Psychodynamic Explanations Of Gender Development Flashcards
Oedipus complex (Freud)
-During the phallic stage
-Boys desire their mother
-Conflict with father (competition) for the mother’s love
-Creates fear, castration anxiety. Developed to boys, their father will castrate them
-Complex eventually resolved, boy begins to identify it with father. Boy internalises his father’s gender identity and takes it as his own gender identity
-The lead to masculine behaviours as young boys take on attitude and expectations of their fathers
Electra complex (Jung)
-Girls
-Girl initially attracted to mother but ends when girl discovers mother doesn’t have a penis. Go blame mother fought her own lack of penis believing she was castrated so experiences penis envy
-Sexual desires transferred to father
-Conflict created between lust for father and fear of losing mothers love
-Complex then resolved when girl convert her penis envy to a wish to have a baby reducing anger towards mother. The girl can now identify it with her mother and take all these gender behaviours (internalisation)
Freud’s theory of gender development
-Before three gender identity, flexible, no clear difference between girl and boys, neutral
-Phallic stage an understanding of gender begins to change
Identification
By the end of the phallic stage, children resolve their conflict by identifying with the same sex parent
Internalisation
An individual adopts the attitudes and/or behaviour of another
Supporting evidence, Little Hans
-Support for Oedipus complex by Freud
-Hans developed a fear of horses which Freud interpreted as a result of repressing his desires for his mother.
-Hans develop the love for him smother and wished his father was dead.
-This led Hans to fear that his father would castrate him
-Supports idea that boys experience conflict with their father’s for their mothers attention supporting the Oedipus complex idea
-CA: subjective interpretation from one study, lacks reliability
