G - Gender Schema Flashcards
What is a Gender Schema?
An organised knowledge about the characteristics and behaviours associated with a specific gender
How do schemas develop?
Children actively seek out information and actions of their own group - pay more attention to their gender related activities
How do schemas affect behaviour?
Could affect academic pursuits, e.g. boys don’t want to be nurses, only interested in activities associated with their gender
What are the 2 types of schemas?
Subordinate schema: categorises information into ‘male’ and ‘female’
Own sex/in-group schema: identifies information that is relevant to their own sex
What does the gender schema theory predict?
An increase in sex typed behaviour, children will also unconsciously distort information due to these categories
Why are children motivated to form schemas?
Motivated to be like other members of their gender, children pick up that gender is an important factor in society, have innate tendency to place information into categories
What did Campbell et al find that supports this theory?
Used visual preference techniques, 3 months (very minor preferences), 18 months (preference to boys activities - stronger in boys) - children have preferences at a younger age than Kohlberg suggested
How are Campbell et al’s findings further supported by Fagot?
2 year olds who cannot correctly label their gender spent 80% of their time in same gender groups, whereas those who couldn’t, only spent 50% of their time - motivated to learn the behaviours associated with their gender
What did Martin and Halverson find that supports this theory?
Showed video of a male being a nurse and a female being a doctor, many children either missed the point, distorted the information (M-D, F-N), or quickly forgot - making the information fit their schema
What did Bussey and Bandura find that goes against Martin and Halverson?
Children who had not attained a gender identity still disapproved non-conforming behaviour - it’s innate, not always caused from a gender schema
Why does the supporting research lack validity?
Most of the research lacks time validity as the studies were carried out 20-30 years ago (e.g. Martin and Halverson) when children were less likely to see contradictory stereotypes then they would now
How can this theory be practically applied? However, what is wrong with this?
Could use females in advertising of stereotypically male roles (scientists, firefighters) - may challenge their schema and make them less stereotypical gender professions.
However, this ignores biological influences on gender behaviours - attempts to change stereotypes may not work
