Gender

Question 1

Sex and stereotypes

Answer 1

the biological status of someone as either male or female, based on chromosomes and hormones.
men as dominant, unemotional; women as submissive and nurturing.

Question 2

Gender

Answer 2

the person’s sense and expression of maleness or femaleness. Determined by cultural differences

Question 3

Androgyny

Answer 3

mixture of both female and male traits as part of a scale of gender expression

Question 4

BSRI

Answer 4

asked 50 male and 50 female students to rank 200 traits by genderness. 600 to respond on a likert scale from 1 -7 on how much they identify with certain traits (20 male, 20 female, 20 neutral).
If high at either binary – that is what you are. If high male and female – androgynous. If low both – unclassified.
Those who are androgynous are generally happier.

Question 5

Sex and gender - evaluation

Answer 5

lack of temporal validity
understanding of sex/gender leads to greater harmony.
Androgyny as liberating.
Good test/retest reliability

Question 6

When and how is sex determined?

Answer 6

Sex of baby is determined at conception. 23rd chromosome
Female contributes – always X, male contributes – X or Y
Male – XY
male sex determined by SRY gene
Female – XX

Question 7

What are hormones?

Answer 7

chemical substances secreted by glands throughout the body and carried in bloodstream

Question 8

Testosterone

Answer 8

increases brain size and brings on male puberty

Question 9

Oestrogen

Answer 9

brings on female puberty/development of ovaries

Question 10

Oxytocin

Answer 10

fight or flight and breastfeeding

Question 11

Role of chromosomes/hormones - evaluation

Answer 11

David Reiner (but idiographic), transgenderism, Tricker et al, Batista boys

Question 12

Klinefelter’s syndrome

Answer 12

1/1000, men, XXY, infertility and lack of body hair, low literacy skills, shy

Question 13

Turner’s syndrome

Answer 13

1/2000, women, X0, webbed neck and short stature, high literacy and socially immature.

Question 14

Atypical chromosomal patterns - evaluation

Answer 14

understanding leads to early diagnosis, labelling, idiographic research

Question 15

Kohlberg’s cognitive explanation

Answer 15

Maturational theory

understanding of gender develops with age

Question 16

Gender labelling

Answer 16

at age 2/3 when a child is able to recognise their own gender. Label based on outward appearance so boy with long hair may be labelled as a girl.
‘were you a boy or girl when you were born?’ – 90% of 3 - year olds got it right.

Question 17

Gender stability

Answer 17

at age 4 when a child is able to label other’s gender. Gender is stable over time but not yet across situations

Question 18

Gender constancy

Answer 18

from age 7 onwards, understanding that gender does not change based on appearance.

Question 19

Kohlberg - evaluation

Answer 19

problem with inference, descriptive rather than explanatory

Slaby and Frey – more interest in same sex models, alpha bias.

Question 20

What is a schema?

Answer 20

a set of beliefs about a situation or role which sets out how to behave. Guides the processing of information and experiences

Question 21

How is schema theory and Kohlberg differ?

Answer 21

Agrees with Kohlberg that the basis of gender behaviour is a child’s thinking.
Belief that acquiring of gender relevant information happens before constancy is achieved

Question 22

In group/out group

Answer 22

Gain gender identity 2-3 and schema consists of in and out group (seek out information for own group and emulate in – group behaviours

Question 23

GST - evaluation

Answer 23

supported by Bussey and Bandura (felt better with appropriate toys)
fail to consider environmental influences
cognitive problem with inference
Martin et al - labelling toys

Question 24

Psychosexual stages

Answer 24

Psychosexual stages of gender development – oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital. After first two, face a crisis during phallic stage around the age of 5

Question 25

Oedipus complex

Answer 25

idea that boys have an unconscious desire to be with their mums. See father as an enemy in the way. Realise that the only way to have someone like their mum is to be like their dad. Identify with and internalise behaviours (so they take on his characteristics)

Question 26

Electra complex

Answer 26

girls are attracted to their mother. Then has awareness of a lack of penis (penis envy). Desire changes to father and changes desire to a baby. Identifies and internalises with mother

Question 27

Psychodynamic - evaluation

Answer 27

based on case study, inherently sexist – alpha bias, imply that kids raised in single parent household would not develop properly (Patterson found different – lesbians)

Question 28

SLT

Answer 28

Learn by imitation of a role model. Children learn from parents, peers and media figures.
Role model chosen by attractiveness, age, sex and status.

Question 29

Mediational processes

Answer 29

Attention
Retention
Motor reproduction
Motivation

Question 30

Impact of media

Answer 30

generally presents stereotypically gendered characters e.g. TV and Youtubers

Question 31

Media - evaluation

Answer 31

Williams TV experiment (2 years later…), children persist in behaviour that they don’t see modelled, practical application – better role models on TV

Question 32

Impact of culture

Answer 32

individualistic and collectivistic (collectivistic more stereotypical)
Parents, peers, school and religion
if nature all the same, if nurture differences.

Question 33

Culture - evaluation

Answer 33

Bobo doll
Kung San tribe (SLT can explain)
Mead – Arapesh, Tchambuli and Mundugumor
Universal culture – women all wanted men with resources, men all wanted beauty

Question 34

Atypical gender development

Answer 34

Small minority of males and females have a mismatch between their biological sex and the sex they feel (GI)
Many people who have GID identify as transgender and may opt for gender reassignment surgery

Question 35

Biological explanations of GID

Answer 35

Brain sex theory - Zhou et al studied the bed nucleus of the stria terminals which is assumed to be fully developed at age 5 and around 40% larger in males than females
Kruijver et al who studied the same brain tissue but focussed on the number of neurons in the BSTc rather than the number confirmed this in a follow up stud. Again the 6 transgender individuals showed a sex-reversed identity pattern with an average BSTc neuron number in the female range

Question 36

Psychological explanations of GID

Answer 36

Ovesey and Person have argued that GID in males is caused by the child experiencing extreme separation anxiety before GI has been established
The child fantasises of a symbiotic fusion with his mother to relieve the anxiety and the danger of separation is removed
The consequence is that the child ‘becomes the mother’ and thus adopts a female GI

Question 37

Atypical gender development - evaluation

Answer 37

biological reductionism,
BSTc contradictory - hormone therapy (cause/effect)
inadequate explanation of FTM.