Chapter 10 Flashcards
When does a sense of self start to develop?
• Start to develop a sense of self at 15-18 months
What is a social role?
What is a gender role?
- A social role is a set of cultural guidelines for how a person should behave
- Social roles associated with genders are the first people learn, these gender roles are learned in preschool and are culturally prescribed roles considered appropriate for a particular gender
What is a gender stereotypes?
- All cultures have gender stereotypes – beliefs about how genders differ in personality, traits, interests and behaviours
- These stereotypes may not be true
What are instrumental and expressive charrecteristics?
• Male associated traits are called instrumental because they reflect active involvement and influence over the environment (Moore, 2007)
• Female associated traits are called expressive as these reflect emotional functioning and a focus on interpersonal relations
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Do gender traits vary across cultures?
When do north american children know these?
These traits vary across cultures; our ideas about what men and women should and should not do are determined culturally and cultures vary on these ideas
• By the time north American children are ready to enter elementary school, they have a solid knowledge of these stereotypes
When does stereotyping happen for girls and boys?
• Poulin-Dubois, Serbin, Eichstedt, Sen & Beissel, 2002) showed that stereotyping of activities for girls happens as early as 24 months and for boys 31 months
How strict are preschooler’s views on gender stereotypes?
• Children’s views on these roles are strict as they do not appreciate the stereotypes might not apply (Martin, 1989)
How do children develop a gender identity?
At what age do they start?
- As kids learn the roles expected of boys and girls, they start to identify with one group
- The family is the main source of this, (Dobrescu & Atudorei, 2018)
- Also peers, media school etc.
- At about age 3, children start making a gender identity – a person’s inner sense of the person’s own gender
- This if often caused by curiosity about how their body is the same of different from others
What did Bandura find about gender roles?
- According to these people like bandura, people learn gender roles through reinforcement and observational learning
- Bandura found there is an own gender information bias, kids imitate the behaviour of their own gender more readily than others (Losin, Lacobnomi, Martin & Dapretto, 2012)
What about reward centers in the brain?
• Reward centers in brain are activated when children imitate own gender folk so there is a biological mechanism (same reference)
How do families, especially parents, socialize kids into gender roles?
- Lytton & Romney (1991) found that parents gave equal attention to kids of all genders but changed the choice of toys to play with along gender lines
- Fathers are more likely to treat daughters and sons as differently than mothers; they also push sons towards independence but are fine with dependence in daughters
- Mothers respond more based on own needs, fathers more based on gender roles
How does literature and the media socialize gender roles into kids?
- Kids literature has more male than female characters (Clark, Guilmain, Saucier & Tavarez)
- Television helps teach gender roles but there is inconclusive evidence that there is an effect on actual behaviour
- Men have usually been cast as masculine and women as feminine typed roles in movies etc
Kimball’s study of media effects on gender stereotyping?
- Kimball (1986) studied gender roles in a small Canadian town that did not have tv until 1974
- Children’s gender role beliefs before and after TV were measured: traits, behaviours, occupations and peer relations
- Boys – changed to more stereotyped views on all measures, Girls – for traits and peer relations only
- Shows media roles can have an impact on gender stereotyping
How do peers affect gender roles?
• Peers are also influential - they are critical of others engaging in other gender typed play (Langlois & Downs, 1980)
What shows that learning gender roles cannot all be about imitation?
• If it was all about observational learning, then boys growing up in traditional families would behave like their mothers because they spend more time with them; it is not just learning the gender role but also learning to identify with one gender – cognitive theories help here
What is the cognitive theory of gender roles?
Over what years does each of the three milestones happen?
Cognitive theories on Gender Roles
• Focuses on children’s active construction of their own understanding of gender Lawrence Kohlberg (1966) says there are 3 elements
• Gender labelling: learning to name who is a girl and who is a boy; occurs by 2 or 3
• Gender stability: Understanding a person’s gender does not change; during the preschool years, kids learn gender is typically stable – boys become men etc. However, at this stage kids believe that children who wear their hair like a girl become girls and like a boy become boys (Fagot, 1985)
• Gender consistency: Between 4 and 7, most children believe that maleness and femaleness do not change over situations or according to personal wishes. They understand that a child’s gender is unaffected by the clothing a child wears or the toys they like.
• A 4 year old might know they are a boy or a girl but they have not yet developed a sense of gender stability or gender constancy: the knowledge that gender can be identified, is stable and remains constant over time
• Gender constancy requires a child to go through the 3 stages; labelling, stability and consistency – when they have all 3 = gender constancy
3 milestones of gender constancy and their ages?
Gender labeling - 2-3
Gender stability - 3-4.5
Gender consistency - 4/7
Once all three have been achieved = gender constancy
What is Kholberg’s gender constancy theory and when does it arise?
- According to Kholberg, not until children have constancy; they understand that gender is constant, do they start to learn what behaviours are appropriate fore their genders
- Research shows that children 3.5 year olds do not understand constancy, but 4 they do but did not know much about typed activities, by 4.5 they understood gender typed activities. There is a process they go through
- NO children lacked gender constancy but knew about typed activities
- This theory says when, but not how they learn typed activities
What is gender schema theory?
What are its steps?
- Martin & Halverston (1987) proposed Gender-schema theory – kids first decide if an object, activity or behaviours is female or male, they pay attention to the activities that are gender constant
- So once they know their gender hey pay attention to the things which correspond to it
- Eg a boy sees girls play in sand – its not for him/ he sees older boys playing football – he decides, because he is a boy, that football is acceptable, and he will learn more about it
- Once they have a gender schema, they see the world through it and only notice gender specific activities
- They use gender labels to evaluate stuff like toys; tell a kid a toy is appropriate for their gender and they like it more (Martin, Eisenbud & Rose, 1995)
How can people and parents help to lessen gender stereotypes?
Beyond gender stereotypes
• Children can be taught not to have stereotyped views
• Parents can model non-stereotyped behavior
• Parents should base choices on what their kid wants or needs (activities/chores), not their gender
• They cannot be sheltered from all external stereotype building influences but where possible, could be minimized
Testicles in development and gender
- If fetus has testicles, they start producing anti-Mullerian hormone and testosterone at 7-8 weeks of gestation (Roselli, 2017)
- If XX, no testicles, no testosterone and the fetus develops female organs
- Prenatal testosterone levels influence masculinity
- Affect development of brain neurologically and behaviourally (Roseli, 2017)
