Speaker
Anna Sieben, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany
Title
Gender and sexuality in classic psychological theories
Abstract
Based on a systematic analysis of 12 classic psychological approaches this talk looks into the ways in which gender and sexuality have been addressed in 20th century psychology. In particular, interactions between academic knowledge and non-academic assumptions are critically observed. The theories for analysis were chosen on the basis of German textbooks on the history of psychology. The list covers theories from Wilhelm Wundt's psychology up to contemporary evolutionary psychology and includes theories such as behaviorism (Skinner, Thorndike, Watson, Pavlov), humanistic psychology (Rogers, Maslow, Bühler, Perls) or cultural-historical psychology (Vygotski, Luria, Leontev).
The two main results can be summarized as follows: Firstly, sexuality is widely ignored as a research topic by classic psychological theories – in contrast to psychoanalytical approaches. Sexuality is only mentioned anecdotically, empirical investigations or theoretical explorations cannot be found. Secondly, psychological theories mainly address gender by describing psychological differences between men and women. Theoretical explanations of gender differences are rarely found. Most so called ‘pure descriptions’ of gender differences can be shown to stereotypically overestimate the dissimilarity of men and women.
Bio
Anna Sieben is a post-doctoral research fellow in the area of social theory and social psychology at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany. She studied psychology at the University of Cologne and sociology/gender studies at Goldsmiths College in London. For her doctoral thesis she analyzed concepts of gender and sexuality in classic psychological theories from the 20th century. Her research interests are cultural psychology, history of psychology, parenting, feminist and queer psychologies.
Website: http://www.sowi.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/soztheo/publikationen/sieben.html.de