Psychodynamic Explanation of Gender Development Flashcards
Identification (occurs towards the end of the phallic stage):
the process of acquiring the characteristics (attitudes/behaviours/values) of the same-gender parent in order to resolve the Oedipus/Electra complex.
Internalisation:
the incorporation of the same-gender parent’s gender identity into an individual’s personality – their attitudes/behaviours are accepted.
The Oedipus Complex
Freud suggested that boys experience the Oedipus Complex:
1. Boys’ first sexual desires are directed towards their mothers during the phallic stage of psychosexual development.
The libido’s energies are directed into the phallus.
- The child feels resentment and jealously towards the father as he possesses the mother.
He also fears that the father will find out and castrate him (castration anxiety). - To resolve the conflict, the boy ultimately gives up his desire for his mother and identifies with his father.
The boy incorporates his father into his own personality, permitting him to internalise his male gender.
He will then begin to have a sense of male identity as he has taken on his father’s attitudes, expectations etc., leading to masculine behaviour.
The Electra Complex
- A girl’s first sexual desires are directed at their father during the phallic stage.
The girl believes she has been castrated
The mother is blamed for lack of a penis - Girls desire to have a penis as they represent male power (‘penis envy’) which is why she desires her father.
- When she realises that she can’t have a penis of her own, the desire for a penis is converted into desire for a baby.
The girl believes herself to be in competition for possession of her father, a feeling she represses for fear of losing the love of her mother.
The girl ultimately identifies with her mother, allowing her to take on her mother’s qualities into her own personality and so internalises her female identity (e.g. desire for a baby).
Resolution of the Electra Complex
Because she thinks she’s already been castrated the urge to identify as female is not as strong as the urge to identify in males as they are fearful of losing their penis.
Freud believed that if the Electra complex is not satisfactorily resolved there will be confusion about sexual identity.
Freud also believed that male development was the norm and female development being a deviant form of development.
Research: Little Hans
Freud performed a case study of a boy with a phobia of horses.
He concluded that the boy was actually going through the Oedipus complex and the horse represented his father (who he was unconsciously fearful of castrating him).
Freud reported that Hans resolved his Oedipus complex through identification with his father through two fantasies:
1. A plumber came and changed his ‘widdler’ and bottom for larger ones (like his father’s)
2. He fathered several children (again, a ‘father’ role)
Freud used this as support for his theory as it can be interpreted in a way that shows identification with the male identity at around 5 years of age (during the phallic stage).
There is some support for the idea that for boys’ ‘normal’ development depends on being raised by at least one male parent.
Rekers and Morey (1990) rated the gender identity of 49 boys aged 3-11 years based on interviews with their families and the children themselves.
Of those who were judged to be ‘gender disturbed’, 75% had neither their biological father nor a substitute father living with them.
This suggests that being raised with no father may have a negative impact on gender identity.
However, the relationship between absent fathers and problems of gender identity is not supported.
Bos and Sandfort (2010) compared data from 63 children where both parents were lesbians and 68 children from ‘traditional’ families.
Children raised by lesbian parents felt less pressure to conform to gender stereotypes and were less likely to assume their own gender was superior, but there were no differences in terms of psychosocial adjustment or gender identity.
This therefore contradicts Freud’s theory as it suggests that father are not necessary for healthy gender identity development.
Male oriented explanation
The theory sees females as inferior to males, reflecting the standing that females had at the time (Victorian era).
The concept of the Oedipus complex was created first, with the Electra complex (theorised by Jung) commonly regarded as an afterthought.
Therefore, the theory could be argued to be somewhat incomplete as the gender development of women is not as well thought through as the gender development of men.
Horney argued that a more powerful emotion than penis envy is men’s experience of ‘womb envy’ – a reaction to a women’s ability to nurture and sustain life.
The psychodynamic explanation lacks scientific credibility
There is little scientific support for the Oedipus and Electra complexes because the nature of the unconscious mind is highly subjective and difficult to study in a scientific manner – his ideas cannot be falsified and are therefore considered pseudoscientific.
There are also often multiple interpretations for findings that do not support Freud’s ideas.
This brings the theory’s validity into question as it is not strongly supported by empirical evidence in the same way that other theories of gender development are.
