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Psychology GCSE 2017 > Chapter 2 - Sex and Gender > Flashcards

Chapter 2 - Sex and Gender Flashcards

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1
Q

What is sex?

A
  • The biological term.
  • Tells us if someone is MALE or FEMALE.
  • The genitals are the deciding factor.
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2
Q

What is gender?

A
  • The psychological term.

- Tells us if someone has masculine, feminine or androgynous traits.

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3
Q

Masculinity

A

A gender term associated with male traits/roles.

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4
Q

Femininity

A

A gender term associated with female traits/roles.

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5
Q

Androgynous

A

A gender role where an individual shows high levels of BOTH masculine & feminine traits.

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6
Q

Gender roles today?

A
  • Gender role is based on the culture, society and era we live in.
  • Men and woman today display both masculine and feminine characteristics but it doesn’t mean we are becoming androgynous.
  • Our society is changing, we no longer criticise of evaluate people taking on different gender roles.
  • Not always has been like this e.g. Billy Elliot 1980s.
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7
Q

Core Theory

A
  • Biological Theory

- Looks at how the chromosomes and hormones in our bodies affect our sex and gender

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8
Q

What chromosomes do the mother and father produce?

A
  • Mothers ova (eggs) produce X chromosome
  • Fathers sperm produces either an X or Y chromosome
  • XX or XY, depends on what the fertilising sperm gives you
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9
Q

Girl

A
  • XX chromosomes
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10
Q

Boy

A

XY chromosomes

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11
Q

Early stages of pregnancy, the embryo and how it develops?

A
  • Embryos can form to be a boy or girl and have a body part called ‘gonads’
  • XX chromosomes, gonads develop into ovaries
  • XY chromosomes, gonads develop into testes
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12
Q

When genitals change and how?

A
  • Up to 7th week of pregnancy, genitals look identical
  • After, testosterone changes boys sex organs to develop into penis and scrotum
  • Oestrogen and progesterone changes girls to develop a uterus and a vagina
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13
Q

Both sexes have both hormones - so what’s different?

A

The quantities differ

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14
Q

What do low levels of testosterone in male foetuses do?

A

Cause the baby to be born with female external genitals , although they have XY chromosomes

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15
Q

Other facts about hormones in the womb?

A

Adult sexual orientation can be due to levels of sex hormones in womb - controversial

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16
Q

Testosterone

A

Responsible for changes in male bodies: increases hair growth, deepening of the voice, increased muscle and aggressive behaviour

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17
Q

What happens if your testosterone levels are wonky?

A
  • Women w/ too much become more masculine in behaviour and appearance (can be caused by disorders to endocrine system)
  • Men w/ too little will have loss of muscle, strength, lowering of sex drive.
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18
Q

Evolution

A

Process where we have survived over the course of millennia through being the fittest

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19
Q

What is the evolutionary theorist argument?

A
  • We have the same biological functioning as before
  • We have changed our mating behaviours as our environments change
  • GENDER is socially constructed, SEX isn’t
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20
Q

Evolutionary differences

A

When we got tools and could fight larger animals, we travelled in groups to catch them. Hard w/ children

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21
Q

Division of Labour

A
  • Women stayed and cared for children (could feed newborns)

- Men Hunted

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22
Q

What happened due to the division of labour?

A
  • Men developed better navigation skills (to find food, return home)
  • Women became better at recognising land marks (concerned with close to home dangers - served as markers for current destination when they got food)
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23
Q

Today, what are men and women better at and why?

A
  • Women have better verbal skills, they had to fight and defend their families
  • Men are physically stronger, they would fight with their muscles, reducing the need to verbally assault their attacker
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24
Q

Today what do women look for in a man to ensure the offsprings survival?

A
  • Look for providers: men w/ good jobs, an influential status in society or a large inheritance
  • Caring and nurturing men to help raise children, women have their own careers now
  • Healthy men w/ healthy sperm
25
Q

Evaluation on the biological (evolutionary) theory…

A
  • :( Gender roles have changed over time, biology isn’t only answer
  • :( We could have learned our behaviours (through watching others) might not be biological
  • :( Cultural differences aren’t taken into account, in Fiji women wear big skirts not trousers
  • :( A MIX of biology/evolution and gender roles/hormones
26
Q

Alternate Theory

A
  • Psychodynamic Theory
  • Sigmund Freud’s theory
  • Believed behaviour could be explained by ‘forces in the mind’
  • ‘forces’ (or energy) could be physical or mental.
  • For this theory, we look at mental forces
27
Q

What did Freud think about the stages of development?

A
  • Thought childhood could be seen as a series of stages - each dominated by particular aspects of the relationship w/ parents
  • Stages help develop our personalities
  • The libido is with us from birth - energy must be used up somehow!
28
Q

Libido

A

The sex drive

29
Q

Name the 3 stages of development

A

Oral phase/stage
Anal phase/stage
Phallic phase/stage

30
Q

Oral Phase/Stage

A
  • 0-1 years old
  • Children are forming their first close relationships
  • Problems at this stage can cause: problems in relationships like overdependence on others
  • Libido centred on mouth
31
Q

Anal Phase/Stage

A
  • 1-3 years old
  • Child-parent relationship is centred on the first experiences the child has on having authority posed on them
  • Can be conflicts: Over potty training
  • Conflicts can lead to anal personality characteristics
  • Libido centred on anus
32
Q

Anal personality characteristics

A
  • Stinginess
  • Stubbornness and orderliness
  • Intolerance of mess
  • Ambiguity
33
Q

Phallic Phase/Stage

A
  • 3-6 years old
  • Libido focused on phallus, the penis, for BOTH boys and girls
  • Experienced differently by boys and girls
  • Freud believed this was when ones sense of gender began to develop
  • The stage the Oedipus Complex begins
34
Q

What is the Oedipus Complex named after?

A

The character ‘Oedipus’ in Ancient Greek play ‘Oedipus the King’ by Sophocles

35
Q

The story behind the Oedipus Complex:

A
  1. Oedipus is abandoned by parents and adopted
  2. One day as an adult, he gets into a fight w/ a man and kills him
  3. Then solves a riddle from a Sphinx terrorising the kingdom
  4. Gets rewarded with the Queens hand in marriage
  5. The man turns out to be his father, the Queen his mother.
36
Q

Oedipus Complex

A
  • Freud’s version based on story, a bit different
  • Only boys experience this
  • Libido is focused on mother, he desires his mother
  • Knows if father found out he would be angry
  • Anxiety builds up, boy has to balance his fear of his father w/ desire for his mother.
37
Q

Castration Anxiety

A
  • Fear of father leads to castration anxiety
  • Definition: boy fears his testicles will be cut of by his father if he finds out how much the boy desires his mother
  • To solve this, the boy acts like a man to please father and get closer to mother
38
Q

Females: Electra Conplex

A
  • Female version of Oedipus Complex
  • Occurs in the Phallic Stage
    1. Girls desire their fathers because they desire a penis which is known as “penis envy”
    2. She believes she had already been castrated from mother as a punishment for desiring father
    3. Therefore not afraid of mother as little boys are of their father
    4. Girl learns her gender role by identifying w/ her mother
39
Q

What was the Electra Complex called before?

A

Freud called it “the feminine Oedipus complex”, psychoanalysts later renamed it after a character in another play by Sophocles.

40
Q

Evaluation on the Psychodynamic Theory:

A

:) Psychoanalytic explanation of sex and gender fits w/ other evidence showing that around 6 years old children identify with their same-sex parent.
:( Children develop sense of gender at diff times, impossible to tell what a young child is thinking. Might not have language to explain
:( If all this takes place in unconscious - like Freud maintains it does, the child won’t know it’s taking place
:( Unconscious is impossible to test, Freud’s theory remains a theory
:( There is evidence to suggest children develop gender identity w/out external genital organs; Freud’s theory can’t properly respond to that.

41
Q

Background of Bruce Reimar

A
  • Born in 1965
  • 8 month baby, during regular circumcision an accident occurred making his penis badly damaged
  • Parents saw psychologist John Money on tv talk about how boys could be turned into girls.
42
Q

BACKGROUND: JOHN MONEY

A
  • Believed gender was determined by upbringing, not biology
  • So by bringing up a boy as a girl, he would be just like a girl
  • Believed in order to have a healthy psychosexual development, important for someone’s genitals to look normal
  • If going to be raised a girl, need female genitals for healthy psychosexual development
43
Q

DIAMOND & SIGMUNDSON

A
  • Did a follow up study years later
  • By time they wrote it up, Bruce was an adult living as a man under name of David
  • They challenged Money’s statement that socialisation is the better explanation of gender
  • They believed biology would win - found it was a better explanation.
44
Q

AIM

A

To see if gender is more dependent on your biology or your upbringing

45
Q

METHOD

A
  • Case study
  • They looked at old psychologists notes, therapists impressions and medical records
  • Interviewed David Reimer, his mother and his wife
46
Q

SAMPLE

A

David Reimer

47
Q

FINDINGS

A
  • David hated being a girl and he preferred doing boy activities and wearing boy clothes
  • Once told about what happened, he chose to be a boy again —> suggests we are not psycho sexually neutral at birth and biology plays a larger role in our gender development than upbringing
49
Q

Various names of David Reimer and why

A

Bruce/Brenda - his parents picked it for him, liked it
John/Joan - Money picked it to follow ethical guidelines to keep his identity anonymous
David - David picked it as an adult because he wanted to

50
Q

What was the parents plan after Bruce/Brenda had testes removed and how old was he?

A
  • 17 months (had op and became known as Brenda, treated like a girl from then on)
  • They would bring Bruce up as their daughter not son, was too young to know what happened
  • As she got older was led to believe she was a girl
51
Q

What did money claim about Brenda?

A

He claimed she adapted well to being a girl, Sigmundson found opposite to be true

52
Q

What did Sigmundson find out - proving money’s claims to be false?

A
  • Between the ages 9-11, Brenda considered suicide
  • She had no friends, was teased about her looks (had a mannish face)
  • Got expelled for fighting - maybe due to he fact she couldn’t take the reading anymore
53
Q

What did Bruce/Brenda’s mother tell Diamond and Sigmundson?

A
  • Bruce was often more boisterous than twin
  • Would ignore girls toys, go for boy toys
  • Disliked dresses, liked boys clothing
  • Would mimic father, not mother
  • Little girls dress up in mothers dresses and lipstick, Brenda would mimic her father and pretend to shave
54
Q

What happened when Brenda reached puberty?

A
  • Was given hormones to develop breasts and a more feminine shape
  • Made him more unhappy - refused to wear a bra or take the hormones
55
Q

What did Brenda admit after puberty?

A
  • She often felt like a man inside:
    • Found other girls attractive, rejected boys w/ an interest in her
    • Preferred masculine activities, like sports
    • Wanted to ‘hang out’ with her brother
  • Father admitted what happened to her, chose to live as a boy again and took male hormones. Age 15/16 reconstructed penis
56
Q

What happened after identifying as a boy again?

A
  • At age 25, got married to a women and adopted her children
  • At 38, took his own life - maybe due to the enormity of what happened in his life, couldn’t overcome it
  • Twin brother took his own life, perhaps a biological explanation rather than a psychological one?
57
Q

What can we conclude from this case study?

A
  • Babies are not psychosexually neutral at birth
  • Gender is based more on biology than upbringing
  • Healthy psychosexual development doesn’t depend on appearance of genitals, more on the chromosomes (XX or XY)
58
Q

EVALUATION OF THE STUDY

A

:( Case study, only investigates ONE person - might not be representative of whole population
:( He had a twin brother - did is help him in his gender development or hinder him?
:( Parents knew he was born a boy. Did this have an effect on how they raised him? Did they treat him differently? Did they greet him better, worse or differently? Did this have an impact?

59
Q

Application to real life: equal opportunities

A
  • Psychological research suggests that males and females are born w/ diff aptitude’s
  • Positive discrimination: lead to boys getting more help w: their literacy because of their less developed verbal skills, girls may benefit from same sex maths classes because of their less developed visual spatial skills

Psychology GCSE 2017 (4 decks)

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