the electra complex?
Carl Jung
What did Carl Jung suggest girls come to accept over time?
That they will never have a penis and substitute penis envy with desire to have children identifying with their mothers.
What is the crux of Freud’s theory?
Identification - Children of both sexes identify with the same-sex parent as a means of resolving their retrospective complexes.
What is internalisation?
Children taking on board the gender identity of the same sex parent.
What was Freud’s evidence of the Oedipus complex?
Little Hans - 5 year old boy who had a fear of being bitten by a horse because he had seen a horse collapse when he was younger.
How did Freud suggest that Little Hans shows the Oedipus complex?
Freud suggested that Han’s fear of being bitten represented his fear of castration.
Freud suggested Hans had transferred his fear of his father onto horses via the unconscious defence mechanism of displacement.
Evaluation:
Little research support
The use of Little Hans and the Oedipus complex can be criticised as this theory implies sons of harsh fathers will develop a more robust sense of gender identity however this isn’t supported by research. Blakemore and Jill showed boys with liberal fathers tended to be more secure in their masculine identity.
Evaluation:
Lack of explanation of female development
‘Penis envy’ can be criticised for reflecting the patriarchal society which Freud lived in. Horney argued a more powerful emotion than pennies envy is womb envy which is a reaction to women’s ability to nurture and sustain life which was ignored by Freud making his research andocentric and have beta bias.
Evaluation:
Doesn’t account for non-nuclear families
Freud relies on children having two opposite gendered parents to manage the Oedipus and electra complex which assumes children from non-nuclear families wont properly develop gender however this isn’t supported by Green who found that 1/37 children raised by transgender parents only had a gender identity described as ‘non-typical.’
Evaluation: lacks scientific rigour.
Freuds concepts are unfalsifiable due to their unconscious nature which contrasts with other theories of gender development. Popper argued that the psychodynamic approach was a pseudoscience due its inability to be falsifies.
