Freud proposed that during the genital stage of personality development, boys experience the Oedipus complex. At around age 3 or 4, the young boy begins to desire his mother and wants her complete attention. This means he sees his father as a rival and wishes he was dead. This then creates anxiety and the repressed fear that his father will castrate him. The complex is eventually resolved by the boy’s identification with his father. It is at this point that the superego is formed.