User:Sakorhalkar/sandbox

Article Evaluation - Plan
For the purpose of this assignment, I will be editing the wikipedia page named Anal stage.

This article was chosen as it is ranked as a Start-class project. The current information on the page is solely based on one reference which has only been used a few times. There are no citations for a majority of the content of this article. It is also important to point out that this reference is not a credible source of information. Thus I aim to add to the article by expanding on the current points and supporting the information through peer-reviewed sources. I am also creating additional sections on topics like Anal-narcissistic personality, gender and culture, and relevance of the phenomena in the current day.

Anal Stage
The anal stage is the second of the five stages in Sigmund Freud's theory of psychosexual development, lasting from age 18 months to three years. According to Freud, the anus is the primary erogenous zone and pleasure is derived from controlling bladder and bowel movement. The major conflict issue during this stage is toilet training. A fixation at this stage can result in a personality that is too rigid or one that is too disordered.

According to Freud's theory, personality developed through a series of stages throughout childhood. These stages are focused on erogenous areas. Freud believed in the libido, which he referred to as psychosexual energy. To Freud, the libido was the driving force behind all of human behavior.

In order to obtain a healthy personality later on in adulthood all of these stages need to be completed successfully. If issues are not resolved in a stage then fixation will occur resulting in an unhealthy personality.

In general
The anal stage, in Freudian psychology, is the period of human development occurring at about one to three years of age. Research from a study of 70 infants found that although the anal stage is not of high importance until age 2, children gain complete awareness of the anal-zone between 12 and 14 months of development.  Around this age, the child begins to toilet train, which brings about the child's fascination in the erogenous zone of the anus. The erogenous zone is focused on the bowel and bladder control. Therefore, Freud believed that the libido was mainly focused on controlling the bladder and bowel movements. The anal stage coincides with the start of the child's ability to control their anal sphincter, and therefore their ability to pass or withhold feces at will. The onset of this stage is important due to the increased anal-libidinal drive and prominence of individualization. If the children during this stage can overcome the conflict it will result in a sense of accomplishment and independence.

Conflict[edit]
This is the second stage of Freud's psychosexual stages. This stage represents a conflict with the id, ego, and superego. The id is a component of personality that humans are born with '. It represents the strong urge that drives the behaviour without outside influence . At the beginning of the anal stage, children have strong urges to empty their bowels whenever they desire. Toilet training imposed on them does not align with this sub conscious behaviour causing negative reactions and rebellious actions against the parent or caregiver. This later shapes the development of their personality.' The child is approached with this conflict with the parent's demands. A successful completion of this stage depends on how the parents interact with the child while toilet training. If a parent praises the child and gives rewards for using the toilet properly and at the right times then the child will successfully go through the stage. However, if a parent ridicules and punishes a child while he or she is at this stage, the child can respond in negative ways.

Parents' role[edit]
As mentioned before the ability for the children to be successful in this stage is solely dependent upon their parents and the approach they use towards toilet training. Freud believed that parents should promote the use of toilet training with praise and rewards. The use of positive reinforcement after using the toilet at the appropriate times encourages positive outcomes. This will help reinforce the feeling that the child is capable of controlling their bladder. The parents help make the outcome of this stage a positive experience which in turn will lead to a competent, productive, and creative adult. This stage is also important in the child's future relationships with authority.

According to Freud's Psychosexual Theory, parents need to be very careful in how they react to their children during this sensitive stage. During this stage children test their parents, the authority figures, on how much power they really have as opposed to how much room the child has to make his or her own decisions.

Anal-retentive personality
The negative reactions from their parents, such as early or harsh toilet training, can lead the child to become an anal-retentive personality. Such a personality may also lead due to delay in self control over bowel movements or due to independent soiling accidents that may have caused a feeling of guilt in the child.  If the parents tried forcing the child to learn to control their bowel movements, the child may react by deliberately holding back in rebellion. Individuals with this personality type are fixated at the anal-retentive stage, and these traits are visible in adulthood. Some traits common in individuals with such personality include They will form into an adult who hates mess, is obsessively tidy, punctual, and respectful to authority. These adults can sometimes be stubborn and be very careful with their money.

Anal-expulsive personality
The opposite of these adults would be anal expulsive adults, also known as anal-sadistic individuals . In this stage, infants gain pleasure after passing bowel movements and perceive the act of expulsion as a pleasurable activity. Such adults underwent liberal toilet training as opposed to the above reaction. These adults, as children, usually relieved themselves at inappropriate times. As children, they soiled their pants whenever they pleased in rebellion against using the toilet. Such behaviour may also originate due to the desire to cause pain or humiliation to parents. These children tend to view their feces as an object of value which can be used to manipulate caregivers. They did not like to be ordered how and when they should use the toilet. These adults will want to share things with their peers and give things away. Individuals with this personality type are fixated at the anal-erotic stage, behaviour aligning with such personalities are reflected later in life. They can sometimes be messy, disorganized, reckless, wasteful and rebellious. They will also be grumpy, inconsiderate of others' feelings.

However, a child who has successfully completed this stage will be characterized as having used proper toilet training techniques throughout toilet training years and will successfully move on to the next stage of Freud's psychosexual developmental stages. Although the anal stage seems to be about proper toilet training, it is also about controlling behaviours and urges. A child needs to learn certain boundaries when he or she is young so that in the future there will not be contention regarding what is overstepping the boundaries.

Anal-narcissistic personality
'''Anal-narcissism is a relatively undiscovered concept which was addressed by researchers but lacked scientific data. According to Schoenewolf, narcissism is a type of anal character like anal-expulsiveness which also has fixation in the anal-erotic stage. This type of personality may be caused due to excessive shaming, humiliation and abuse in childhood as a result of uncontrollable bowel movements . Children that develop such a personality in adulthood, tend to have guilt-inducing and masochistic mothers and hostile and sadist fathers.  People with such a personality tend to be aggressive in nature. These individuals have shame embedded in their subconcious from their childhood and deal with it through excessive narcissistic pride and defensive behaviour against humiliation.'''

Gender and Cultures
'According to Schoenewolf, males are four time more likely to engage in anal-expulsion and soiling their clothes even after toilet training, whereas females tend to practice anal-retention. Studies show that cultures that encourage early toilet training seem to reflect traits such as personal cleanliness, perfectionism, and compulsivity, examples of such cultures include Japan and Tanala. Such information shows the high level of incorporation of this theory in different parts of the world and its effect on the particular society in general.'

Relevance in current age
'Although Freud's stages of psychosexual development were considered important in the early years of research, recent studies have failed to suggest direct correlation between adult personality traits to activities related to psychosexual stages like toilet-training or breast-feeding. These individual occurrences do not usually have a direct impact on development of a certain personality as other factors may also influence the process. However, it is suggested that severe cases of toilet training may have an effect an individual's personality in adulthood. Research suggests that characteristics such as neatness, stubborn and stingy behaviour that are often categorized as noticeable traits resulting from fixation at a certain stage are related to one another, and may emerge due to parental and societal pressures during development. '