Psychosexual stages Flashcards
(25 cards)
What are the psychosexual stages
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latent
Genital
What are the divisions of the oral stage?
Passive
Aggressive
Describe the Oral stage
Age: 0 -12 months
Focus of libido: Mouth
Focus on pleasure is the mouth, mother’s breast is the object of desire.
What effect does oral fixation have on adult behaviour?
Smoking
biting nails
sarcastic
critical
What are the divisions of the anal stage?
Expulsive
Retentive
Describe the Anal stage
Age: 1-3 yrs
Focus of libido: Anus
Focus of pleasure is the anus child gains pleasure from withholding and expelling faeces
What effect does the anal stage have on adult behaviour?
Anal expulsive - thoughtless and messy
Anal-retentive - obsessive and perfectionist
What are the divisions of the phallic stage?
Oedipus or Electra complex
Describe the phallic stage?
Age: 3-5 yrs
Focus of libido: Genital
Focus of pleasure is the genital area
Child experience the Oedipus or Electra complex
What effect does phallic fixation have on adult behaviour?
Phallic personality – narcissistic, reckless, homosexual
Describe the latent stage?
Age: 6-12 yrs
No focus
Earlier conflicts are repressed
Describe the genital stage?
Age: 12+ yrs
Focus of libido: genitals
Sexual desires become conscious alongside the onset of puberty
What effect did the genital stage have an adult behaviour?
difficulty forming heterosexual relationships
What is libido?
Sexual mental energy that motivates behaviour feelings and thoughts
What is gratification?
Specific satisfaction or pleasure required at each stage
What is fixation?
When some children get stuck at a particular stage and this has consequences for their adult personality/behaviour
what is the oedipal complex
- boy developed sexual desire for his mother
- becomes jealous of his father and feared that his dad will castrate him
- Boys in the state of conflict and deals with this by identifying with his father
- boy substitute the desire for his mother with a desire for other women
what is the electra complex?
- girl realisation, she has no penis and blames her mother for this (penis envy)
- girl develop sexual desire for her father and becomes jealous of her mother
- Girl realise that she can’t have a penis or her father and deals with this by identifying with her mother
- Girl substitute her desire for a penis with a desire for a baby and substitute the desire for her father whether it is for other men
What is the latent stage
At the age of about six children enter the latent stage. The libido is displaced throughout the body and it seems that this is a relatively calm time in development with no complexes to resolve or focus for pleasure in the body
- the child essentially concentrates on being a child and develops social relationships
What is the genital stage
libido once again is focused in the genitals at this stage, and that is where it stays for the rest of the life.
Everyone reaches this stage and from here the child becomes an adult.
It is the fixations in the first three stages that have an enduring effect on the adult personality.
What is a strength of the psychosexual stages
Contributed to society
what are limitations of the psycosexual stages?
Gender bias
Difficult to scientifically test
Evaluate contribution to society as a strength of the psychosexual stages
P: Made a contribution to society.
E: This is because it has drawn attention to the possible long-term effects of traumatic events in childhood such as child abuse and parental separation.
E: This is a strength because it has contributed to the well-being of people.
Evaluate gender bias as a limitation of the psychosexual stages
P: Gender biased.
E: The theory focused almost entirely on male development with little mention of female psychosexual development.
E: Limitation because it is a gender biased theory and may not apply to females. The theory can therefore be argued to be an example of androcentrism
