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Gender Flashcards

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1
Q

Sex

A

Whether you are male or female is determined by your biology

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2
Q

Gender Identity

A

Is whether you are masculine or feminine, and is determined by both biological and environmental factors

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3
Q

Sex role stereotypes

A

Expectations by society, change over time and between cultures, guide our behaviour- e.g masculine characteristics- main income, colour blue. Feminine characteristics- housewife, colour pink. Learnt by: social learning theory, direct tuition, direct reinforcement

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4
Q

AO3- Sex role stereotypes

A

POSITIVE:
- Make society easy- everybody knows what their roles are- both in family and at work

NEGATIVE:
- Support/ lead to inequality- disadvantage females- in recent times- females take on work- housewife, mum and job
- If they want to do something different- difficult to follow sex role stereotypes
- Females- not have an expectation of dressing- don’t have to wear dresses. Get a job- able to support yourself- get an education- less unusual to have children
- Males- expected to contribute to family home- cooking, cleaning, childcare. Show emotion
- Cultural differences: In some Middle Eastern countries- women should be at home- traditional roles

Elaboration:
- Sex role stereotypes are shaped by society in all cultures
- Deterministic argument- accept sex role stereotypes- ignores we have free will to reject the culture
- Change sex role stereotypes: role modelling (not just from parent, TV + social media), children see both parents in both roles- more likely to be flexible

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5
Q

Chromosomes and hormones in sex and gender

A
  • Female has XX, Male has XY
  • Y chromosome determines the sex of a male
  • First 6 weeks after conception (fertilisation) there are no structural differences between genetically male and genetically female embryos
  • 6 weeks after conception the crucial window for sexual differentiation opens
  • Y chromosome triggers production of hormones
  • When the foetus is about 3 months old, the testes produce testosterone which causes external male genitalia to develop
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6
Q

Gender related behaviours linked to hormones

A

Testosterone:
- Aggression
- Sexual behaviours
- Playing with cars etc
Male brain is more primed towards systems

Lack of Testosterone:
- Empathising
- Maternal behaviours
Female brain is better at sympathising to link hormones to gender roles.

Gender role behaviours caused by hormone which links to chromosome this suggests gender roles aren’t always learnt

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7
Q

Sex differences in brain development

A
  • Right hemisphere more developed in males- spatial awareness skills. Testosterone slows down the development of certain parts of the brain and speeds growth of other parts.
  • Left hemisphere more developed in females- conservative, less likely to take risks
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8
Q

Oestrogen

A
  • All embryos start off as female, therefore without the presence of testosterone, embryos will follow a female pathway
  • This is why certain athletes might of been labelled as female in the womb
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9
Q

Oxytocin

A
  • Females produce more oxytocin
  • Promotes bonding
  • Females are more likely to produce oxytocin in times of stress- helps produce milk
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10
Q

AO3- Supporting research

A
  • Young showed that female monkeys exposed to male hormones during pre- natal development tended to engage in more rough and tumble play in their early years- exposed to testosterone in the womb. Support that it’s our genes and hormones that decide our gender exposed to a lot of testosterone
    Support the biological approach because animals aren’t being socialised highlighting gender difference in hormones as nothing is being learnt, e.g no role model, unlike humans who will be socialised since birth
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11
Q

Klinefelter’s syndrome

A
  • Occurs in men as a result of an extra X chromosome (XXY).
  • Might have female characteristics- not producing enough testosterone
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12
Q

How is Klinefelter’s syndrome diagnosed?

A
  • Not diagnosed until puberty because the boy’s testicles fail to grow normally
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13
Q

Physical characteristics of Klinefelter’s syndrome

A
  • Reduced body hair
  • Breast development at puberty
  • Long gangly limbs
  • Underdeveloped genitals
  • Problems with co-ordination or clumsiness
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14
Q

Psychological characteristics of Klinefelter’s syndrome

A
  • Poorly developed language skills
  • Poor reading ability
  • Lack of sexual activity- low testosterone
  • Passive and shy
  • Doesn’t cope well with stressful situations
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15
Q

How is Klinefelter’s syndrome treated?

A
  • Can be given testosterone through an injection
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16
Q

Turner’s syndrome

A
  • Genetic condition that only affects females and randomly happens in the womb
  • When a girl has only one normal X chromosome (XO)
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17
Q

Physical characteristics of Turner’s syndrome

A
  • Shorter than average
  • Underdeveloped ovaries- no menstruation
  • Lower hairline
  • Smaller breasts
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18
Q

Psychological characteristics of Turner’s syndrome

A
  • Socially immature
  • Higher than avrage reading ability
  • Trouble relating to their peers
  • May experience difficulty “fitting in”- difficulty making friendshups
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19
Q

Treating Turner’s syndrome

A
  • Can be treated with Oestrogen and Progesterone
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20
Q

Evaluation Points of research- Klinefelter and Turner’s Syndrome

A
  1. A strength of research is that it helps us to depict nature- nurture debate as gender behaviours are to due nature and nature. E.g XXY boys have low sex drive showing its due to genetics not socialisation
  2. However, difference in behaviour could be due to social reasons. E.g a girl with Turner’s Syndrome are shorter and could be treated as younger therefore they’re socially immature.
  3. A strength of research is that there are practical applications. E.g girls with Turner’s- if diagnosed early can extract eggs before puberty and then can implant fertilised egg. Showing better quality of life.
  4. A weakness is that there is socially sensitive research. E.g society labelling people with a disorder. They need to be careful that when carrying out an experiment they are giving people a better quality of life instead of taking advantage of vulnerable people.
21
Q

Androgyny

A
  • Displaying a balance of both masculine and feminine characteristics in one’s personality
  • Can adapt to requirements of different situations
  • Not limited by sex- role stereotypes - Is seen as a beneficial characteristic
22
Q

Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI)- How she developed the scale?

A
  • Done in 1974
  • 50 male and 50 female judges rated 200 traits in terms of how much they represented maleness and femaleness
  • The 20 that scored highest in each category were added to the scale
  • She also included 20 neutral traits (as a filler- reduce demand characteristics)
  • Participants rate themselves on a 7 point rating scale and are classified as masculine, feminine androgynous (score high in both) or undifferentiated (score low in both)

Masculine items:
- Aggressive
- Ambitious

Feminine items:
- Affectionate
- Cheerful

Neutral items:
- Happy
- Helpful

23
Q

Evaluation of Androgyny

A

Strength:
- Good construct validity.
- E.g gave scale to 1000 students and asked them if they were masculine or feminine.
- Found people’s scores correlated with their own ideas of gender identity

Weakness:
- Scale has temporal validity
- E.g what was masculine and feminine has changed over time and are dated
- The distinction between male and female is blurred.

WEAKNESS:
- Judges were American leading to cultural bias
- Difference cultures would put different traits on the scale
- People rate themselves- if you agree to everything = androgynous
- Acquies bias

24
Q

Cognitive Development Theory

A
  • The way we think changes as we get older because of physical changes in the brain
  • Brain becomes capable of increasingly complicated and abstract thinking as the brain matures
  • Brain development occurs in stages
  • Children naturally progress from one stage to the next as their brain matures
  • Changes in gender- thinking are the outcome of age- related changes in a child’s cognitive abilities
25
Q

Piaget’s idea of conservation

A
  • Conservation is one of the key cognitive abilities that develops as teh brain matures at around the age of 6 or 7
  • The ability to understand that, despite changes in appearance, the basic properties of an object remain unchanged
26
Q

Kohlberg’s Gender Constancy Theory

A
  • Describes how gender constancy develops
  • Gender constancy is achieved when a child can conserve gender
  • 3 stages: 1. Gender Identity, 2. Gender Stability, 3. Gender Constancy
27
Q

Beginning of Kohlberg theory

A
  • Stage theory progression through the stages is based on brain maturity
  • Therefore it is biological, it is not dependent on education- all children go through the stages
28
Q

Stage 1: Gender Identity

A
  • Around age of 2, Kohlberg proposed that children are able to correctly identify themselves as boy or girl- this is **Gender Identity **
  • At 3 years, most children are able to identify other people as boys/ men or girls/ women, an can correct respond to questions such as “Which one of these is like you?”- if they are shown a picture of a man or a woman.
  • Their understanding of gender tends not to stretch much beyond simple labelling
  • Often children of this age group do not view gender as fixed
  • E.g a 2 and 1/2 year old boy may be heard to say “When I grow up I will be a mummy”
29
Q

Stage 2: Gender Stability

A
  • According to Kohlberg, at the age of 4, children acquire gender stability
  • With this comes the realisation that they will always stay the same gender
  • Children of this age cannot apply this logic to other people in other situations
  • They are often confused by external changes in appearance they may describe a man who has long hair as a woman and they also believe that people change gender if they engage activities that are more often associated with a different gender
30
Q

Stage 3: Gender Constancy

A
  • Gender constancy appears in the final stage of development
  • Kohlberg claimed that around the age of 6, children recognise that gender remains constant across time and situations and this understanding is applied to other people’s gender as their own
  • As a consequence, they are no longer fooled by changes in outward appearance
  • Althouh they may regard a man wearing a dress as unusual, a child is able to understand that he is still a man “underneath”
  • Gender constancy is also significant in that children of this age begin to seek out gender appropiate role models to identify with and imitate
  • This connects closely with ideas in SLT (social learning theorists, in contrast, argue that these processes can occur at ange of rather than only after 6
  • For Kohlberg, once a child has a fully developed and internalised concept of gender at teh constancy stage, they embark upon an active search for evidence which confirms that concept
  • A tendency towards gender stereotyping begins to emerge at this age
31
Q

STRENGTH/ Evaluation of Kohlberg’s theory

A

STRENGTH:
- Munroe’s study supports that this is a biological approach
- E.g Munroe found that there were similar stages in gender devloped in other countries such as Kenya, Nepa;
- It is a biological approach based on brain maturity

STRENGTH:
- Damon told children a story about George, a boy who liked to play with dolls
- 4 year- olds said it was fine for George to play with dolls, 6 year olds thought it was wrong for George to play with dolls
- They had gone beyond understanding what boys and girls do, to developing rules and what they ought to do
- This suggests children who have achieved constancy have formed rigid stereotypes regarding gender- appropiate behaviour

32
Q

WEAKNESS/ Evaluation

A

WEAKNESS:
- Supporting research relies on unsatisfactory methods to assess gender constancy
- Kohlberg may have overestimated the age at which children reach eage stage
- Bem believed that children have an awareness of gender and gender specific behaviours from around 2 years, due to the development of gender schemas.
- Children can’t conserve until they have a genital knowledge test otherwise they use outward appearances
- This suggests that the typical way of testing gender constancy may misrepresent what younger children actually know

WEAKNESS:
- Poor temporal validity
- E.g it’s outdated.
- In todays society gender identiy can change based on outward appearance

33
Q

Gender Schema Theory

A
  • Schema- Cognitive structure that contains all your information on a topic/ person/ event/ experience
  • Help us to navigate the world

WEAKNESS:
- Lead to stereotyping/ discrimination/ racism
- Can make mistakes
- Become rigid- stop us from accepting new information- hard for schemas to change

34
Q

The development of gender schemas

A
  • As soon as children learn that people are labelled as “males” and “females” they begin to form gender schemas
  • In- groups: Any group you feel you are part of- Don’t want to carry out any behaviour that’s like the other group
  • Out- group: Groups we don’t identify with/ don’t like
  • If you’re in one group, you oppose the other- want your group to be the best- INCREASE self- esteem
35
Q

Development of Gender Schemas- GENDER SCHEMA THEORY

A
  • Cognitive- development theory argues that children’s understanding of gender changes with age
  • Share Kohlberg’s view that children develop their understanding of gender by actively structuring their own learning, rather than passively observing and imitating role models
36
Q

Development of Gender Schemas- GENDER SCHEMA AFTER GENDER IDENTITY

A
  • Once a child has established gender identity around 2-3 years he or she will begin to search the environment for information that encourages development of gender schema
  • Contrasts with Kohlberg’s view that this process only begins after they have progressed through all 3 stages, around age 7, with gender constancy
37
Q

Development of Gender Schemas- GENDER SCHEMA DETERMINE BEHAVIOUR

A
  • For young children, schemas are likely to be formed around stereotypes and these provide a framework that directs experience as well as the child’s understanding of itself
  • By age 6, children have a rather fixed and stereotypical idea about what is appropriate for their gender
  • Children are likely to misremember or disregard information that does not fit with their existing schema
38
Q

Development of Gender Schemas- IN-GROUP INFORMATION BETTER REMEMBERED

A
  • Children tend to have a much better understanding of the schema that are appropiate to their own gender (In- group)
  • Consistent with the idea that children pay more attention to information, relevant to their gender identity, rather than that of the out- group
  • It is not until around 8 years, children develop elaborate schemas for both genders, as opposed to just their own
  • In- group identity also serves to bolster the child’s level of self- esteem
39
Q

Development of Gender Schemas- AO3- Martin and Little study

A
  • The study by Martin and Little supports the gender schema theory because they found that preschool children have gender stereotypes about what is appropriate for boys and girls before they develop much understanding about gender, supporting the idea that the formation of gender schemas comes before understanding of gender
40
Q

Development of Gender Schemas- AO3- Hoffman study

A
  • The study by Hoffman supports the gender schema theory because he found that children whose mothers work have less stereotyped views of what men do
  • E.g children are less likely to show rigid schemas, showing that children’s schemas may be flexible if information is modelled and shown consistently
41
Q

Development of Gender Schemas- AO3- WEAKNESS 1- BOYS

A
  • A weakness of gender schema theory is that boys show stronger and earlier preferences for typically male activities, due to the effects of testosterone
  • This shows that boys show stronger gender behaviour
42
Q

Development of Gender Schemas- AO3- WEAKNESS 2- Difficult to test

A
  • A weakness of gender schema theory is that schemas are difficult to test
  • E.g self- report will lead to answer that may not reveal true behaviours showing that the only way to test schemas is by asking questions
43
Q

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory

A
  • Prior to reaching the phallic stage, children have no concept of gender identity- at the end of phallic stage- gender identity occurs- notice physical differences between boys and girls
  • They have no understanding of “male” or “female” so do not categorise themselves or others in that way
  • In the phallic stage, the focus of pleasure for the child switches to the genitals, within this stage children experience Oedipus complex (boys) or Electra complex (girls)
  • Stages are crucial in formation of gender identity
44
Q

Oedipus complex

A
  • Phallic stage- boys develop incestuous feelings towards their mother
  • They harbour a jealous and murderous hatred for their father
  • Boy fears he may be castrated by his father for his feeling towards his mother
  • Conflict: Lust for mother and fear of father
  • To resolve the conflict, boy gives up his love for his mother and begins to identify with his father
45
Q

Electra complex

A
  • Phallic stage- girls experience penis envy- seeing themselves and mothers as being in competition for their father’s love
  • Girls develop a double- resentment towards their mother
    1. Mother is a love rival standing in the way of the father, 2. Mother is blamed by daughter for having no penis
  • Girls over time come to accept that they will never have a penis and substitute penis envy with desire to have children, identifying with mothers
  • Conflict: Between lust for father and fear of losing mother’s love
46
Q

Identification and Internalisation

A

Identification: Towards the end of the phallic stage, children resolve their conflicts by identifying with the same sex parent.
- Develops a superego (adopting that parent’s morals), gender identity and role

Internalisation: Involves children taking on board the gender identity of the same- sex parent

47
Q

STRENGTHS of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory

A
  1. Researchers found that boys whose fathers are absent during the Oedipus complex around age 5 will show less sex- typed behaviour. This supports Freud’s idea of identification with same- sex parent is key in the development of gender role
48
Q

WEAKNESSES of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory

A
  1. Lacks empirical data. E.g there is zero evidence. This shows that Freud’s theory is unscientific because it cannot be falsified
  2. There is temporal validity. E.g the role of the mother and father is different that in Victorian times. This shows that there is a blur between roles of mother and father. Resulting in less strong gender role
  3. Freud ignored the impact of siblings on gender development. Showing that Freud is only centered around the impact of the mum and dad and isn’t taking siblings into account
49
Q
A

Psychology (13 decks)

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