Sally tries to keep her distance from other people, especially her boyfriend. How might Freud explain this behavior? A. Sally’s parents spoiled her, and no one else can live up to her expectations. B. Sally never resolved her Electra complex. C. Sally’s parents were neglectful and rarely responded to her crying as an infant. D. Sally had a really bad romantic relationship when she was younger.

Answer:

c)

Explanation:

Freud's theory states that we go through different stages as we grow older and the different stages we go through during childhood influence  our behavior later in life.

This development takes place during 5 different stages:

1. oral: it centers around the mouth (nursing), when we don't have enough attention or we have an excess of satisfaction during this stage, we develop an oral fixation. People with oral fixations can be overly dependant and looking for constant approval or can be the opposite and have difficulties with close relationships.
2. ana l: it centers around the sphincter control, this fixation develops a personality that tends to hold things for himself/herself and doesn't want to share and are always looking for perfection or, the extreme opposite, and overly  "giving" person who is messy.
3. phallic: pleasure centers in genitals, during this period there's the Edipo/Electra complex with leads to the identification with the same-gender parent.
4. latency: Most conflicts are repressed so there's not really a fixation or conflict.
5. genital: it begins in puberty and a successful resolution of the conflict leads to settling down in a loving one-to-one relationship.

Sally tries to keep her distance from other people, specially her boyfriend. This a characteristic that can appear because of an oral fixation, since people who didn't receive enough nurturing can have difficulties establishing close relationships. Therefore, the correct answer is C) Sally’s parents were neglectful and rarely responded to her crying as an infant