Discuss at least two differences between social learning and psychoanalytical approaches to explaining gender development.
Discuss at least two differences between social learning and psychoanalytical approaches to explaining gender development (10).
The biggest differences between social learning and psychoanalytical approaches to explaining gender development are the differences in the use of identification and the role of the parents. In the social learning theory the identification is purely in a social context whilst in the psychoanalytical approach, the identification is in a biological context.
The role of the parents in the social learning theory is to provide a suitable role model for their child and set a good example for behaviour and also provide them with stimulus to enable them to develop their gender specific roles. However in the psychoanalytical approach the parents are actually unaware that they are to become a role model for their child. According to Freud the child automatically goes through an Oedipus or Electra complex at the age of three in order to be able to see the parent as a role model. According to Freud a parent doesn't have to do anything physical to make this occur. (This is explained later in the essay)
Social learning theory differs from traditional learning view because the child actively seeks out behaviours and attitudes, rather than the view that the child has little choice in its development.
The social learning theory opposes that there are natural categories of behaviour and argues that behaviour is shaped in a social context. Children's behaviour is moulded by the attitudes and behaviours of somebody important. For example the parents.
Social learning theory says children learn their gender roles by constantly imitating and being reinforced by their parents. For example if a child wants to gain approval from ...
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Social learning theory differs from traditional learning view because the child actively seeks out behaviours and attitudes, rather than the view that the child has little choice in its development.
The social learning theory opposes that there are natural categories of behaviour and argues that behaviour is shaped in a social context. Children's behaviour is moulded by the attitudes and behaviours of somebody important. For example the parents.
Social learning theory says children learn their gender roles by constantly imitating and being reinforced by their parents. For example if a child wants to gain approval from their parents then they would do something which they know will cause their parents to reinforce them for doing this act, e.g. saying please and thank you or in the case of gender awareness playing with sex-appropriate toys. However unlike the psychoanalytic view that your gender role is exclusively learned from your parents, the social learning view says that the gender role can also be learned from anyone whom the child thinks has qualities which he/she would like also in order to gain reward and reinforcement. It doesn't necessarily have to be a parent who is the role model. A child might acquire a number of role models who they choose to identify with, these people may be immediate family such as parents, siblings etc, or fantasy characters or people in the media but whoever they choose the child sees all these people as having a quality that he/she wants to possess, so by acting like their role model/s the child adds their qualities to its own personality.
The psychoanalytical approach however says that children identify with their parents only. The parental relationship forms a mould, which will remain with the child throughout its life. Freud devised a theory of acquisition of gender identity. His theory was based on the idea surrounding infantile sexuality and the development of self in the first five years of life. Freud said that the first five years of life consisted of three distinctive stages. The oral stage (1st year), the anal stage (2nd to 5th year) and the phallic stage (5th to 6th year). The naming of these stages are all strongly biological. Freud also believed that an important part of his theory was the libido, which he said moved through your body at the different stages in your life, however the libido becomes more dominant at the age of 3 years. According to Freud this was the time when the child shows strong physical attraction to the parent of the opposite sex. As the child enters the phallic stage, the gender divisions occur, this is when the child begins to understand whether or not it is male or female and the appropriate roles he/she should play in society. Males develop masculinity and the females develop femininity. And according to Freud this happens only because around the age of three you go through a process, which he called the Oedipus and Electra complex. In males it is the Oedipus complex and in females it is the Electra complex. This is the identification process. The Oedipus complex involves the sexual energy being directed towards the phallus (penis), the boys affection for mother becomes very sexual, boy wants mother to himself and sees father as a rival, but a rival who has the ability to castrate him, so boy is torn between love for mother and fear of castration from father, so boy resolves his conflict by identifying with father. So the boy then assumes a masculine identity, looking to his father as the role model. The Electra complex involves the girl suffering penis envy, and think penis is a symbol of power and believes herself to have been castrated and blames mother for this, hates mother because she thinks mother has made her incomplete, then however her penis envy is substituted by a wish for a baby, so having resolved this conflict goes back to loving mother again and identifies herself as a woman with her mother as her role model.
However there has never been any empirical data to prove Freud theory, and his Oedipus complex was devised purely on self-analysis, therefore no accurate case studies were carried out. The Electra complex was also simply just a variation of the Oedipus complex, as Freud couldn't just generalise his theory to one sex so he had to adapt the complex for females. Also it has been found that children learned gender roles perfectly well with only the same sex parent.
