Psychodynamic Explanation of Gender Development

Question 0

Describe a gender study for this approach

Answer 0

Aim – to demonstrate the existence of the Oedipus complex

Method – Hans was the son of Freud’s friend. Hans had developed phobia of horses. Freud asked the father to write and tell him about his son’s development so that he could interpret it in term of his psychoanalytic theory

Results – Correspondence showed that Hans was particularly afraid of large white horses with black blinker and black around his mouth, which associated with his father’s appearances as he wore glasses, had beard. He was terrified to leave the house and believed that the horse might either bite him or fall down on him

Conclusion – Freud described Hans’s outward expression of his unconscious castration anxiety – his fear of horses was really a displaced fear of his father. The fear of the horse falling was his unconscious desire to see his own father drop down dead

Question 1

Describe the psychodynamic explanation of gender development

Answer 1

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory:
Oedipus/electra complex
Identification

Question 2

Evaluate the psychodynamic explanation of gender development

Answer 2

Hans phobia may be better explained through classical conditioning
 Studies have shown that children living in such atypical households show traditional gender awareness well before the age 4-5
 Little or no empirical evidence to support this theory
 Childhood sexuality Is controversial
 Accused of not giving adequate account of females gender development – evidence are too subjective

 Biological – unconscious mind cannot be tested
 SLT – not just parents influence gender
 Cognitive – children have gender identity before 5
 Strict father do not have more masculine sons
 Boy disciplined by uncles still develop normally
 Unscientific – too subjective
- Difficult to generalise
- Lacks reliable evidence
- Not objective enough