Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

DEVELOPING PERSONALITY: PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES 
Freud also provided us with a view of how personality develops through a series of 
fi ve psychosexual stages during which children encounter confl icts between the 
demands of society and their own sexual urges (in which sexuality is more about 
experiencing pleasure and less about lust). According to Freud, failure to resolve the 
confl icts at a particular stage can result in fi xations, confl icts or concerns that persist 
beyond the developmental period in which they fi rst occur. Such confl icts may be 
due to having needs ignored or (conversely) being overindulged during the earlier 
period. 
The sequence Freud proposed is noteworthy because it explains how experiences 
and diffi culties during a particular childhood stage may predict specifi c characteris-
tics in the adult personality. This theory is also unique in associating each stage with 
a major biological function, which Freud assumed to be the focus of pleasure in a 
given period. (See Figure 2 for a summary of the stages.) 
In the fi rst psychosexual stage of development, called the oral stage, the baby’s 
mouth is the focal point of pleasure. During the fi rst 12 to 18 months of life, children 
suck, eat, mouth, and bite anything they can put into their mouths. To Freud, this 
behavior suggested that the mouth is the primary site of a kind of sexual pleasure 
and that weaning (withdrawing the breast or bottle) represents the main confl ict 
during the oral stage. If infants are either overindulged (perhaps by being fed every 
time they cry) or frustrated in their search for oral gratifi cation, they may become 
fi xated at this stage. For example, fi xation might occur if an infant’s oral needs were 
oral stage
According to Freud, a stage 
from birth to age 12 to 18 months, in 
which an infant’s center of pleasure is 
the mouth.
Stage
Oral
Anal
Phallic
Latency
Genital
Age
Birth to 12–18 months
12–18 months to 3 years
3 to 5–6 years
5–6 years to adolescence
Adolescence to adulthood
Major Characteristics
Interest in oral gratification from sucking, 
eating, mouthing, biting
Gratification from expelling and
withholding feces; coming to terms with 
society’s controls relating to toilet training
Interest in the genitals, coming to terms
with Oedipal conflict leading to 
identification with same-sex parent
Sexual concerns largely unimportant
Reemergence of sexual interests and 
establishment of mature sexual
relationships