eval gender theory

Question 1

Evaluation reductionist

Answer 1

• The theory doesn’t take into account biological factors suggesting that it is all gender-oriented behaviour is created through cognition.
• Other factors, such as the exposure to too much testosterone or behavioural factors such as reinforcement for playing with the other sex may cause behavioural differentiations and GST does not take this into account.
• Therefore, gender-schema theory is a heavily reductionist theory and may not be generalisable to real world contexts, because it does not account for other factors that affect gender identity besides cognitions.

Question 2

Explanatory Power

Answer 2

• Gender schema theory cannot explain ambigious situations, such as when a girl plays with a toy truck rather than a doll.
• These abnormal situations should not happen according to GST, therefore there is a lack of explanatory power and shows that GST is not readily applicable to all situations, indicating it has a limited ecological validity.

Question 3

Gender Labelling May Happen Earlier

Answer 3

• Martin and Haverson found through the study of video tapes that children can label themselves as a boy or girl from as early as 19 months, which is when they start communicating, suggesting that there was a gender identity before they could articulate it.
• This suggest that they may have underestimated children’s ability to label themselves, challenging schema theory’s credibility by suggesting the schema develops earlier than suggested.