Paper
Definition of the Oedipus Complex
February 1, 1997
Michelle Bauknecht
The positive libidinal feelings of a kid to the parent of the antonym
sex and hostile or covetous feelings toward the parent of the same sex that may
be a beginning of grownup personality upset when unsolved. It is a form of
profound emotional ambivalency, a troublesome mixture of love and hatred.
The Oedipus Complex occurs during the phallic phase, from approximately ages
3-6 old ages. Freud believed that during this phase boys seek venereal stimulation
and develop both unconscious desires for their female parent and green-eyed monster and hatred
for their male parent, whom they consider a challenger. It was said that male childs felt guilt
and skulking fright that their male parent would penalize them, such as by emasculation.
Freud besides believed that scruples and gender individuality signifier as the kid
resolved the Oedipus Complex at age 5 or 6, but this really happens earlier.
A kid tends to go strongly masculine or feminine without even holding the
same sex parent nowadays.
Freud argues that all boies unconsciously desire to kill, even if they
love, their male parents. He found his ain unconscious want to slay his male parent in
his intensive ego analysis in 1897, shortly after the decease of his male parent.
Freud says it is merely the male kid that we find the fateful
combination of love for the one parent and coincident hatred for the other as
a rival. Freud believed Oedipal was a normal portion of human psychological growing
and it is during this phase kids produce emotional struggles.
Other psychoanalysts believed that misss see a analogue called
the & # 8220 ; Electra Complex & # 8221 ; . This comes from a Grecian fable of a adult females named Electra
who helped be after the slaying of her female parent.
The Oedipus Complex originates from a myth about a Grecian hero named
Oedipus, written by Sophocles. Oedipus was the boy of Laius and Jocasta who in
the fulfilment of an prophet unwittingly kills his male parent and marries his female parent.
When Oedipus and Jocasta recognize what has happened, Jocasta hangs herself and
he rips the aureate broachs from his dead female parents gown and plunges them deep
into his eyes. Now blinded, he eventually sees the truth and banishes himself to a
distant land. The fact that Oedipus kills his male parent and slumbers with his female parent
without cognizing that he has done either shows that it was done & # 8212 ; unconsciously.
Theory:
If a topic in the experimental group shows more aggressive behaviour
toward his male parent and increased affectionate behaviour toward their female parent after
having the subliminal messages and the control group shows no addition when
shown impersonal messages, so it will be proven that the Oedipus Complex does in
fact be in the unconscious. To turn out this we bring the behaviour out from the
unconscious to the bomber witting through the subliminal messages. These male childs
have repressed these feelings for so long because it is excessively painful for them to
trade with.
Hypothesis:
Holmium: Boys in the experimental group will non increase their aggression
to their male parents or more fondness for their female parents after having subliminal
messages. ( no alteration )
Hello: Boys in the experimental group having subliminal messages will
show more aggression toward their male parent and show more fondness for
their female parent & # 8217 ; s. The control group will non show a changed behaviour
( Change in behaviour )
Operational Hypothesis:
Independent Variable: Experimental group having subliminal messages,
either aggressive, fond or impersonal.
Dependent Variable: The alteration in behaviour observed from before the
subliminal messages to after.
Method:
I evaluated 10 heterosexual male childs from the Winnipeg country, all who were
between the ages of 15 and 18 and still populating at place with both parents. As the
caput psychologist in the experiment I entered into an understanding w/ the
participants that clarified the nature of the research and the duties
for both them and myself. The participants were informed that they could
withdraw from the experiment at anytime. Questions about the survey were asked
( participants were told the experiment was a ocular trial of some kind ) ,
hence misrepresentation was being used. After obtaining informed consent to
participate ( those under age had a consent signed by their guardian ) we randomly
broke the male childs and their households into two groups. One became the control group
and the other the experimental group. I so proceeded to detect the households
interaction with each other, particularily between the boy and his female parent and
the boy and his male parent. Observations were made through concealed cameras in the
house ( field research ) for the first hebdomad ( Monday to Friday ) . This was to
supply a baseline step. I was looking specifically for any type of competition
between the boies and male parents and fondness towards the female parents. Observations
were made on behaviours demonstrated and recorded into classs. These
classs are:
Positive fondness toward the female parent
Negative behaviour toward the male parent
Positive = clinchs, regards, staring & A ; I love you & # 8217 ; s
Negative = curse, striking, peal of eyes & A ; glowering
On the Saturday and Sunday the male childs were brought into the research lab
( laboratory research in order to command the confines ) where they were shown
either aggressive & amp ; affectionate or impersonal messages. Examples of these
messages are listed below:
Aggressive & A ; AffectionateNeutral
Beating pa is funTrees have foliages
Destroy male parent Mars is a planet
I love momThe grass is green
I am traveling to hold momClouds in the sky
Ma is sexyPeople are human
The male childs were shown a series of these messages utilizing a t-scope
which flashes the ocular stimulation on a screen to mensurate unconscious perceptual experience.
Note: The control group merely received impersonal messages. In hebdomad two ( Monday to
Friday ) the topics were once more observed through the same methods and the informations
were recorded.
Datas were reviewed for forms in increased aggressive behaviour towards
the male parent & A ; increased fondness for the female parent after having the aggressive & A ;
fond stimulations Datas from the control group were besides reviewed for any
correlativities.
Reject the Ho because these computations indicate a alteration in behaviour
after having aggressive & amp ; fond messages and no alteration after the
impersonal messages.
Discussion:
The Oedipus Complex appears to be a common feeling among immature male childs.
Surveies have indicated male childs between the ages of 3-6 have strong feelings of
desire to their female parents and hostile feelings of green-eyed monster to their male parents.
These surveies have found that the male childs repress these memories because they are
so painful. It looks like subliminal messages cause the Oedipal Complex to come
out from the unconscious by conveying it to the sub-conscious where the male childs know
what they are experiencing but can & # 8217 ; t understand why they a
rhenium holding these feelings.
Because we could non command all the variables we could non do a positive
individuality that the subliminal messages really cause the Oedipal Complex. All
though we can now presume, that from these findings male childs do quash their
feelings in the unconscious until they are someway brought into the sub-
witting.
Meanss and standard divergences were used ( which are the descriptive
statistics most often encountered in psychological research ) to depict my
set of tonss adequately. These computations indicate the control group to hold
no important difference from hebdomad one to hebdomad two and the experimental group a
important difference between hebdomad one and hebdomad two.
There was of class some defects with the experiment. Having such a little
sample could hold lead to deceptive consequences or a colored sample ( a sample that
doesn & # 8217 ; t reflect the population as a whole ) . A simple random sample was non
used and hence each member of the population did non hold an equal opportunity of
being selected as a member of the sample. The concealed cameras were wholly
unethical, the households were incognizant that any tape was happening. I may hold
besides missed interactions that were non caught on tape and hence non
entering accurate informations, this could take to distorted informations sets and computations.
It was felt that misrepresentation had to be used, because it was believed we
could non make the process and acquire accurate consequences without the usage of it. All
participants were debriefed at the decision of the experiment. I revealed the
true intent of the experiment and reduced any emphasis or other feelings that the
participants expressed as experiencing. At the completion of the survey I
provided all the participants information about the experiment and consequences of
the research. Any misconceptions they may hold had were lifted and they were
reassured that no injury was done or hazards taken. Complete confidentiality was
maintained throughout the experiment.
By being able to reject the Ho, there by back uping the Hi hypothesis
( that is of all time so near to my bosom ) I have proven that the Oedipus Complex
exists excessively some grade in males. So fundamentally ( and hypothetically ) I have
performed this full survey, went through all the proper analyses, and the
difference came out to be important at the.05 degree. So now I consider my
life to hold huge significance and I am certain I will affect all my friends at
parties with my statistics and new found cognition on the Oedipus Complex. I am
perfectly positive that I have besides impressed you with all the work I have put
into this cooked experiment.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS:
Laboratory Research: research that occurs within the controlled confines of a
scientific research lab.
Field Research: research scenes more closely fit the state of affairs we encounter
in day-to-day life & A ; consequences of these surveies might generalise more easy than lab
surveies.
Basic Research: most research is about psychological concerns, describing and
predicting and explicating cardinal rules of behaviour.
Applied Research: has direct and immediate relevancy to the solution of a existent
universe job.
Everyday Realism: refers to how closely the experiment mirrors existent life
experiences.
Experimental Realism: concerns the extent to which an experiment has an impact
on the topics, forces them to take the affair earnestly and involves them in
the processs.
Operational Definitions: scientific discipline must be nonsubjective and precise, that all
constructs should be defined in footings of a set of operations to be performed.
Converging Operationss: psychological science uses this & # 8212 ; & gt ; the thought that our apprehension
of some behavioural phenomena is increased when a series of probes, all
utilizing somewhat different operational definitions & A ; experimental processs is
performed.
Serendipity: used to mention to the sort of inadvertent observation that lead to
originative thoughts for research.
Theory: a set of statements about some behavioural phenomena.
Concept: a conjectural factor that can non be observed straight but is
inferred from certain behaviours and assumed to follow from certain fortunes.
e.g. ] outlook & # 8211 ; & gt ; why a behaviour occurred? because of ABC
Tax write-off: logical thinking from a set of general statements toward the anticipation of
some event.
Hypothesis: an educated conjecture about what should go on under certain
fortunes.
Initiation: the logical procedure of concluding from the particular ( single exp.
result ) to the general, used when the consequences of specific research surveies are
used to back up or rebut a theory.
Disproof: emphasizes seting theories to the trial by seeking excessively confute
or distort them.
Parsimony: includes the minimal figure of concepts & A ; premises in order to
adequately explicate & amp ; predict.
Programs of research: a series of interconnected surveies.
Reproduction: survey that duplicates some or all of the processs of some anterior
survey.
Extension: this resembles a anterior survey and normally replicates portion of it, but
goes farther and adds at least one extra characteristic.
Partial Reproduction: portion of the survey which replicates some earlier work.
Valid: if a behavioural step, measures what is has been designed to mensurate.
Face Validity: granted when a step appears on the surface to be a sensible
step of some trait.
Predictive Cogency: concerns whether the step can accurately calculate some
future event.
Construct Validity: 2 issues: whether the concept being measured by a
peculiar tool is a valid concept and whether the peculiar tool is the best
one mensurating the concept.
Population: a group.
Sample: any sub-group of the population.
Biased Sample: a sample that doesn & # 8217 ; t reflect the population as a whole.
Simple random sample: a chance sample & # 8211 ; & gt ; each member of the population has
equal opportunity of being selected as a member of the sample.
Descriptive Statisticss: sum up the informations collected from the sample of
topics take parting in your survey.
Inferential Statisticss: let you to pull decisions about your informations that can
be applied to broaden the population.
Frequency Distribution: manner to form a set of tonss by making a image
of them ( graph ) .
Null Hypothesis: there is no difference in public presentation between the different
conditions that you are analyzing.
Alternate Hypothesis: Ho= research hypothesis, the result you are trusting to
discovery. ( hence in my survey I am trusting to confute or reject the Ho, thereby
back uping the Hi, the hypothesis near to my bosom )
Type I Error: rejecting the nothing when nothing is in fact true.
Type II Error: fail to reject void, but you are incorrect. You didn & # 8217 ; t happen a
important consequence in your survey, of course experience down about it, but are in
mistake.
Oedipal: ensuing from or associating to the Oedipus Complex.
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