G - Sex-role stereotypes and androgyny Flashcards
What is the development of gender due to?
In part to biology (nature) and in part to life experiences (nurture).
Androgyny
Formed from the two words ‘andr’, meaning male, and ‘gyny’, meaning female. The word means a combination of male and female characteristics.
Gender
A person’s sense of maleness or femaleness, a psychological/social construct.
Sex
Being genetically male (XY) or female (XX).
Sex-role stereotypes
A set of shared expectations within a social group about what men and women should do and think.
Stereotypes
A fixed belief about a particular group of people.
From when/where is a sex-role stereotype learned?
From birth as children are exposed to the attitudes of their parents and other in their society who tell them ‘Little boys don’t cry’ or ‘Little girls don’t like climbing trees’.
Is learning about sex-role stereotypes implicit or explicit?
Both implicit (through internalisation - schema building) and explicit (through modelling the behaviour of individuals of the same sex - SLT).
What does implicit mean?
Not directly expressed.
What does explicit mean?
Expressed.
Who introduced the concept of psychological androgyny?
Sandra Bem in the 1970’s.
What did Bem introduce the concept of in the 1970’s?
The concept of psychological androgyny , proposing that a person can be both masculine and feminine.
What did Bem’s view contrast with?
The traditional view that masculine and feminine behaviours are two separate clusters.
What did Bem argue?
That the traditional view was that rigid sex roles were important for mental health, whereas her view was that the opposite was true - that it was actually psychologically more healthy to avoid fixed sex-role stereotypes.
She instead argued that men and women should feel free to adopt a variety of masculine and feminine type behaviours as suits their personality.
What cost can stifling personality have according to Bem?
A psychological cost which can lead to mental disorder.
What did Bem claim?
You could not reliably tell someone’s gender by a list of their behaviours alone; most people perform some non-stereotypical behaviours.
What did Bem say that stereotypes in modern society could cause?
Psychological and social harm by artificially restricting behaviour - reinforcing fixed (musturbatory) distinctions could result in lower self-worth.
How did Bem say androgyny could be measured?
Using the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) - a psychological test.
How was the BSRI developed/how does it work?
By asking 100 American undergraduates which personality traits they thought were desirable for men or women. The original list of 200 items was narrowed down to 40 (20 masculine and 20 feminine traits), and 20 neutral items were added as distractors.
Each person rates themselves on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from never or almost never true to almost always true. Numerical scores for all masculine items are added up and the same for all feminine items, and then a person is given a score for femininity, masculinity and androgyny.
Why did Bem design the BSRI?
To make it possible to test for masculinity and femininity independently rather than setting them against each other. In traditional tests, of you selected a masculine item you couldn’t select a feminine one.
What was wrong about traditional androgyny tests which made Bem introduce the BSRI?
In traditional tests, of you selected a masculine item you couldn’t select a feminine one.
How were you determined as masculine/feminine/androgynous in the original BSRI?
Using the original scoring method, individuals were categorised as masculine (high masculine score, low feminine), feminine (low masculine score, high feminine) and androgynous (high ratio of masculine to feminine traits).
When were you categorised as feminine in the BSRI?
low masculine score, high feminine
When were you categorised as masculine in the BSRI?
high masculine score, low feminine
