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balanced between men and women. Horney believed that parts of Freudian theory, and
particularly the ideas of the Oedipus complex and penis envy, were biased against women.
Horney argued that women’s sense of inferiority was not due to their lack of a penis but rather to
their dependency on men, an approach that the culture made it difficult for them to break from.
For Horney, the underlying motivation that guides personality development is the desire
for security, the ability to develop appropriate and supportive relationships with others.
Another important neo-Freudian was Erich Fromm (1900–1980). Fromm’s focus was on the
negative impact of technology, arguing that the increases in its use have led people to feel
increasingly isolated from others. Fromm believed that the independence that technology brings
us also creates the need “escape from freedom,” that is, to become closer to others.
Research Focus: How the Fear of Death Causes Aggressive Behavior
Fromm believed that the primary human motivation was to escape the fear of death, and contemporary research has
shown how our concerns about dying can influence our behavior. In this research, people have been made to confront
their death by writing about it or otherwise being reminded of it, and effects on their behavior are then observed. In
one relevant study, McGregor et al. (1998) [4] demonstrated that people who are provoked may be particularly
aggressive after they have been reminded of the possibility of their own death. The participants in the study had been
selected, on the basis of prior reporting, to have either politically liberal or politically conservative views. When they
arrived at the lab they were asked to write a short paragraph describing their opinion of politics in the United States.
In addition, half of the participants (the mortality salient condition) were asked to “briefly describe the emotions that
the thought of your own death arouses in you” and to “jot down as specifically as you can, what you think will happen
to you as you physically die, and once you are physically dead.” Participants in the exam control condition also
thought about a negative event, but not one associated with a fear of death. They were instructed to “please briefly
describe the emotions that the thought of your next important exam arouses in you” and to “jot down as specifically as
you can, what you think will happen to you as you physically take your next exam, and once you are physically taking
your next exam.”
Then the participants read the essay that had supposedly just been written by another person. (The other person did
not exist, but the participants didn’t know this until the end of the experiment.) The essay that they read had been
prepared by the experimenters to be very negative toward politically liberal views or to be very negative toward
politically conservative views. Thus one-half of the participants were provoked by the other person by reading a