Psychodynamic Explanations

Question 1

What did Freud see conscious behaviour as motivated by?

Answer 1

Unconscious drives, with the structures of the mind consisting of the id, ego and super ego (three components of personality)

Question 2

What is the ego?

Answer 2

Based on reality
Has to balance the unreal opposing demands of the Id (which constantly seeks selfish pleasures) and the superego (which constantly seeks to be morally perfect)

Question 3

When do conflicts between these structures of the mind occur?

Answer 3

In each of the five stages of psychosexual development (oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital) after which adult personality is formed

Question 4

Which is the key stage in relation to gender development?

Answer 4

The phallic stage

Question 5

What did Freud are children as experiencing as they passed through each of the psychosexual stages?

Answer 5

Unconscious conflicts

Question 6

What happens in the first two stages?

Answer 6

In the oral and anal stage a child is perceived as being bisexual as gender identity is not seen as existing with no visible difference between the behaviours of boys and girls

Question 7

What happens when a child enters the phallic stage? What

Answer 7

The libido is seen as increasingly focused upon its genitals and it is in this stage that gender identity develops through the resolution of either the Oedipus or Electra complex

Question 8

Who was Oedipus?

Answer 8

Mythical Greek king who accidentally killed his father and married his mother

Question 9

What does Freud use the term Oedipus to describe?

Answer 9

How a boys first sexual desires are directed at his mother

Question 10

When does the Oedipus complex occur?

Answer 10

During the phallic stage (3-5 years) when the libidos sexual energy is directed into the phallus (penis)

Question 11

What is the the feeling of attraction for the mother accompanied by?

Answer 11

A loathing of his father, who he sees as having access to the object he desires (his mother).
The son also fears his father as he believes if the father realises the sons desire for his mother, he will remove his penis (castration anxiety)

Question 12

What happens in order to resolve the conflict between his desire for his mother and his fear of his father?

Answer 12

A process known as identification with the aggressor
Identification with the father allows the boy to incorporate his father into his own personality, permitting him to internalise the male gender

Question 13

By resolving the Oedipus complex what does the boy do?

Answer 13

Begins to have a sense of make identity

Question 14

What does Freud believe would happen to a boy that was not able to satisfactorily resolve his Oedipus complex?

Answer 14

He would be confused about his sexual identity and could become homosexual

Question 15

Who was Electra?

Answer 15

In Greek mythology she was a daughter of King Agamemnon who (with her brother) killed their mother to avenge their father’s murder

Question 16

What is the term Electra used to describe?

Answer 16

How a girls first sexual desires are directed at her father (as with the Oedipus complex- occurs in phallic stage)

Question 17

What happens during the phallic stage in the Electra complex?

Answer 17

The girls believes that she doesn’t have a penis because she’s been castrated
As the mother doesn’t have a penis- the girl blames her for not having a penis
The girl desires a penis as a symbol of male power (penis envy) and therefor she desires her father as he has what she wants
Unable to have a penis of her own, penis envy is converted into a desire for a baby (penis-baby making project)

Question 18

What does the daughter believe herself to be in competition for?

Answer 18

Her father - a feeling she repressed for fear of losing her mothers love

Question 19

How is the complex in the Electra complex resolved?

Answer 19

Identification with her mother - allowing the girl to incorporate her mother into her own personality and permitting her to internalise her female gender

Question 20

By resolving the Electra complex what does the girl gain?

Answer 20

Begins to gain a sense of female identity

Question 21

Why did Freud believe that female identification was not as strong as that of boys?

Answer 21

Because a girl believes she has already been castrated - girls are not as fearful as boys so identification isn’t as strong

Question 22

What did Freud believe would happen if a girl was not to resolve her Electra complex?

Answer 22

She would be confused about her sexual identity

Question 23

What was Freud’s research?

Answer 23

Performed a case study of little hans (a five year old boy who has a phobia of horses, especially ones with black bits around their mouths (which Freud interpreted as being representative of the boys father who had a moustache). Therefore Hans is was actually scared of his father, not horses - which was seen to fit the concept of the Oedipus complex, whereby Hans was fearful of his father castrating him for desiring his mother

Question 24

What did Freud’s research suggest about Hans overcoming his Oedipus complex?

Answer 24

Overcame It by having two fantasies - one where a plumber came and exchanged his bottom and penis for larger ones and one where he fathered several children -
Fitted Freud’s theory as Hans was seen as having identified with his father and internalised his male gender

Question 25

What was Hyman’s research?

Answer 25

Reported that 22/31 female maniac- depressive patients were diagnosed with suffering from an unresolved Electra complex with 12/22 having regressed to an earlier stage of psychosexual development - proving some support for Freud’s theory

Question 26

What was Friedman’s research?

Answer 26

Found that when a story began with a child doing something nice with their opposite sex parent and then being joined by the same sex parent, children produced a sadder end to the story than when the role of the parents were swapped
Supporting the idea that with both complexes children have more attraction to the opposite sex parent and more hostility to the same sex parent

Question 27

What was Snortum et Al’s research?

Answer 27

Reported that 46 males were exempted from military service for being homosexual had more close-bonding and controlling mothers and rejecting, detached fathers than a comparable sample of heterosexual men
Lends support to the idea that males who fail to resolve their Oedipus complex by identifying with their fathers could become homosexual

Question 28

What was Wiszewska et Al’s research?

Answer 28

Asked female RPS to rate the attractiveness of different men and to assess the quality of their relationship with their fathers
Found that women who were treated well by their fathers as children were attracted to men who resemble their fathers physically

Question 29

Which research opposes Freud’s theory?

Answer 29

Malinowski reported that boys in the Trobriand Islanders exhibited the signs of hostility Freud described in the Oedipus complex but not for their fathers, instead, for their maternal uncles.
In the Trobriand culture, maternal uncles were given the role of family disciplinarian - this opposes Freuds theory as it suggests that boy’s hostility to their fathers may be a reaction to discipline rather than sexual jealousy over their mothers

Question 30

Why is Freud’s ‘Little Hans’ case study criticised?

Answer 30

Criticised for being subjectively interpreted to fit with the ideas of the Oedipus complex.
The boys father who wrote letters to Freud, was an avid supporter of him
Even if Hans did have an Oedipus complex, doesn’t mean all males do
Problems with case study + methods of collecting data

Question 31

What is the problem with many of Freud’s claims?

Answer 31

There is little scientific evidence to support them - especially concepts such as the Oedipus and Electra complexes as they are impossible to measure and therefore cant be tested in an empirical way and where there is research that supports it, there’s evidence that counters it

Question 32

What is an example of the evidence that counters it?

Answer 32

To counter the claim of Snortum et al, countless studies show the incidence of homosexuality in individuals raised only by a same sex parent is no different to those raised by an opposite sex parent

Question 33

How could evidence supporting Freud also be explained in other ways?

Answer 33

for example - in the Wiszewska study, it could be concluded that the reason the women with good relationships with their fathers found men resembling their father more attractive is that the fathers created a learned template for good male partners.

Question 34

What is the issue with gender bias?

Answer 34

His theory of gender-development is mainly male orientated which is probably a produce of the time in which he was working
The theory views females as inferior to males- reflecting the standards to which females were held at the time
The concept of the Oedipus complex came first with the addition of the Electra complex being an afterthought