4.8. Culture and Media

Question 1

What do we look to see about gender behaviour in culture?

Answer 1

Whether it is the same everywhere (nature) or different (nurture)

Question 2

What was Mead’s study?

Answer 2

Observed gender roles in 3 tribes

• Apresh: men and women are gentle and cooperative
• Mundugmas: men and women are violent and aggressive
• Tchambuli: women dominant, providers (they fished) and organised

= gender behaviour is nurture (different)

Question 3

What type of experiment was Mead’s?

Answer 3

overt and non ppt

Question 4

What was Buss’ study?

Answer 4

Looked at mate preferences over 37 countries

• Males look for youth and attractiveness
• Females look for wealth and resources

Question 5

What was Munroe’s study?

Answer 5

Most countries follow the ‘typical’ dimensions of labour

• male = breadwinner
• female = carer, nurturer

link to attachment (AO3)
= gender behaviour is nature -> females had children, had to breastfeed + bond

Question 6

Weakness: ethnocentric

Answer 6

• Mead imposed her western views on these cultures, she didn’t understand
• Therefore reduces validity of determining if gender development is universal
• A way around this is to use an indigenous psychologist

Question 7

Weakness: impose etic

Answer 7

• Mead created a tool suitable to measure gender
• One culture (western) and expected it to work in other cultures
• Should have worked with an indigenous psychologist

Question 8

Weakness: nature vs nurture

Answer 8

Cannot disentangle nature from nurture, cross cultural research is useful at looking into this, but we don’t know where nature stops and nurture begins (due to media)

An interactionist view would be better

Question 9

What does media link to?

Answer 9

SLT

Question 10

Why do we need same-sex role models in the media?

Answer 10

To shape our behaviour.

Need for imitation, identification and reinforcement to ensure appropriate gender related behaviour -> acceptance

Question 11

What was Bandura’s findings in relation to the media?

Answer 11

The media provides clear stereotypes to follow

• Men are independent, ambitious and advice givers
• Women are dependent, unambitious and advice seekers

Question 12

What did Furham find in relation to the media?

Answer 12

In the media, men are autonomous roles = professional whereas females are in housewife/ family roles

Question 13

What did McGhee find in relation to the media?

Answer 13

Found a correlation between high media exposure and high sex-role stereotype behaviour.

Question 14

What did Wober find in relation to the media?

Answer 14

The media sex roles influenced what children wanted to do when they grew up.

• Men = occupational roles
• Women = service/ caring roles

Question 15

Media Strength: Bandura

Answer 15

Exp 1

Question 16

Media Weakness: research

Answer 16

Media research is correlational, shows a relationship, not cause and effect

Question 17

Media Weakness: cultural bias

Answer 17

Media focuses on western families therefore can only be used to explain western societies

Question 18

Media Weakness: Challenging male stereotypes

Answer 18

No media challenging male stereotypes -> this might explain males fixed view of gender roles

Question 19

Media Weakness: no control group

Answer 19

There are very few people that have not had media exposure, therefore nothing to compare to as a baseline.

This limits validity of research when establishing norms.