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A level Psychology > Gender > Flashcards

Gender Flashcards

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1
Q

Define - Gender

A

A person’s sense of maleness or femaleness a psychological/ social construct

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2
Q

Define - Sex

A

Being genetically male or female.

XX or XY

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3
Q

Define - sex-role stereotypes

A

A set of shared expectations within a social group about what men and women should do and think.

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4
Q

What was Bem’s idea?

A

One person can display behaviours of both genders.

Androgyny

Could not reliably tell someone’s genders by a list of characteristics.

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5
Q

Name the study Bem did?

A

Bem Sex Role Inventory

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6
Q

Explain the process of Bem’s sex role inventory

A
  1. 20 Masc + 20 Fem + 20 neutral characteristics
  2. Participants use a 7-point Libert Scale to rate the likelihood of performing the behaviours
  3. Scores were given for Masc, fem or androgyny
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7
Q

How can you evaluate Bem’s Sex role inventory?

A
  • Criticised for describing androgyny but not the opposite (Spence) - 4th category added - undifferentiated - low masc and fem - a strong scientific method
  • Lack of construct validity - should be more items or the range in neutral category to fully describing someone.
  • Strong concurrent/ temporal validity - gender explanations diathesis-stress argument - gender can change over your life all brains are androgynous due to mosaic.
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8
Q

What is the Gender Schema theory?

A
  • Everyone acts according to their dominant schema for a given situation.
  • Some people have a wider repertoire of schematic references than others (androgynous)
  • Some learn very specific schemata.
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9
Q

What gene is contained in the Y chromosome that causes male physical development at the fetal stage?

A

SRY gene

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10
Q

When does the sex organ devlop?

A

3 months after conception

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11
Q

What sex hormone is produced in the adrenal glands?

A

Lutropin produced in both genders.

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12
Q

What responds to lutropin? What is this response?

A
  • Testes contain Legdig cells that respond to Lutropin by producing testosterone.
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13
Q

What are two examples of intersex disorders?

A
  • Killinefellers syndrome XXY
  • Turners syndrome XO
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14
Q

What is another name used to describe atypical sex chromosome patterns?

A

intersex

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15
Q

Explain Kllinefeller’s syndrome

A
  • 1 in 10,000 men
  • XXY chromosome configuration
  • Born with a penis and develops male traits.
  • Usually infertile and lacking in muscular definition and feminine masc. characteristics.
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16
Q

Explain turners syndrome

A
  • XO configuration - one is damaged or missing
  • 1 in 2,000 female
  • Normal Vigina and womb but have undeveloped ovaries.
  • Webbed feet, narrow hips, irregular internal organs
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17
Q

What are three hormones tha effect gender?

A
  • Testosterone
  • Oestrogen
  • Oxytocin
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18
Q

What happens if a fetus is insensative to testosterone?

A

Intersex

  • No formation of male genitalia
  • Often raised as girls because no visible penis
  • Some identified as XY and raised as boys
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19
Q

How is brain development effected by testosterone?

A
  • Studies show XX females are ‘tomboyish’
  • They prefer masc. activities
  • Berenboum and Bailey 2003
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20
Q

Why is oestrogen present in all cases for the fetus?

A

The default gender is female.

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21
Q

How much larger is a male brain than female?

A

10-15%

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22
Q

What does oestrogen do?

A

Controls menstrual cycle through increasing blood flow to the uterus.

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23
Q

What does oestrogen promote during puberty?

A

Promotes secondary female sex characteristics.

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24
Q

Where is oxytocin produced?

A

Pituitary gland

In response to skin-to-skin contact.

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25
Q

What does oxytocin do?

A
  • promote bonding behaviours
  • causes milk production
  • Enables post-orgasm bliss/contentment
  • helps wound-healing
  • dampen fight and flight response and related to tend and befriend
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26
Q

What did Kohlberg do?

A
  • cognitive explanation of gender development
  • Gave the levels of moral development
  • Biologically predetermined stages.
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27
Q

State the stages involved in making an action part of a schema

A
  1. assimilation - action
  2. Equilibrium - learnt
  3. new situation - new action
  4. dequilibration - doesn’t understand
  5. accommodation - allows new action into schema

Cycle continuously occurs for new actions

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28
Q

What are the three levels of moral development?

A
  1. pre-conventional - avoiding punishment, consequences of actions rather than intentions, intrinsically deference to authority - right behaviour is whatever is best for oneself
  2. conventional - good boy/girl attitudes - sees fitting into social roles - law and order as highest ideals - social obedience to maintain a functional society
  3. Post-conventional - learn other have different values - law is contingent on culture - develop moral prinicple
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29
Q

Explain Piagets Periods of Cognitive Development

A
  • 0-2 - sensori motor - senses and motor skills - object permanence learned
  • 2-6 - pre-operational - symbolic thinking, language, egocentric thinking - imagination/experience - grow child decenters
  • 7-11 - concrete operational - logic applied - conservation numbers and ideas
  • 12 - adults - formal operational - abstract thinking - hypothetical - ethics and politics
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30
Q

What were Kohlberg’s three stages?

A
  1. Gender labels - 2-3 years
  2. gender stability - 4-7 years
  3. gender constancy - 7-adulthood
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31
Q

Explain the first stage of Kohlberg’s theory - gender labels

A

Characteristics - label themselves boy/girl as well as others - label based on appearance

Explanations - Piaget - pre-operational thinking - lack internal logic - not consistent

Effect on gender development - schemas produced for simple masculine and fem characteristics - stereotypes.

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32
Q

Explain the second stage of Kohlberg’s theory - Gender Stability

A

Characteristics - gender stable over time - not realise gender is stable across situations - if man wears dress he becomes woman

Explanations - no concept of conservation

Effect on Gender Development - gender and appearance are separate

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33
Q

Explain the third stage of Kohlberg’s theory - Gender constancy

A

characteristics - gender is independent of time, place or appearance - preference to gender-appropriate behaviours

explanations - preference is result of understanding gender can’t change

Effect on Gender Development - gender fixed - reject gender inappropriate behaviour

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34
Q

State two ways Martin and Halverson adapted Kohlberg’s theory

A
  1. Gender-relevant info happens before gender constancy
  2. Schemas formed have effects on psychological functioning later in life - especially cognitive abilities like memory or attention span
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35
Q

How did Martin and Halverson believe schemas formed?

A
  • formed by TV/parents/schools
  • containing info on cultural norms
  • very simplistic and black and white - stereotypical info.
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36
Q

Explain in-group and out-group bias

A
  • form schema about others
  • links made between self-schema and group identified with
  • cognitive processing develops this bias
  • maximisation of in-group positive qualities
  • Maximisation of out-group negative qualities
  • builds self-esteem and reinforces stereotypes

Babies like similar and want different to be punished.

37
Q

What does the in-group and out-group bias direct?

A

Children directed to same-sex peers and away opposite-sex groups.

This is part of gender constancy stage.

Martin - 1991 - They fear rejection if they form a relationship with out-group individuals as they have learnt everyone share the same biases

38
Q

Define - internalisation

A

accept other beliefs as resonate with yours.

39
Q

Define - identification

A

comply to gain access to a group

40
Q

What stage of development is present during the Oedipus complex?

A

Phallic stage

41
Q

Explain the stages of the Oedipus complex

A
  1. Boy aware of sexuality and desire for mothers full attention - father = threat
  2. wish father dead - dear revenge if he finds out - castration anxiety - represses this
  3. Imitate fathers actions to mother leading to identification with male gender behaviours.
  4. Conflict resolved when bot no longer feels competition against father - superego develops
42
Q

What did Lung address?

A

Address gender bias - freud showed girls are failed/lesser than boys.

Forced freud to create electra complex

43
Q

Explain the stages of the Electra Complex

A
  1. Girls attach to mother - want attention but confused as discover she doesn’t have penis
  2. Resent mother - penis envy - assume mother felt inadequate and castrated her child.
  3. Girls then feel attraction to father
  4. fails to identify with father so confused so desire to have baby so identity with mother.
44
Q

What issues did Lung identify with the phallic stage fixation?

A
  1. suggests healthy men overcome repressed anxiety - but what if no father - boy becomes promiscuous as internalised belief - women unattainable - internalise female behaviour and become homosexual.
  2. Electra implies girls identify with mother as a compromise - last resort - no one chooses to be female - this would mean females are inferior - weaker - lack what is taken to be male - women are anxious/amoral - have more mental illness - natural condition
45
Q

What is the two process model?

A
  • Operant and Classical conditioning
  • Bandura added the mediational process - 1982
46
Q

What is indirect reinforcement?

A
  • Combined vicarious reinforcement and observation
  • identification important
47
Q

Explain the stages of the mediational process

A
  • imitation - children learn sex-role stereotypes by copying role model
  • observation - assimilate observations - GST
  • identification - similar characteristics
  • modelling see similar who rewarded
  • vicarious reinforcement - in/out group biased - praised for filling sterotypes.
48
Q

How did Bandura adapt the mediational process?

A

mediational -> cognitive

social cognitive theory - children undergo a cognitive assessment of new behaviours - compare expectation of reward vs. punishment. - cost-benefit - expectancy-value heuristic

49
Q

Explain the behaviourist aspects of the gender maintenance theory by direct reinforcement.

A
  • Whatevers expected
  • The future behaviourists depended on physical consequences
  • direct +tive and -tive reinforcement or punishment
  • child punished if don’t to stereotypical then done less frequently
  • if rewarded behaviour more frequent.
50
Q

What do cognitive processes allow?

A

Children to learn through direct tuition

51
Q

What are the stages of the feedback loop?

A
  • behaviour
  • reflection
  • consequence
  • adjustment
52
Q

define - culture

A

consensus norms, traditions and morals valued by society

53
Q

What did Berry et al. research?

A
  • Research falsifying belief women are less important
  • largest factors affecting conformity are activity level + physical environment
  • Meta-analysis
54
Q

What did Alleye research?

A

the decline in pay gap in UK

55
Q

Explain the three primitive societies

Key study

A
  • mead - 1935
  • overt participant observation
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Small tribes all speak the same language
  • Apapesh + Mundugumor = no western contact, same behaviours for male and female
  • Tchambuli = western contact - the difference between characteristics of male and female.
  • Disprove belief that innate and universal behaviours.
56
Q

Define - Media

A

Methods of transmitting and storing knowledge

57
Q

Explain the study of Bandura and Bussey

A
  • content analysis of large range of film and prints to investigate gender roles.
  • men - confident, independent, assertive, interesting and complex.
  • female - dependent, hysterical, unambitious, emotional and two dimentinal
58
Q

What two studies investigated role models?

A
  • Hodges et al.
  • Ronley et al.
59
Q

Explain the study by Hodges et al.

A
  • men in control - women helpless
60
Q

Explain the study by Ronley et al

A
  • Women physically flawless and emotionally passive
  • Used Megan Markle in suits as case study
  • Whereas men - clumsy and accomplished.
61
Q

Explain the case study by McGhee et al.

A
  • longitudinal study showing how powerful stereotypes are for children
  • 6-12-year-olds watching. 25 hours/weeks express more stereotypes than those < 10 hours/week
62
Q

Explain the case study of vicarious reinforcement and star wars

A
  • women succeed when feminine
  • Men succeed when masculine
  • self-efficacy effected by sex-relevant characteristics exaggerated in protagonists and under represented in antagonist
63
Q

Who did a study on counter sterotypes?

A

Pingree

64
Q

Explain the study by Pingree on counter stereotypes

A
  • Deliberately cast unusual and non-stereotypical roles
  • compared children watching adverts
  • questionnaires
  • significant differences between groups in answers
  • started large gender equality movement in media
  • ecological validity
65
Q

Define gender dysphoria

A
  • chronic distress due to perception of sex/gender mismatch
  • biologically verifiable excluding intersex conditions
66
Q

What is gender identity disorder?

A
  • DSM - III first saw
  • Previously women are seen as either healthy or hysterical
  • cultural bias identified
  • Samoan culture - 3 genders - include a feminine male
  • social construction in western changes overtime
  • DSM-V - replaced GID with term Gender dysphoria
  • Seen as a spectrum
67
Q

How did Bem adapt the Samoan case study for gender dysphoria?

A
  • We need 4 instead of three genders in the western world
  • male 1 and 2 (extreme male, masc females)
  • female 1 and 2 (extreme female, feminine males)
68
Q

Explain how genes can be used to explain atypical gender development

A
  • Hare et al.
  • 112 male to female transexuals DNA
  • Androgen receptor gene longer in transsexuals
  • reduced testosterone cause changes in development
  • brain less masc
  • threshold level for masc development never reached
69
Q

Explain how the brain can be used to explain atypical gender development

A
  • Bed nucleus of Stria terminalis - 2x size in straight men than women
  • Size correlates with preferred sex not biological sex
70
Q

What does the Bed nucleus of Stria terminalis do?

A
  • integrates info across the limbic system
  • Monitors stress-readiness levels - allostatic valence
71
Q

What two studies were done to investigate the correlation between size of the brain and sex preference?

A
  • Zhou et al - Male to Female transexual similar to fem average.
  • Knuijer et al. - Female to male transexual typical male range.
72
Q

what are some stable behavioural differences between men and women?

A
  • brains not 100% fem or masc
  • women brain 10-15% smaller
  • women thicker cortex and more grey matter compared to men
  • men larger ventricles - lymphatic system
  • However proportionally men are 10-15% larger than females.
73
Q

explain how stress can change the sex of brain regions in less than 15 minutes

A
  • joels study
  • female neurones more dendrite spines
  • after 15 minutes of stress - a reversal to this pattern
  • in rat hippocampus
  • physical structure of brain cells does not determine sex
  • interactional/diathesis stress/nature or nurture issue
74
Q

How are female brains structurally different?

A
  • 10-15% smaller
  • thicker cortex
  • more grey matter
  • smaller ventricles
  • more dendrite spines
75
Q

How does pregnancy effect sex?

A
  • During pregnancy when mother experiences stress child’s brain develops into other sex characteristics.
  • This means born with a mosaic of brain gender regions.
  • Continues to change throughout life
  • All brains are intersex and androgynous
  • Many transexual mothers lots of stress so more male characteristics.
76
Q

Explain the study of Ramachandran & McGeorch

A
  • Sex organs ave specific brain locations that are hard wired
  • if wiring is disrupted genitals ca be represented in the opposite way to the persons sex
  • leads to phantom penis 2/3 of female to male transexuals
    • loss of feeling in female genitals
77
Q

What percentage of female to male transexuals experience phantom penis?

A

2/3

78
Q

How have pesticides been linked to atypical gender development?

A
  • DDT insecticide banned in UK + USA
  • causes sodium channels to open resulting in nerve spasms and death
  • contains oestrogen that can reach bloodstreams
  • boys born with DDT-exposed mothers showed fem characteristics
  • commonly develop breast tissue.
79
Q

How has the social explanation of mental illness been linked to atypical gender behaviours?

A
  • case study - childhood trauma - gender dysphoria
  • Boys mother had abortion around 3 - phallic
  • mother depressed - witnessed by boy
  • gender dysphoria to identify/sympathise with mother
  • deference mechanism (freud)
  • one boy, not generalised, not common situation
  • critisied as money grab
80
Q

Explain how mother-son relationships cause atypical gender development

A
  • stoller - no study
  • Boys with dysphoria have very close and enmeshed relationship with mother
  • boundaries blurred
  • over-identified with mother
  • identification with wrong model
  • leads to confused identity.
81
Q

Explain how father-daughter relationships cause atypical gender development

A
  • Zucker - no study
  • dysphoric girls rejected by fathers
  • over-identification with fathers
  • increased imitation if male behaviour
82
Q

Evaluate Sex Role Stereotypes & Androgyny

A
  • Parental influence support - choice of gender-matched toys made by mothers (Smith and Lloyd)
  • Applications in psychological health - masc scored negatively correlated with depression and anxiety, fem, positivity correlated except if the score was high (Prakash et al.)
  • Real-world applications - parents adopt gender-neutral child-rearing still regarded as unhealthy by some
  • Reliability (Bem) - test-retest high, split half improved by removing socially undesirable items eg. gullible
  • Validity - correlation may be due to self-esteem rather than androgyny or response bias to select higher rating and adjectives may have low temporal validity
83
Q

Evaluate Chromosomes and Hormones

A
  • Challenging biological determinism - Money sex-of-rearing view important but evidence shows genetic sex most significant.
  • Importance of other factors - no simple formula.
  • Role of culture - Batista’s boys sex0-types as girls but adjusted to the male role when male genitalia appeared because the culture had a more fluid notion of gender.
  • Real-world applications - avoid early surgery give hormone supplements eg. Turner syndrome and Olympic committee (Bown)
  • Effects of hormones on brain development - female monkeys showed more rough-and-tumble play when exposed to testosterone but Eisenegger et al. showed expectations might explain human behaviour better.
84
Q

Evaluate Cognitive Explanations - Kohlberg’s Theory

A
  • Research support - gender labelling - Thompson - gender stability - Slaby and Frey - Gender constancy - Slaby and Frey
  • Methodological criticisms - Children judge using appearance as most salient cue (Bem) children answering in pretend mode (Martin and Halverson)
  • Gender constancy may be at age 5 - possibly related to the availability of gender information in media (Slaby and Frey)
  • Gender differences - Boys’ earlier gender constancy explained by SLT needs to be incorporated into Kohlberg’s theory.
  • Gender constancy not required for learning gender behaviour - learned earlier than predicted (Martin and Little)
85
Q

Evaluate Cognitive Explanations - Gender Schema Theory

A
  • Gender schema without constancy - children age 4 acquired schema, supports GST (Martin and Little)
  • Gender identity even earlier - Zosuls et al. found gender identity at 19 months however Bandura and Bussey argue gender concepts acquired even before this.
  • Gender schemas organise memory - gender-consistent pictures recalled best
  • Gender schema distort info - children misremember inconsistent info, maintains ingroup stereotypes
  • The resilience of gender stereotypes - children of working mothers have less fixed stereotypes so can chance but generally exposure to counter-stereotypes not effective (Hoffman)
86
Q

Evaluate Psychodynamic Explanations

A
  • Support from case studies - concurrent validity - Little Hans wanted his mother and repressed fears of castration until he came to identify with his father, Levin reported link between bipolar disorder parents and Electra complex
  • Child sexual awareness - Children aged 4 not aware of genitals (Bem) however Okami et al. found link between early sexual awareness and later sexual activity.
  • Experimentally Reductionist - Lacks predictive validity - children from one parent or same sex families should have difficulty with gender devlopment but they don’t.
  • Alternative psychodynamic explanations - Chodorow focused on mother only, closeness with daughters and greater independence for sons.
  • Reinterpretations - acan suggested penis envy symbolised male power.
  • Beta Bias - Freud only looking at sons
87
Q

Evaluate Cultural & Media Influences on Gender Roles

A
  • Cultural similarities - social role theory explains how biologically based physical differences dictate roles.
  • Cross-cultural research Flawed - Observer bias and inaccurate info provided by indigenous population
  • Demonstrating media influence - Williams showed gender effects in study of Notel
  • Media effects insignificant - may simply reinforce status quo.
  • Backlash to counter-stereotyping - adolescents may wish to take the opposite view to one promoted by adults.
88
Q

Evaluate Social Learning Theory for Gender

A
  • Evidence to support modelling - children imitate behaviour of same-sex models but not if counter-stereotypical (Perry and Bussey)
  • Direct tuition may be more effective than modelling - children played with toys labelled for their sex even if same-sex child observed playing with apposite-sex toy (Martin et al.)
  • Peers not gender influences - either too young to be relating to peers or peers simply reinforce existing stereotypes (Lamb and Roopnarine)
  • Self-direction - younger children disapproved of others engaging in gender-inappropriate play but not themselves; older children disapproved of themselves too (Bussey and Bandura)
  • Too much emphasis on social processes - cross-cultural research shows universals in gender behaviour (Buss) - men and women desire similar partners.
89
Q

Evaluate Atypical Gender Development

A
  • Criticism of the brain-sex theory - BSTc size difference appears in adulthood so cannot be cause of dysphoria however Rametti et al. found support.
  • Support for cross-wiring - ‘normal’ individuals with penis/breasts removed more likely to experience phantom sensation than transsexuals
  • Support for social explanations - high levels of separation anxiety in MtF individuals and of emotional over-involvement.
  • More than one explanation needed for eg. homosexual and non-homosexual transsexuals and core and peripheral people with GID.
  • Socially sensitive research - evidence for biology may make people feel more accepting of GID but also make people wrongly believe that GID is inevitable.

A level Psychology (5 decks)

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