AO3

• Mainly focused on male gender development so demonstrates androcentric bias, as OC and EC assumes male perspective is the default and most desirable. Male development focuses on penis and fear of losing it, female development characterised by lack of and desire for penis.
• There is little empirical support for existence if complexes as impossible to measure and thus cannot be tested scientifically
• Rekers and Morey rated gender identity of 49 boys ages 3-11 using interviews with them and their parents and found 75% of those who were classified as ‘gender-disturbed’ had neither their biological father or substitute father living with them, supporting the OC for gender development.
• Little hans supports OC idea as fear of horses stemmed from OC but fear of castration manifested in fear of horses, upon treatment of oedipal issues his phobia was also treated.
• Hetherington (1921) reported that the absense of the father before the age of 4 tends to make boys less masculine and females more awkward in later interactions with men.
• Hyman reported that 22 of 31 female manic-depressive patients were diagnosed as suffering with an unresolved electra complex, with 12 of the 22 having regressed to an earlier stage of psychosexual development. This provides some support for the theory.
• Wiszewska et al asked female ppts to rate the attractiveness of pictures of different kinds of men and to asses the quality of their relationships with their fathers.They found that women who had been well treated by and had close relationships with their fathers as children were attracted to men who resembled their fathers physically. This supports Freud's idea of the electra complex where girls' desires become centered on their fathers.
• Hoeffer compared children raised in homosexual and heterosexual single mother households and found normal levels of heterosexual development in both groups.
• Further studies have led to the conclusion that rearing in a lesbian household as such did not lead to atypical psychosexual development or constitute a psychiatric risk factor
• Little Hans study is criticised for being subjectively interpreted due to the boy's father being an avid supporter of Freud - even if Hans did have an Oedipus complex it does not prove it is universal to all individuals.