Electra complex of "Mother" develops the super-ego as the girl establishes a discrete sexual identity (ego). Without a penis, the girl cannot sexually possess her mother, as the infantile id demands. Consequently, the girl redirects her desire for sexual union upon her father, and thus progresses to heterosexual femininity, which culminates in bearing a child who replaces the absent penis. Moreover, after the phallic stage, the girl’s psychosexual development includes transferring her primary erogenous zone from the infantile clitoris to the adult vagina. Freud thus considered the feminine Oedipus attitude ("Electra complex") to be more emotionally intense than the Oedipal conflict of
Oedipus in the Trobriands Badcock in the "British Journal of Sociology", and John S. Matthiasson in the "Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology". Badcock compared Spiro's criticism of Malinowski in "Oedipus in the Trobriands" to anthropologist Freeman's criticism of Mead in "Margaret Mead and Samoa" (1983), crediting Spiro with exposing the "glaring contradictions, obvious fallacies and supported assertions" in Malinowski's work. Badcock wrote that while Spiro's conclusions would come as a surprise to many anthropologists, Spiro fully authenticated them. Badcock praised Spiro's discussion of the "universality of the Oedipus complex". Matthiasson called "Oedipus in the Trobriands" "tightly reasoned" and an "important book" that forces