An empirical test of two Freudian hypotheses concerning castration anxiety.

In this article, two studies are summarized, that employ a previously developed experimentally validated measure of castration anxiety to test derivations from psychoanalytic theory. The first study compares homosexual males and normal males in a search for differences in castration anxiety. The second study makes the same comparison for normal men and women. S. Freud, in one of his earliest papers, suggests that castration anxiety, because of its role in the resolution of the Oedipus complex, is of crucial importance to subsequent object choice. Later papers repeat this statement without essential castration anxiety inhibits the boy's object choice and, if reinforced by organic factors, may result in exclusive homosexuality. The weight of psychoanalytic theory suggests castration anxiety is of differential importance in the personalities of normal men and women, Freud, speaking of castration anxiety in the female, states "She accepts castration as an established fact, an operation already performed. The castration dread thus being excluded in her case."