Oedipus complex

(noun)

In Freudian theory, the complex of emotions aroused in a child by an unconscious sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex.

Related Terms

Examples of Oedipus complex in the following topics:

  • Freud

    • Freud named his new theory the Oedipus complex after the famous Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles.
    • The Oedipus conflict was described as a state of psychosexual development and awareness.

  • Introduction: Multiple relations among actors

    • Social relations among actors, however, are usually more complex, in that actors are connected in multiple ways simultaneously.
    • Sociologists tend to assume, until proven otherwise, that actors behavior is strongly shaped by the complex interaction of many simultaneous constraints and opportunities arising from how the individual is embedded in multiple kinds of relationships.
    • In this chapter we will look at some of the tools that social network analysts have used grapple with the complexity of analyzing simultaneous multiple relations among actors.
    • We won't actually explore the complexities of role algebra analysis, but we will provide a brief introduction to this way of approaching multi-relational complexity.

  • Symbols and Nature

    • Language is a symbolic system of communication based on a complex system of rules relating spoken, signed, or written symbols.
    • Language as a whole, therefore, is the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication.
    • Language is based on complex rules relating spoken, signed, or written symbols to their meanings.
    • Human language is thought to be fundamentally different from and of much higher complexity than the communication systems of other species ().

  • Functions of Religion

    • Durkheim noted that religion provides a worldview for complex modern societies in order to maintain social order and solidarity.
    • He was deeply interested in the problem of what held complex modern societies together.
    • It follows, then, that less complex societies, such as the Australian Aborigines, have less complex religious systems, involving totems associated with particular clans.
    • The more complex a particular society is, the more complex the religious system.

  • Durkheim's Mechanical and Organic Solidarity

    • Mechanical solidarity is found in less structurally complex societies while organic solidarity emerges in industrialized societies.
    • Thus, social solidarity is maintained in more complex societies through the interdependence of its component parts (e.g., farmers produce the food to feed the factory workers who produce the tractors that allow the farmer to produce the food).

  • The Absent Father and Serial Fatherhood

    • The Father complex in psychology is a complex pertaining to a group of unconscious associations, or strong unconscious impulses, which specifically pertain to the image or archetype of the father.
    • Whereas the idea of the father complex had originally evolved to deal with the heavy Victorian patriarch, by the new millennium there had developed instead a postmodern preoccupation with the loss of paternal authority, or the absence of the father.

  • Summary

    • In this chapter, we've introduced a few of the tools that are commonly used to help to make sense of the complex patterns of embedding that can emerge when there is more than one kind of tie operating simultaneously.
    • Alternatively, the information about different kinds of ties may be combined into more complex typologies using logical relations and "role algebra."
    • Many social network studies avoid the complexity of multi-plex data by focusing on a single relation, or by dealing with multiple relations separately.
    • Still, in some cases, engaging the full complexity of multi-plex data has paid huge returns.

  • Language

    • Language may refer either to the human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such.
    • Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication.

  • The Origins of Culture

    • The origin of language, understood as the human capacity of complex symbolic communication, and the origin of complex culture are often thought to stem from the same evolutionary process in early man.
    • Dunbar has proposed that language evolved as early humans began to live in large communities that required the use of complex communication to maintain social coherence.
    • Paraphrase what is currently thought to be the reason for the development of language and complex culture

  • Two-mode factor analysis

    • This solution, although different from SVD, also suggests considerable dimensional complexity in the joint variance of actors and events.
    • The factor analysis method does produce somewhat lower complexity than SVD.