What did Freud say about the unconscious? What is the id, ego and superego?
Freud believed that unconscious fears and desires influence our behaviour. He said our personality consists of id, ego and superego. The id is our desires, superego is conscience and ego tries to balance both.
Describe the psychosexual stages of development?
Freud believed children go through stages of sexual development. This includes the oral, anal and phallic stage. He argued children could become fixated on a certain stage depending on the relationship with parents.
What is the Oedipus complex?
The Oedipus complex occurs in the stage when a child attaches strongly to the opposite sex parent and sees the same sex parent as the rival.
Who was little hans?
Little Hans was a Jewish boy from Vienna. He had a unique phobia of horses. His father was a fan of Freuds work, so he asked Freud about Little Hans. Freud thought Hans’ unconscious mind was contributing to his fear of horses
What research method did Freud use?
It was a case study. A case study gathers detailed data of either a single individual or a small group. Freud gathered detailed information about Hans - in relation to his fears and fantasies. Hans’ father conducted regular discussion with Hans and passed these on to Freud. This study is also Longitudinal as it documents Hans’ fears from when he was three till he was 5
What was the aim of Freuds study?
To give an account of a boy who was suffering from a phobia of horses and to demonstrate the existence of the Oedipus complex.
What method did Freud use and what was Little Hans’ history?
Freud asked little Hans’ father to write and tell him about Hans’ phobia of horses. Hans’ father reported that Hans would play with his penis a lot and his mother threatened to cut it off if he didn’t stop. Later, Hans seemed to develop a fear of horses. This was probably when he overheard someone saying that you could get bitten by a horse and seeing a horse fall down on the street.
The end of Little Hans phobia was marked by two fantasies. What were they and what did they mean?
The parenting child fantasy - Hans’ had a dream of having children. When asked about who their mother was, Hans answered that his mother was the mother of his children and that his father was the grandfather. This is linked to the Oedipus complex of Hans wanting to replace his father as his mother’s partner.
Plumber fantasy - Hans had a dream that a plumber removed his penis and bottom, replacing them with larger ones. Freud said this represented identification with his father.
What did Freud say about the causes of Little Hans’ phobia.
Freud describes Hans’ phobia was a result of castration anxiety and the Oedipus complex (his fear of horses was a displaced fear of his father.) Freud said that Hans was jealous of his father and was attracted to his mother and his fear of horses falling down was an unconscious fear of wanting his father to die. Dreams and fantasies helped express this fear. He resolved his Oedipus complex on his own by fantasising about replacing his father or being more like him.
What were Freuds conclusions?
Little Hans supports the concept of the Oedipus complex. Phobias are caused by unconscious anxiety displaced onto harmless objects. Little Hans phobia for horses caused by Oedipus complex and castration anxiety. People are not consciously aware of the causes of their behaviour.
What is psychoanalysis?
It’s a therapy that can be uses to treat disctubeee thoughts, feelings and behaviours by identifying the unsconscious causes and bringing them into the conscious to resolve it.
GRAVE analysis for Freud
G- As Freuds study on Little Hans’ was a case study, it meant he only focused on one person. This means it is not representative of the wider population and different cultures fears and phobias, making it ethnocentric.
R - Not reliable as it can’t be replicated and lacks inter rated reliability.
A - psychoanalysis
V - there is ecological validity as it does look at a child in his natural setting but lacks internal validity as it’s hard to prove that Hans fear of horses is directly caused by the Oedipus complex or castration anxiety.
E - no privacy as little Hans was known by his community. And, realistically Hans had no right to withdraw as he was under his father’s care.
What is autism?
It is a developmental disorder. People with autism have difficulties with social interaction and communication. They may also have restricted or repetitive patterns of thought and behaviour.
What is Asperger’s syndrome?
Asperger’s is an autistic disorder. People with Asperger’s have social difficulties but average or better intelligence and no speech delays.
What is Tourette’s syndrome?
Neurological disorder. It causes repeated, involuntary physical movements and vocal outbursts.
What is Theory Of Mind?
The ability to understand that other people have different thoughts and feelings. Baron Cohen argues people with autism lack theory of mind.
What is the sally anne task?
Sally Anne take has been used to investigate theory of mind in children using dolls.
How did Happe test for theory of mind
Happe’s strange stories have been used to assess adults with autism or Asperger’s syndrome to see whether people could identify the mental states of characters. However, this and sally Anne was considered to easy to test for theory of mind in adults with normal intelligence. Baron Cohen developed the eyes task.
What was the aim of Baron Cohens study?
To see if high functioning adults with autistic spectrum disorders have problems identifying people’s emotions from photographs of eyes for theory of mind.
What was the research method, IV, DV, and type of design for Baron Cohen.
It was a quasi experiment because of the IV which can’t be controlled (austism, Asperger’s, and Tourette’s.)
The DV was the performance score out of 25 on the eyes task.
It was independent measures design as there were different groups.
What was the sample on Baron Cohens study?
Three groups of participants were tested.
Group 1 - 16 individuals with autism. 13 males, 3 males. Recruited though the national autistic magazine.
Group 2 - 50 normal age matched adults. 25 males 25 females
Group 3 - 10 adults with Tourette’s also age matched. 8 males 2 females.
Procedure for baron cohen.
The key test wa Staat participants were asked to do the eyes task. This involved partripcants being shown 25 black and white photos of isolated pairs of eyes for three seconds each and being asked to choose which of the two mental states matched each photograph. Participants were also asked to do other tests, gender recognition task, and basic emotions recognition task.
What were the results for baron Cohen?
Participants with autism had a lower mean score (16.3) than Tourette’s (20.4) or normal adults. Normal females performed better than normal males on the eyes task, but normal males did better than the people with autism. However, on the gender recognition task or emotion control task, there were no differences between the groups
What were the conclusions for baron cohen
People with autism or Asperger’s lack theory of mind, in other words, they find it hard to read mental states in other people. This supports the idea that that theory of mind deficit is central to understanding autism and might even ifrevtly cause its main symptoms.
The eyes task is valid test for theory of mind suitable for high functioning adults with autism.
