Freudian Developmental Theory

Part of today's lecture in my Digital Civilization class was about psychology, especially Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.  One interesting element of Freud's theories is the development of personality.  In his theory, a child will pass through certain developmental stages that relate to what the id desires. By the way, the id (according to Freud) is the part of your psyche that is an innate drive for self-gratification.  Your id is not concerned with any rule social or moral, it just works to pursue desire.  A person's superego on the other hand is the internalized rules from society that keeps us from breaking social norms and mores.  The ego is the balance between desires and rules.  "The ego channels impulses into socially acceptable forms." (Kimmel and Aronson, Sociology Now, 2009)

"The ego, driven by the id, confined by the superego, repulsed by reality, struggles to master its... task of bringing about harmony among the forces working in and upon it, and we can understand how it is that so often we cannot suppress a cry, 'Life is not easy!'" 

                                                                         -Sigmund Freud

 Here are Freud's stages and their relationship to the id.

1. The Oral Stage:
   When  a baby is born, they receive pleasure from breast-feeding, so that is what the id wants.
2. The Anal Stage:
   When a baby is no longer breast-fed, he/she gets pleasure from bodily functions such as urinating or defecating.  Bodily functions remain a source of pleasure until a child is potty trained (superego kicks in).
3. Oedipal Stage:
• Males:
  A boy's id then shifts to sexually desiring his mother.  However, fearing his father, the boy will renounce his desire for his mother and begin to identify himself with father.  This leads to masculinity and heterosexuality.
• Girls:
  Girls will identify themselves with their mother.  In this, the girl's id comes to desire not sex, but having a baby.  In continuing to relate with their mother, a girl will become feminine, renounce masculinity, and become heterosexual.

An interesting result of this theory is modern-day conceptions of sexual orientation.  If a man is effeminate or a women masculine we tend to think of them as gay or lesbian respectively.  They have indentified themselves more with the "traits" of the opposite gender and thus they didn't complete the oedipal stage and are then attracted to their own gender.  I put "traits" in quotations because sometimes what society views as a "trait" of a certain gender is often different in a different society.