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Chapter Two. Theoretical Perspectives. Theoretical Perspectives.
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Chapter Two Theoretical Perspectives
Theoretical Perspectives • “[Girls] notice the penis of a brother or playmate, strikingly visible and of large proportions, at once recognize it as the superior counterpart of their own small and inconspicuous organ, and from that time forward fall a victim to envy for the penis.” • Sigmund Freud
Psychoanalytic Theory • Psychoanalytic theory: a psychological theory originated by Freud; its basic assumption is that part of the human psyche is unconscious. • Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) • Humans are dominated by 2 basic instincts • Libido: sex drive or life force • Thanatos: death force
Psychoanalytic Theory (cont’d.) • Libido is focused on the erogenous zones • Erogenous zones: areas of the body that are particularly sensitive to sexual stimulation • Each zone is a part of the skin or mucous membrane highly endowed with blood supply and nerve endings, make it very sensitive to stimulation. • Examples: lips/mouth, anal region, genitals
Psychoanalytic Theory:Stages of Development • One of Freud’s greatest contributions was to promote the view of human personality as being the result of development • Stage theory of psychosexual development • Stages characterized by focus on an erogenous zone • Stage 1: Oral • Infant derives pleasure from sucking, eating; experiences world through mouth • Stage 2: Anal • Toddler derives pleasure from defecating
Psychoanalytic Theory: Stages of Development(cont’d.) • Stage 3: Phallic • Ages 3-6; pleasure zone is the genitals; sexual feelings arise toward the parent of the other gender • Oedipal Complex • Named for the Greek myth of Oedipus • Boy develops sexual desire for his mother, but sees that father, who is his rival, is so powerful that he might castrate his own son (boy feels castration anxiety) in retaliation • By repressing his sexual desire for mother, the boy identifies with his father, and therefore introjects the values and ethics of society (as represented by father), developing a conscience or superego
Psychoanalytic Theory: Stages of Development(cont’d.) • Stage 3: Phallic (continued) • For a girl, the phallic stage is considerably different, beginning with the realization that she has no penis • Recognizing that the penis is superior to her clitoris, she feels envious of males and develops penis envy • She also feels mutilating, believing that she had a penis at one time, but that it was cut off • Electra complex • Holding her mother responsible for her castration, a girl develops an intense sexual attraction for and desire to be impregnated by her father • Desire to impregnated by father develops into maternal urges
Psychoanalytic Theory • Passivity, Masochism, and Narcissism • Freud believed there are 3 key female personality traits: • Passivity: desire to be impregnated, • Masochism: the desire to experience pain, as in being “penetrated” and through childbirth • Narcissism
Psychoanalytic Theory (cont’d.) • Immature Superego • The girl is not motivated to resolve the Electra complex (she’s already castrated), so she never develops a fully mature superego and her moral development is inadequate • Thus, she maintains lifelong feelings of inferiority, a predisposition to jealousy, and intense maternal desires • Freud (1948): “Their [girls’] superego is never so inexorable, so impersonal, so independent of its emotional origins as we require it to be in men.”
Criticisms of Psychoanalytic Theory • Concepts cannot be evaluated scientifically to determine accuracy (how do we measure the unconscious?) • Freud derived his ideas from work with patients who sought therapy; he theory describes disturbed, not normal, behavior • Freud overemphasized biological determinants of human behavior in seeing origins of gender differences as rooted in anatomical differences • Freud’s views are phallocentric (male centered, penis centered), assuming that the vagina and clitoris are inferior to the penis • Do little girls instantly recognize the superiority of the penis? • Phallocentric theory is an example of a male-as-normative, androcentric model in psychology
Freudian theory articulates boys’ childish views of girls Importance of penis envy was overstated, that the critical factor was actually womb envy, male’s envy of woman’s uterus and reproductive capacity Male achievement represents overcompensation for feelings of anatomical inferiority Emphasized cultural and social influences and human growth Variations on a Freudian Theme: Karen Horney (1885-1952)
The Psychology of Women (1944) Extended Freud’s theory to later development, focusing on motherhood Focused on “feminine core” of personality, including narcissism, masochism, passivity, instinct, and intuition Masculinity complex: some women’s failure to adjust, seen in aggression, active masculine tendencies Variations on a Freudian Theme: Helene Deutsch (1884-1982)
Youngest of Sigmund Freud’s children, but only child to continue father’s work Enormous impact on field of psychoanalysis: founding child psychoanalysis and play therapy Founded a school for orphaned children during WWII, studying their behavior Variations on a Freudian Theme: Anna Freud (1895-1982)
Variations on a Freudian Theme: Nancy Chodorow • The Reproduction of Mothering (1978) • Childcare done by women produces vastly different experiences for daughters than for sons; daughters want to mother, sons devalue and dominate women • The early, intensely close relationship with the mother affects the sense of self and attitudes toward women: expect women to be caring, self-sacrificing • Girl sees similarity to mother, defines self in relational terms, but boys define masculinity as non-femininity, and thus devalue women • Mothering perpetuates itself and the gendered division of labor
Chodorow’s work integrates feminism Feminist reconstruction of Freudian theory: penis envy stems from the fact that the penis symbolizes the power men have in our society Prescription for social change to eliminate inequities for women: men must participate equally in childcare to break cycle of female devaluation Variations on a Freudian Theme: Nancy Chodorow (cont’d.)
Variations on a Freudian Theme: Nancy Chodorow (cont’d.) • Testing Chodorow’s Theory • Mother-daughter pairs are physically and psychologically closer than mother-son pairs • Criticisms of Chodorow’s Theory • Heterosexist bias: no attempt to understand lesbian development • Ignores influences of race and social class • Like Freud, Chodorow’s evidence stems from observations of clinical population
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology • Sociobiology: application of evolutionary theory to explaining the social behavior of animals, including people. • Initially proposed by E.O. Wilson (1975) • E.g., how does evolution shape maternal behavior? • Review evolution by natural selection…
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology (cont’d.) • Evolution by Natural Selection • First proposed by Charles Darwin (1881) • The process by which the fittest animals survive, reproduce, and pass their genes on to the next generation, whereas animals that are less fit do not reproduce and therefore do not pass on their genes • Fitness: animal’s relative contribution of genes to the next generation • Central theorem of sociobiology: When a social behavior is genetically influenced, the animal should behavior so as to maximize fitness.
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology(cont’d.) • Parental investment: behaviors or other investments in the offspring by the parent that increase the offspring’s chance of survival • Importance to psychology of women: • Females invest egg, pregnancy, nursing... • But males must invest only sperm • Parent with greater investment should care for young—quality, not quantity • Other parent should try to produce as many offspring as possible—quantity, not quality
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology (cont’d.) • Why do women do the childcare? • Greater parental investment • Maternity is always certain, paternity is not • Exception to pattern of maternal care: • Songbirds: equal participation in care of young; monogamous mating system makes paternity certain
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology (cont’d.) • Explaining female orgasm… • Babies are born helpless, dependent, in need of care • Monogamous mating systems are adaptive • Female orgasm evolved to keep the parents together • Explaining the double standard… • Tolerance of male promiscuity and disapproval of female promiscuity is adaptive, given the gender differences in parental investment
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology (cont’d.) • Sexual selection: process by which members of one gender (usually males) compete with each other for mating privileges with members of the other gender (usually females), and members of the other gender (females) choose to mate only with certain preferred members of the first gender (males)
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology(cont’d.) • Evolutionary psychology (Buss, 1995) • Humans’ complex psychological mechanisms are the result of evolution based on natural selection • Sexual strategies theory: women and men had different short- and long-term mating strategies • It is to men’s evolutionary advantage to inseminate many women, so they invest in short-term mating (especially because they can’t be certain of paternity), preferring younger women who are at peak fertility • Because women have greater parental investment, they put energy into long-term mating strategies to ensure a man’s commitment to provide for family, preferring men who possess resources
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology(cont’d.) • Feminist criticisms • Biology is often a convenient rationalization for perpetuating the status quo • E.g., sexual selection makes men genetically dominant and women genetically subordinate • Sociobiologists view data from an androcentric perspective, only discussing data that support their androcentric theories • E.g., female chimpanzees are promiscuous, not at all choosy
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology(cont’d.) • Feminist criticisms • Sociobiology rests on an outmoded version of evolutionary theory that modern biologists consider naïve • E.g., focus on individual survival rather than group and species survival • Many studies contradicting evolutionary psychology are beginning to emerge • E.g., waist-to-hip ratio research is not as conclusive as once thought
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology(cont’d.) • Feminist criticisms • Eagly & Wood (1999) re-analyzed Buss’s cross-cultural data and proposed an alternative to his sexual strategies theory • Social-structural theory: a theory of the origin of psychological gender differences that focuses on the social structure, particularly the division of labor between men and women
Sociobiology & Evolutionary Psychology(cont’d.) • Feminist sociobiology? • Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (1999) • Women have evolved to care for their children and ensure their survival, but in reality these evolved tendencies are miles away from romanticized Victorian notions of self-sacrificing motherhood. • E.g., all female primates combine work and family: they must be ambitious, successful foragers
Social Learning Theory • Principles of operant conditioning explain the acquisition of gender roles
Social Learning Theory (cont’d.) • The mechanisms of social learning theory: • Reinforcement: something that occurs after a behavior and makes the behavior more likely to occur in the future • Imitation: when people do what they see others doing; we imitate same-gender adults more than other-gender adults • Observational learning: when a person observes someone doing something, and then does it at a later time;
Social Learning Theory (cont’d.) • Evidence for social learning theory: • Effectiveness of imitation and reinforcements in shaping children’s behavior, in particular gender-typed behaviors such as aggression • Bandura (1965) found boys to be more aggressive than girls • gender differences disappeared when children were offered reinforcements for being aggressive
Social Learning Theory (cont’d.) • Cognitive social learning theory adds an emphasis on cognitive processes • Attention: process focuses on relevant behaviors; e.g., pay more attention to same-gender models • Self-regulation: monitor own behavior and regulate it according to gender norms • Self-efficacy: belief in ability to accomplish a particular task, plays a role in maintaining gender-typed behaviors
Cognitive-Developmental Theory • Piaget & Inhelder: children have different cognitive organization from adults • Gender identity: individual’s knowledge that she or he is a female or male; develops ~18-24 mos • Gender constancy: child’s understanding that gender is a permanent, unchanging characteristic of the self; develops ~5-7 yrs; crucial for adoption of gender roles • Gender-role learning as one aspect of cognitive development • Children self-socialize based on gender constancy
Cognitive-Developmental Theory (cont’d.) • Evaluation of theory • Children who have acquired gender constancy imitate same-gender models • Preschoolers who have acquired gender constancy are more stereotyped in their views of adult occupations than are preschoolers who do not have gender constancy • But, children’s gender-typed interests appear before gender constancy (~ 2-3 yrs)
Cognitive-Developmental Theory: Kohlberg on Moral Development • Kohlberg presented this dilemma: • In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging 10 times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug.
Cognitive-Developmental Theory:Kohlberg on Moral Development(cont’d.) The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But he druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Heinz gets desperate and considers breaking into the man’s store to steal the drug for is wife. Should Heinz steal the drug? Why?
Cognitive-Developmental Theory:Kohlberg on Moral Development(cont’d.) • The important part isn’t whether Heinz should steal, but rather why. • Kohlberg concluded that people go through a series of three levels (each divided into 2 stages) in their moral reasoning as they mature: • Preconventional: rewards vs. punishments • Conventional: obey rules rigidly • Postconventional: internalized ethical principles • Most adults don’t reach level III: males reach stage 4, but females only reach stage 3
Cognitive-Developmental Theory:Gilligan • Gilligan (1982) provided a feminist critique of Kohlberg’s work on moral development • Main character is a man—girls and women may have trouble identifying with him • Kohlberg’s sample was all male • Female deficit interpretation that women are deficient by only reaching stage 3; maybe theory is deficient instead. • Gilligan provided feminist reformulation
Cognitive-Developmental Theory:Gilligan(cont’d.) • Gilligan said that males and females reason differently about moral dilemmas • Males use a justice perspective: an approach to moral reasoning that emphasizes fairness and the rights of the individual • Females use a care perspective: an approach to moral reasoning that emphasizes relationships between people and caring for others and the self
Cognitive-Developmental Theory:Gilligan(cont’d.) • Evidence for Gilligan’s reformulation? • Although it is an example of new feminist scholarship, including women’s perspectives, evidence suggests that the gender differences are small • Men use a justice perspective slightly more • Women use a care perspective slightly more • Most people use a combination of both perspectives in moral reasoning
Gender Schema Theory • A father and his son were involved in a car accident in which the father was killed and the son was seriously injured. The father was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident and his body was taken to a local mortuary. The son was taken by ambulance to a hospital and was immediately wheeled into an operating room. A surgeon was called. Upon seeing the patient, the attending surgeon exclaimed, “Oh my God, it’s my son!” • Can you explain this?
Gender Schema Theory (cont’d.) • The surgeon is the boy’s mother • Difficult to figure out because of our gender schemas • A schema is a general knowledge framework that a person has about a particular topic; it processes, organizes new information on topic • Our perception and memory of information are a result of an interaction of incoming information with our preexisting schema
Gender Schema Theory (cont’d.) • Thus, a gender schema (Bem, 1981) is a person’s general knowledge framework about gender; it processes and organizes information on the basis of gender-linked associations
Gender Schema Theory (cont’d.) • Gender schemas are closely linked to our self-concept • A girl’s self-esteem is dependent on how well she measures up to her girl schema • Different individuals have, to some extent, different gender schemas • The gender schema is more central to self-concept for some people—those who are highly gender-typed
