Psychodynamic explanation of gender development

• Pre - Phallic stage - AO1 -

  - There are 5 psychosexual stages, 3rd one is phallic (age 3-6).

  - Pre-phallic stage on gender - children have no concept of gender identity.

  - They also experience the Oedipus and Electra complex in the phallic stage
• Oedipus complex in boys - AO1.

  - During the phallic stage boys develop incestuous feelings towards their mother.

  - They want their mother for themselves.

  - Which then leads to a jealous hatred for their father who has what the boy desires
• Castration anxiety - AO1


  - Boys then recognise that their father is more powerful, they fear their father will discover their desire for the mother and castrate them.
• Electra complex in girls - AO1

  - Describes how the daughter resents her mother and feel in competition with her for their father's love.
• Penis envy - AO1


  - Girls also resent their mother because they see her as responsible for no having a penis.
• Identifications and internalisation - AO1

  - Identification takes place with same-sex parent to resolve retrospective complexes (Oedipus and Electra) - leads to internalisation.

  - Boys adopt the attitudes + values of their father, and girls adopt their mother's.

  - This happens at the end of the pre-phallic stage
• Little Hans - 1908 - AO1

  - Illustrates the Oedipus complex.

  - Little Hans was 5 years old with a fear of being bitten by a horse.

  - Freud's interpretation was that Han's fear of horses represented his actual fear of being castrated by his father because he loved his mother.

  - Suggests Hans transferred his fear of his father onto horses via displacement.
• The Oedipus complex - research support - 😊

  - Freds idea is that Boy's 'normal' development depends on being raised by one male parent.

  - Rekers and Morey rated gender identity of 49 boys (3-11 y/o) based in interviews with their family and children themselves.

  - Those who were 'gender disturbed', 75% had neither their biological nor a substitute father living with them.

  - Suggests that being raised with no father may have a negative impact on gender identity.
• Female development - 🙁

  - Inadequate account of female development

  - Freud admitted women were a mystery to him (obviously) and his penis envy theory has been criticised as reflecting the androcentric Victorian Era.

  - In this time, he held much power. Feminist psychoanalyst Horney argues that a more powerful emotion than penis envy is men's experience of 'womb envy' - reaction to women's ability to nurture and sustain life.

  - Horney believes penis envy is the result of cultural rather than biological factors

  - Challenges the idea that women's gender development is founded on a desire to want to be like a man (an Androcentric bias).
• Pseudoscientific - 🙁


  - Lacks scientific credibility

  - Uses subjective case studies/ all based upon inferences Frued himself made

  - Many of his concepts are untestable as they are largely focused on the role of the unconscious

  - His theories aren't falsifiable

  - Questions the validity of Freuds views on Gender as it's not based on evidence
• Over estimation on the importance of same sex role model

  • Blakemore - 2008 -boys with more liberal fathers tend to be more secure in their masculine identity compared to more punitive fathers
  • Golombok et al. - 1983 - Demonstrated how children from single parent families went on to develop normal gender identities.
  • Green - 1978 - AO1
- Studies as sample of 37 children who were raised by gay or transgender parents, and discovered that only one had a gender identity that was described as 'non-typical'.