Download Chapter 11: Male-Female Differences The Psychoanalytic Approach

Chapter 11: Male-Female Differences
The Psychoanalytic Approach:
Freud:
1. Boys - To deal with this overwhelming [castration] anxiety, the boy identifies with his
father, thereby taking on his father's personality traits, while additionally being able to
possess his mother vicariously through his father's experience. This resolution f the
Oedipus crisis results in boys incorporating “male” characteristics into their own
personalities, including paternal ethics and values...
2. Girls - unconsciously replaces her desire for a penis with the desire for a child.
The Neo-Analytic Approach:
Neil Erikson – Physical construction of the genitalia
1. Describe male traits corresponding to their external, outwardly extended genitals
2. Describe female traits coinciding with the internal nature of female genitals
Carl Jung – Androgyny (Male archetype – Animus vs. Female archetype - Anima)
Know the differences between Masculine vs. Feminine personality characteristics
Evolutionary Approach:
Male – Evolutionary imperative for men to have as many sexual contact as possible in order to
perpetuate their genes. Making men more sexually promiscuous than women.
Female – Must be more selective in their mating practices to avoid wasting their very limited
reproductive opportunities on pregnancies involving unfit sperm. (9 months of pregnancy then years of
raising the child)
Behaviorist Approach:
Gender-typed personality characteristics are attained through the same processes by which other
behaviors are learned: reinforcement (operant learning), modeling, conditioning, generalization,
vicarious learning, and other such learning processes – Primary sources of modeling and reinforcement:
parents (other powerful models: peers, teachers, and mass media)
Cognitive Approach:
Gender Schema Theory & Gender Schemas & Gender Typed
Trait Approach:
Sandra Bem: Bem Sex Role Inventory
1. Feminine – that is, high in endorsement of feminine characteristics
2. Masculine – endorsing masculine characters more
3. Androgynous – high in both masculine and feminine traits
4. Undifferentiated – low in both categories
Aggression and Dominance – the impact of higher levels of the personality trait of aggression in
young males has powerful consequences for their survival.
Emotionality – it is often argued that there is not a sex differences in emotionality, but rather a
sex difference in the display of emotion. In terms of emotional sensitivity, girls and women are
generally more influenced by the emotions of others.
Achievement Motivation – women were not as motivated to achieve as men according to
performance measured by TAT
Humanistic Approach:
Abraham Maslow's: personality theory minimized the importance of masculine and feminie
personality traits, highlighting instead the importance of self-actualization.
Interactionist Approach:
Male – Instrumental Behavior
Female – Expressive Behavior
Alice Eagly: Social Roles Theory & Gender roles
Chapter 12: Stress, Adjustment, and Health Differences
Psychosomatic Medicine: Know the classic example of Agnes
Unhealthy behaviors in turn significantly increase the risk of health problems and premature
death – 2 sets of reasons
1. People with problems in emotional regulation may seek the stimulating or tranquilizing
effects of cigarettes, alcohol, illicit drugs, and even junk food in an attempt to change
their physiologically based moods
2. Certain social factors tend to encourage unhealthy behaviors
Type T Theory
Sick Role: B.F Skinner would predict, escaping from stressful situations by becoming “sick” is
rewarding ie. Sick pay, days off, sympathy, and car.
Somatopsychic Effect:
Interactionist Approach:
Diathesis-Stress Model: ie. Bipolar disorder, the Diathesis-Stress Model predicts that the
illness will manifest itself in those individuals whose genetic makeup predisposes them to bipolar
disorder when they experience highly stressful life events.
Borderline Personality Disorder
Personality Disorder: Sometime grouped into 3 clusters, based on whether suspiciousness,
emotionality, or anxiety is the main problem.
1. Paranoid, Schizoid, Schizotypal, Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, Narcissistic,
Avoidant, Dependent, Obsessive-Compulsive
Notes – Medical investigators often think they are asking the question, “Why do people become sick?”
but they are really often studying “Who becomes sick?”
Ray Rosenman and Meyer Friedman: Type A Behavior Pattern/Type A Personality
Lewis Terman – Know about the Human Termite (Conscientiousness, Sociability, Cheerfulness
Conscientiousness, Stressed)
Blaming the Victim:
1. Most of us have some concrete concerns about our own health and mortality
2. We tend to blame people for their own disease has to do with our desire for a predictale
world
Self-Healing Personality:
1. Executives' feeling of control was a significant factor in terms of health
2. Executives who remained healthy was their commitment to something they felt was
important and meaningful
3. Executives who remained healthy were those who responded to life with excitement and
energy
Humanistic and Existential Aspects on Understanding Self-Healing:
Broaden-and-Build Model
Sense of Coherence
Salutogensis
Note – Refer to Table 12.1 (pg. 405)
Chapter 13: Culture, Religion, and Ethnicity: Processes and Differences
Influenced by our environment: parents, family, peers, teachers, medias
Emic Approach vs. Etic Approach
Collectivist vs. Individualistic
Margaret Mead:
1. In some cultures adolescence experience a smoother transition into adulthood. Of course, all
teenagers everywhere undergo the hormonal changes of puberty. But the effects of the biological
(hormonal) changes can vary dramatically as a function of society's response.
The American Dilemma: How could there be a country in which all men are created equal but many
were slaves?
Religion: Religion can be a key aspect of individual identity ie. If a devoutly Christian member of the
college football team is the butt of a classmate's derogatory comment, will her respond by “turning the
other cheek” as instructed by his religion, or will he respond in a kind with a put-down of the offender
(or even a physical retaliation) to maintain his macho image and not be seen as a wimp?
Socioeconomic Influences:
1. SES Gradient
2. Socioeconomic Status [SES]
3. Karl Marx: psychosocial attributes such as alienation and selfishness could be traced
directly to the economic structure of a capitalist society.
4. Erich Fromm: believed that societies could be created that promoted self-fulfillment
through an emphasis on community, love, and mutuality
Language:
Idiolects vs. Dialects
1. As noted, the issue of identity is central, with language functioning as an expression of cultural
solidarity. But language also functions as an influence on how people communicate and, to
some extent, as an expression of the worldview of their culture
2. Our language influences not only how we say things, but even how we think about and
understand and perceive the world
3. If one grows up speaking two languages (as many people do), then certain thoughts and
behavior patterns are learned in, and triggered by, a certain linguistic-cultural context
4. Each language community enforces norms of politeness that are reflective of its view on proper
conversational interaction
Cultures
Culture-Free vs. Culture-Fair Test
1. Jane Mercer: System of Multicultural Pluralistic Assessment (SOMPA)
2. Gordan Allport: proposed a mix of societal, economic, historical, and communication
factors as complementary to internal personality dynamics
3. Kurt Lewin: tried to understand complex applied situations such as behavior in
restaurants, leadership in groups, and people's motivations and aspiration. He knew that
personality was not located solely inside a person but also depended on the social and
cultural environment
Stereotype Threat: ie. “Women taking an advanced math test may become anxious and do poorly if
they believe that “women don't do as well as men on advanced math”
Note – Ideas of personality and predictable behavior are meaningless outside of a framework – a
cultural context – in which they are to be understood
Note – Refer to Table 13.1 (pg. 435)
Chapter 14: Love and Hate
Biological View:
1. Hate – According to Konrad Lorenz and Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt characterized
aggression as the product of adaptive evolutionary process... hatred is innate because
aggression was adaptive in the evolution of our species.
2. Love – Produce offspring that will grow and reproduce, two basic elements must
immediately come into play
1. Characteristics that ensure that a healthy offspring is born
2. Characteristics that ensure that the helpless child will survive (to reproductive age)
Psychoanalytic View:
1. Hate – Frued: postulated the existence of an aggressive instinct or drive—that all people
have a death instinct: Thanatos is the drive toward death and self-destructive
behavior.... self-destructive behavior is, however, a sign of psychopathology in mondern
society.
2. Love – According to Freud: love is a result of the fact that one's sexual partner is
responsible for sexual satisfaction
1. Melanie Klein and the object relations theorist avoid Freud's use of Oedipal stage to
explain the transfer of affection to the parents of same sex. Instead, object relations
theorists emphasize the importance of this first mother-child relationship, stating that
the child internalizes the nature of this relationship, which becomes, in a sense, the
prototype or template for future loves.
Neo-Analytic View:
1. Hate – Jung: Hypothesized that of the personality elements that are common to all
human personality- the archetypes – one particular archetype, the shadow, is where the
prmitive, animal instincts reside... inappropriate or uncontrolled expression of one's
shadow could result in the type of primal hatred and aggression evidenced by Hitler
2. Love –
1. Erik Erikson: Only those who have found their identity will be able to experience
true intimacy-- and love-- whereas those whose ego identity is not complete will
either remain isolated or will engage in false relationships by being sexually
promiscuous or by having shallow relationship. Thus Erikson saw love as the result
of healthy, normal development.
2. Phillip Shaver: Romantic Attachment Styles
1. Secure Lovers
2. Avoidant Lovers
3. Anxious-Ambivalent Lovers
Humanistic-Existential Perspective:
1. Hate – Carl Roger: believed that negative emotion stems from a lack of positive regard
in the individual's life, particularly from parents during childhood. He, emphasized the
individual's need for unconditional positive regard, acceptance, and love from others,
especially from one's mother.
1. Abraham Maslow: also pointed out that our fears and doubts about ourselves are the
root if immaturity and hate.
2. Love – Focus on the idea that a person must accept (and love) himself or herself before
he or she can give real love to others.
1. Abraham Maslow: Two type of love
1. Being Love
2. Deficiency Love
2. Rollo May: Sex vs. Eros vs. Philia vs. Agape vs. Authentic Love
3. Erich Fromm: Loves as a special characteristic that actually humanizes men and
women. In order to alleviate feelings of loneliness, people seek contact with the
world around them and, in particular, with other individuals. Love is the positive
result of individuals striving to join with others.
1. Motherly Love vs. Brotherly Love vs. Erotic Love vs. Immature Love vs.
Mature Love
Cognitive Approaches:
1. Hate – According to this view, hatred and aggression depend on the ways we learn to
explain the world.
1. George Kelly: Cognitive Simplicity
2. Love – Tries to classify the different types of loving and, further, to distinguish our
passions from our thought.
Trait and Interactionist Approaches:
1. Hate – Traits like aggression are part of the dynamic organization of personality, parts of
personality that incline an individual to behave in a certain way
1. Seymour Feshbach: viewed anger as an emotional reaction that culminates in hateful
behavior
2. Han Eysenck: the personality dimension most relevant to hate is psychoticism
2. Love – Loneliness
1. Loneliness occurs when there is a mismatch between a person's actual relationship
and needed relationships.