Chapter Five: Gender - Key Terms

Question 1

cognitive-developmental theory of gender

Answer 1

Kohlberg’s theory, based on Piaget’s ideas about cognitive development, asserting that gender is a fundamental way of organizing ideas about the world and that children develop through a predictable series of stages in their understanding of gender.

Question 2

Communal manhood

Answer 2

Anthony Rotundo’s term for the norm of manhood in 17th- and 18th-century colonial America, in which the focus of gender expectations for adolescent boys was on preparing to assume adult male role responsibilities in work and marriage.

Question 3

differential gender socialization

Answer 3

The term for socializing males and females according to different expectations about what attitudes and behavior are appropriate to each gender.

Question 4

Effect size

Answer 4

The difference between two groups in a meta-analysis, represented by the letter d.

Question 5

Expressive traits

Answer 5

Personality characteristics such as gentle and yielding, more often ascribed to females, emphasizing emotions and relationships.

Question 6

Gender

Answer 6

The social categories of male and female, established according to cultural beliefs and practices rather than being due to biology.

Question 7

Gender identity

Answer 7

Children’s understanding of themselves as being either male or female, reached at about age 3.

Question 8

gender intensification hypothesis

Answer 8

Hypothesis that psychological and behavioral differences between males and females become more pronounced at adolescence because of intensified socialization pressures to conform to culturally prescribed gender roles.

Question 9

Gender nonconforming

Answer 9

People who typically identify as either female or male but whose behaviours are androgynous to a
degree that falls outside conventional norms.

Question 10

Gender schema theory

Answer 10

Theory in which gender is viewed as one of the fundamental ways that people organize information about the world.

Question 11

Gender socialization

Answer 11

The process through which cultures communicate gender expectations to children and adolescents.

Question 12

Hymen

Answer 12

The thin membrane inside a girl’s vagina that is usually broken during her first experience of sexual intercourse. Tested in some cultures before marriage to verify the girl’s virginity.

Question 13

Instrumental traits

Answer 13

Personality characteristics such as self-reliant and forceful, more often ascribed to males, emphasizing action and accomplishment.

Question 14

Machismo

Answer 14

Ideology of manhood, common in Latino cultures, which emphasizes males’ dominance over females.

Question 15

Marianismo

Answer 15

The belief, common in Catholic cultures, that females should emulate the Virgin Mary by being submissive and self-denying.

Question 16

Meta-analysis

Answer 16

A statistical technique that integrates the data from many studies into one comprehensive statistical analysis.

Question 17

normal distribution or bell curve

Answer 17

The bell-shaped curve that represents many human characteristics, with most people around the average and a gradually decreasing proportion toward the extremes.

Question 18

Passionate manhood

Answer 18

Anthony Rotundo’s term for the norm of manhood in the 20th- century United States, in which self-expression and self- enjoyment replaced self-control and self-denial as the paramount virtues young males should learn in the course of becoming a man.

Question 19

Procreate

Answer 19

In the manhood requirements of traditional cultures, the requirement of being able to function sexually well enough to produce children.

Question 20

Protect

Answer 20

In the manhood requirements of traditional cultures, the requirement of being able to assist in protecting one’s family and community from human and animal attackers.

Question 21

Provide

Answer 21

In the manhood requirements of traditional cultures, the requirement of being able to provide economically for one’ self as well as a wife and children.

Question 22

Schema

Answer 22

A mental structure for organizing and interpreting information

Question 23

Self-made manhood

Answer 23

Anthony Rotundo’s term for the norm of manhood in 19th-century America, in which males were increasingly expected to become independent from their families in adolescence and emerging adulthood as part of becoming a man.

Question 24

Self-socialization

Answer 24

In gender socialization, refers to the way that children seek to maintain consistency between
the norms they have learned about gender and their behavior.

Question 25

Sex

Answer 25

The biological status of being male or female

Question 26

Social roles theory

Answer 26

Theory that social roles for males and females enhance or suppress different capabilities, so that males and females tend to develop different skills and attitudes, which leads to gender-specific behaviors.

Question 27

Stereotype

Answer 27

A belief that others possess certain characteristics simply as a result of being a member of a particular group.

Question 28

Transgender

Answer 28

People whose self-identification does not match their biological sex.

Question 29

Transsexuals

Answer 29

People who experience a fundamental mismatch between their gender and their sex, and who may address this misalignment through physical transformations ranging from adopting clothes characteristic of the other sex to sex reassignment surgery.

Question 30

Women’s movement

Answer 30

Organized effort in the 20th century to obtain greater rights and opportunities for women.

Question 31

Androgyny

Answer 31

A combination of “male” and “female” personality traits.