Chapter 2 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
Libido is focused on the erogenous zones
Erogenous zones: areas of the body that are particularly sensitive to sexual stimulation
Stages of Development
One of Freud’s greatest contributions was to promote the view of human personality as being the result of
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
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
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
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
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; his 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
Phallocentric theory is an example of a male-as-normative, androcentric model in psychology
Variations on a Freudian Theme: Karen Horney (1885-1952)
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: Helene Deutsch (1884-1982)
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: Anna Freud (1895-1982)
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: 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
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…
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
Central theorem of sociobiology: When a social behavior is genetically influenced, the animal
should behave so as to maximize fitness.
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
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
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
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)
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
Feminist criticisms
Biology is often a convenient rationalization for perpetuating the status quo
Sociobiologists view data from an androcentric perspective, only discussing data that support their
androcentric theories
Sociobiology rests on an outmoded version of evolutionary theory that modern biologists consider
naïve
Many studies contradicting evolutionary psychology are beginning to emerge
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
Social Learning Theory
Principles of operant conditioning explain the acquisition of gender roles
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;
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
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
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)
Gender Schema Theory
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?
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
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 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
Evidence for gender schema theory
5- and 6-year olds tend to remember the picture on the left but distort the picture on the right so it’s
stereotype-consistent
Feminist Theories
Gender as status and power
Gender is a class variable in our society; males and females are unequal in status
Sexism is pervasive, existing in political, academic, economic, and interpersonal spheres
Men have greater power than women
The personal is political: personal, individual experiences are manifestations of larger political
issues
Sexuality
A central issue for feminism because women’s sexuality has been repressed and depressed, but
rarely expressed
Women’s sexuality is controlled by men
Gender roles and socialization
American society has well-defined roles for males and for females; such roles are constricting to
individuals
External vs. internal attributions of problems
Feminists view the sources of women’s problems as being external
Consciousness raising
Major technique of analysis, structure of organization, method of practice, and theory of social
change of the women’s movement (MacKinnon, 1982)
Focus on seeing personal experiences in larger political context
Varieties of feminism:
Liberal feminism: women should have the opportunities and rights equal to those of men; work to
reform current system
Cultural feminism: women have special, unique qualities that differentiate them from men; our
patriarchal society devalues those qualities
Marxist feminism: oppression of women is just one instance of oppression based on class, rooted in
capitalism
Radical feminism: patriarchal values have saturated society to such an extent that radical changes
are needed, such as female-only space safe from oppression
Postmodern feminism: questions rationality and objectivity as methods for getting at truth;
advocates social constructionist epistemology
Gender, race/ethnicity, and class
Gender cannot be understood as a social variable in isolation; it can be understood only in the
context of race and social class as well
Social construction of gender
Social constructionism: theoretical viewpoint that humans do not discover reality directly; rather,
they construct meanings for events in the environment based on own prior experiences and beliefs
Attitudes toward feminism
21% of women think of selves as feminists
75% of women think feminism improved lives
Humanism Research/Application
Although humanistic psychologists sometimes do not focus empirical research, research on
topics introduced or promoted by these psychologists has provided insight into some important
aspects of humanistic personality theory.
Research on self-disclosure finds that people follow social rules concerning when and how to
reveal information about themselves
Self disclosure: act of revealing intimate information about oneself to another person.
The rule of Disclosure Reciprocity: matching a conversation partner’s self-disclosing intimacy
level. 2 people getting acquainted in conversation are likely to reveal information about
themselves at roughly the same level of intimacy. Friends who have already shared intimate
information in a reciprocal manner do not always return to this pattern.
Self-disclosure: allows people to better understand themselves; allows people to grow
emotionally and move toward self-actualization
Studies with couples in long-term romantic relationships find that self-disclosure in a marriage
is a reliable predictor of marital satisfaction.
Other studies find men and women are restricted in what they disclose by what society deems
appropriate—gender appropriate. Females tend to self-disclose more than males.
Holding traumatic secrets inside may take its toll on a person’s health. . There are health
benefits of disclosing traumatic information.
Loneliness is not the same as isolation. Researchers define loneliness as a discrepancy
between the amount and quality of social contact we desire and the amount and quality we
receive.
How well the amount and quality of our relationships with others satisfies our personal
needs—defines loneliness.
Unpleasant feelings brought about by a perceived
discrepancy between desired and achieved social interaction.
Although loneliness is influenced by social situations, people tend to suffer from loneliness at a
fairly stable level. Lonely people appear to show little interest in getting to know others.
May lack social skills, and thus have difficulty developing relationships
Research suggests that the majority of college students experience loneliness on occasion
Research on chronically lonely people indicates they approach conversations with negative
expectations and lack some basic social skills. Because of this tendency, they inadvertently
stifle social interactions and discourage potential friends.
Contrast loneliness with isolation
High and low self-esteem people react differently to failure. Low self-esteem people become
discouraged and unmotivated when they receive negative feedback, whereas high self-esteem
people employ tactics to blunt the effects of failure.
high self-esteem people often motivated by a concern for self-enhancement;
low self-esteem people are often more concerned about self-protection.
People differ in the extent to which feeling of self-worth fluctuates---this individual difference is
self-esteem stability.
Recent research indicates that notions about the self and self-esteem taken from individualistic
cultures may not apply to collectivist cultures.
Maslow observed that virtually all of his psychologically healthy people reported a high
preference for solitude. Subsequent research finds that most people spend a large percentage of
their time in solitude. Although people typically find this time unpleasant, others seek out and
enjoy their time alone. Researchers find that people differ in the extent to which they prefer
solitude. People with a high preference for solitude enjoy their time alone but also enjoy time
spent with others.
disclosure reciprocity
Matching a conversation partner's self-disclosing intimacy level.
loneliness
Unpleasant feelings brought about by a perceived discrepancy between
desired and achieved social interaction.
preference for
solitude
The extent to which people seek out and enjoy time alone.
self-disclosure
The act of revealing intimate information about oneself to another person.
self-esteem
Evaluation of one's self-concept, usually measured in terms of a relatively
stable and global assessment of how a person feels about himself or herself.
self-esteem stability
The extent to which an individual's feelings of self-worth fluctuate.
THEORIES OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Schaffer
THE NATURE OF SCIENTIFIC THEORIES
Theory – set of concepts and propositions that describe and explain observations
Parsimonious: concise
Falsifiable: capable of making specific predictions which can be disconfirmed
Heuristic: build on existing knowledge by generating testable hypotheses
THE PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEWPOINT
Freud’s Psychosexual Theory
Unconscious motives are repressed
Development is a conflictual process
Sexual and aggressive instincts that must be served, yet society dictates restraint
Three Components of Personality
Id: satisfy inborn biological instincts, now
Ego: conscious, rational, finds a realistic means of satisfying instincts
Superego: seat of the conscience, develops between ages 3-6 as morals of parents
are internalized
Stages of Psychosexual Development
Sex instinct, broadly defined, was most important
Focus of sex instinct shifts during development
Shifts = stages
Contributions
Unconscious motivation
Impact of early experiences
Emotional side of development
Criticisms
Little evidence that oral, anal, and genital conflicts predict adult personality
Difficulty falsifying or confirming main propositions
THE PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEWPOINT
Erickson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development
Comparing Erickson with Freud
Children are active explorers, not passive slaves to biological urges
Emphasis on social and cultural influences, less on sexual urges
Eight Life Crises (Psychosocial Stages)
Emerge at a time dictated by biological maturation and social demands
Must be resolved successfully for satisfactory resolution at next stage
Extend throughout life
Contributions
Stresses rational, adaptive nature
Emphasizes social conflicts that we can anticipate and observe in others
Criticisms
Vague about causes of development
Descriptive, not explanatory
THE PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEWPOINT
Psychoanalytic Theory Beyond Freud and Erickson
Horney – founder of psychology of women
Adler – siblings are important contributors to social and personality development
Sullivan – close, same-sex friendships during middle childhood set stage for intimate love
relationships later in life
THE LEARNING VIEWPOINT
Bandura’s Cognitive Social Learning Theory
People are active information processors
Observational learning – observing models
Rejects Watson’s environmental determinism – passive recipients
Proposed reciprocal determinism – interaction between person, behavior, and the
environment (bidirectional links)
Bandura’s classic “Bobo Doll” Study
Demonstrated importance of observational learning
Demonstrated no-trial learning
Distinguished learning from performance
Contributions of Learning Theories
Wealth of information
Very precise and testable
Clinical insights and practical applications
Behavior modification
Criticisms of Learning Theories
Oversimplified, ignores contribution of biological influences
Children must be studied in their natural settings to understand how environments
influence development
Too little attention on cognitive influences on development
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL VIEWPOINT
Piaget’s View of Intelligence
Intelligence: a process that helps an organism adapt to its environment
Scheme: organized pattern of thought or action used to cope with or explain experience
Children actively construct understandings of the world through experience.
Assimilation: interpretation of new experiences in terms of existing schemes
Disequilibrium: contradictions between understanding and facts
Accommodation: alter existing schemes to account for new experiences
Four Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor (0-2)
Preoperational (2-7)
Concrete-operational (7-11/12)
Formal operational (11/12 – beyond)
Invariant developmental sequence
Piaget’s Viewpoint
Contributions
Legitimized study of children’s thinking
Contributed to new area of social cognition
Strong impact on education
Discovery based learning
Criticisms
Underestimated young children’s intellectual capacities
Training can improve performance on tasks, challenging the assumption that
individualized discovery learning is best.
Sociocultural Influences: Vygotsky’s viewpoint
How is culture transmitted from generation to generation?
Cognitive growth is a socially mediated activity.
Not all children progress through same stages of cognitive growth, some are culturally
specific.
The Information-Processing Viewpoint
The mind is like a computer; information flows in, is operated on, and is converted to
output (answers etc.).
Cognitive development
Changes in brain and mental processes
Due to both maturation and experience
Is continuous, NOT stagelike
Contributions
Insights on growth of cognitive abilities
Filled gaps in Piaget’s theory
Know how children approach problems
Know why they make errors
Can suggest strategies to improve performance
Criticisms
May not reflect thinking in everyday life
Computer model may underestimate the richness/diversity of cognition
Both are being addressed by researchers
THE ETHOLOGICAL AND
EVOLUTIONARY VIEWPOINTS
Ethology: scientific study of evolutionary basis of behavior and the contributions of evolved
responses to survival and development
Assumptions of Classical Ethology:
Born with biologically programmed behaviors (through natural selection)
Products of evolution
Adaptive to survival
Focus on instinctual responses that
All members of species share
May steer individuals along similar developmental paths
Study subjects in natural environment
Ethology and Human Development
Crying (for example)
Ensures infant’s basic needs are met
Ensures sufficient contact to form primary emotional attachments
Critical periods: limited time span when organisms are biologically prepared to display
adaptive patterns of development, given right input
Sensitive periods:
Optimal time for emergence of behaviors
Particularly sensitive to environmental influences
Development can occur outside a sensitive period, but is more difficult
Modern Evolutionary Theory
Adaptive motives and behaviors ensure survival and spread of an individual’s genes
Individual can die if family member survives, as they carry his or her genes
Contributions
Children have adaptive, genetically preprogrammed characteristics that influence
development.
Value of studying human development in normal, everyday settings
Value of comparing human development with that of other species
Criticisms
Difficult to test
Learning tends to modify most biological predispositions
Bronfenbrenner – ecological systems theory: a detailed analysis of environmental influences
Contexts for Development
Natural environments are the major source of influence for development.
Environment is a set of nested structures.
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of the environment as a series of nested structures. The
microsystem refers to relations between the child and the immediate environment, the mesosystem
to connections among the child’s immediate settings, the exosystem to social settings that affect
but do not contain the child, and the macrosystem to the overarching ideology of the culture
Bronfenbrenner’s Contexts for Development
Microsystem: activities/interactions in the immediate surroundings
Mesosystem: connections between microsystems (homes, schools, etc.)
Exosystem: contexts children are not a part of but which may influence development
Macrosystem: cultural, subcultural, or social class context in which other systems are
imbedded
Chronosystem: changes in the child or any of the other systems can affect the direction of
development
Contributions
Rich description of environment
Need to study development in natural settings
Criticisms
Little on specific biological contributors
Lack of focus on normative development
THEMES IN THE STUDY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
The Nature/Nurture Theme
Biological versus environmental forces
Both interact to produce change
The Active/Passive Theme
Children are active, determining how society treats them
Children are passive, being molded by society
The Continuity/Discontinuity Theme
Change occurs gradually and continuously or with abrupt changes or stages
(discontinuous)
Quantitative or qualitative changes
Quantitative: change in degree or amount
qualitative: changes in form or kind
The Holistic Nature of Development Issue
Are the different aspects of development separate, or are they interrelated and influence
each other?