Gender Flashcards
Sex
-Biological and anatomical differences between males and female
Gender
-The social, cultural and constructed roles deemed appropriate for males and females
Scientific importance
- Report sex differences to see the impact on sexes and create/reinforce stereotypes
- Past research is inconsistent, sex and gender seen as same until late 70’s
Maccoby and Jacklin (1974)
- Reviewed hundreds of studies looking at intelligence, temperament and motivations
- differences caused by biological factors, socialization and imitation of the same sex parent (identification or social learning)
- They found that girls have better verbal abilities where as boys have better visuo-spatial and mathematical ability (adolescence), males are also more verbally and physically aggressive
Hyde (2005)
- Analysed 46 meta-analyses of cognitive, verbal, nonverbal, aggression, leadership and moral reasoning traits
- The only differences were that men masturbate more, have more positive attitudes towards sex in uncommitted relationships and are more aggressive
Awareness of observation
-If ppts know they are being observed they act more consistent with their gender roles showing the impact of social context
Positivists (behaviorists and biological)
-suggest gender bias does not matter and we should focus on the dualism of masculinity and femininity
Early research
- Goal was to highlight differences between genders so were presented as opposite, complementary, reciprocal and equal
- Focus on difference obscures power inequality and legitimates continued production of difference and inequality
Connell (1987)
- unitary sexual character
- masculinity and femininity are a body of traits which includes characters, roles, abilities and temperaments embedded in men and women
- Gender identity = static, unitary and stable
Mary Whiton Calkins
-First female president of APA in 1905
Inequality
- Women were barred from universities and excluded from certain jobs, paid less and given fewer opportunities for promotion
- Early 20th century 12% of the list of psychologists in American Men of Science were women
- Women doctors were not allowed into American Medical association until 1915 and Royal Society in 1948
- In the UK, women’s position in psychology was more favorable including in the BPS in its inception in 1901
Beatrice Edgell
-First British woman to obtain PhD in psychology Cognitive psychology (measuring the mind)
Victoria Hazlitt
- Student of Edgell, first studied animal learning
- Pioneering work in understanding introverts vs extroverts
Korn, Davis and Davis (1991)
- Asked large groups of leading historians of psychology and graduate department of psychology chairpersons to list their top 10 most important psychologists of all time. Which found they were all white males (no women)
- However, in 1990s 42% of PhDs in psychology were awarded to women and in 2011 75% were women
Bettelheim (1965)
-‘As much as women want to be scientists, they foremost want to be companions of mens and mothers’
Bowlby (1953)
-Linked motherhood to being at home, white 20-30-year-old middle class married women who stay at home
Crawford and Unger (1995)
-Research methodologies can be biased by not recording the sex/gender of participants or researching one sex more than others in particular contexts e.g. men and aggression / the effects of working women on children
Male standard
- Men become norm to which women are compared
- Although both have the same mood swings premenstrual syndrome is studied by not hyper testosterone
- In 1985, masochism (good wife syndrome) was added to DSM 3
- Men’s problems are externally attributed, and women are internally attributed
Masculine language bias
- Women have lower self esteem and men are conceited
- Women undervalue their work and men overvalue it
- Women are less self-confident than men, men are not as realistic as women
- Women are more likely to admit they are hurt, men are more likely to
- Women find it difficult to develop a separate sense of self and men have more difficulty in forming and maintaining relationships
- The phrases are just as bad but the phrases against men were seen as more jarring by both genders, as women are used to being discriminated against, suggests the language we use has masculinity bias
Gender bias in academic psychology
- More women study developmental, family and counselling whereas more men study cognitive
- Although more women than men study psychology only 30-50% of researchers and assistants are women
- 60% of lecturers are women
- women drop out at each point of the career ladder
Sexism in research
- Questions based on existing theory
- Male samples cant be generalized to women
- Male participants are more convenient and sex/gender is often unreported
- Non significant results and non-hypothesized gender differences should still be reported
- Correlation is a pattern not a significant gender difference - misleading
- Results based on one sex are often applied to both e.g. Erikson and Kohlberg
Erikson’s 8 (1950)
- Only used a male sample to study developmental stages but claimed it was universal
- Men work out identity before they find a relationship whereas women do this at the same time. This suggests females are abnormal compared to this chart
Kohlberg’s 6
- Only studied men for his theory of moral development
- Girls and women develop morality very differently so look morally deficient compared to the chart
First wave of feminism
-
