GENDER evaluations Flashcards
EVALUATIONS OF THE ROLE OF CHROMOSOMES AND HORMONES IN SEX & GENDER (summary)
- Supporting research
- Validity of the research
- Reductionist
EVALUATIONS OF THE ROLE OF CHROMOSOMES AND HORMONES IN SEX & GENDER
Supporting research
- David Reimer lost his penis as a baby in a medical accident and and so was raised as a girl.
- Transition was initially reported as a success, it later reported Reimer was never comfortable in the female role
- Suffering severe psychological problems.
- At 14 - he was told the truth about his birth sex, he decided to revert back to being a male.
- This would suggest testosterone production in Reimer’s brain in the womb, made him pre-programmed to be male and socialisation couldn’t override this.
EVALUATIONS OF THE ROLE OF CHROMOSOMES AND HORMONES IN SEX & GENDER
Validity of the research
- Much of the research is conducted on animals, or based on case studies (Both are problematic).
- ANIMAL STUDIES: the brain functioning of animals is much more simplistic than it is for humans.
- Human behaviour is influenced by culture and socialisation, and so our hormones may have less of an influence over our behaviour.
- CASE STUDIES: we may not be able to generalise the results to the wider population as there may be something specific about that situation that accounts for the findings.
> For example, from the supportive researcher of the case of David Reimer.
> Reimer’s mother may have unconsciously transmitted her distress or discomfort at the reassignment, which may account for his rejection of the female role.
EVALUATIONS OF THE ROLE OF CHROMOSOMES AND HORMONES IN SEX & GENDER
Reductionist
- Reductionist as it attempts to reduce gender role behaviour down to a single hormone.
- Maybe too simplistic.
- Hormones are often part of a biological mechanism that involves other actions
- May not be possible to pinpoint the hormone itself as the sole cause of the behaviour.
- ALSO there’s an over-emphasis on nature, that is not supported by research.
> MACCOBY & JACKLIN - found significantly more differences within the sexes than between them, suggesting that hormones are not the major contributor to sex role behaviour.
EVALUATION OF ATYPICAL SEX CHROMOSOME PATTERNS (summary)
- Nature vs nurture
- Validity of the research
- Application of the research
EVALUATION OF ATYPICAL SEX CHROMOSOME PATTERNS
Nature vs nurture
- Studies are useful as they contribute to our understanding of the nature-nurture debate in gender development.
- Comparing people who have these conditions with chromosome-typical individuals, makes it possible to see psychological and behavioural differences between the two groups
> E.G. people with Turner’s syndrome tend to have higher verbal ability and tend to talk more than ‘typical’ girls - Might be logically inferred these differences have a biological basis and are a direct result of the abnormal chromosomal structure.
- SUGGESTS innate influences have a powerful effect on psychology and behaviour
EVALUATION OF ATYPICAL SEX CHROMOSOME PATTERNS
Validity of the research
- Issues in concluding differences observed (nature & nurture point) are down to biological factors.
- Can’t establish causal relationship between the chromosomal formation and the behaviour observed.
- Could be ENVIRONMENTAL & SOCIAL influences.
- E.G. social immaturity observed in females with Turner’s syndrome, could be because:
> treated ‘immaturely; by people around them.
> Parent’s teachers and others may react to the pre-pubescent appearance of people with Turner’s in a way that encourages immaturity
> This may have an indirect impact upon their performance at school, explaining specific learning and developmental problems.
EVALUATION OF ATYPICAL SEX CHROMOSOME PATTERNS
Application of the research
- Continued research likely to lead to earlier and more accurate diagnoses of both syndromes
Klinefelter’s syndrome:
- TESTOSTERONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY: help people increase their hormone levels towards a normal range. Help produce bigger muscles, deepen the voice and stimulate facial and body hair growth. Potentially increasing the quality of life for these individuals.
Turner’s syndrome:
- GROWTH HORMONE INJECTIONS: increasing their adult height by a few inches. These injections often begin in early childhood, therefore without early detection of the disorder, made possible by the research, this benefit could not be achieved.
But…
SOCIAL SENSITIVITY: Both Klinefelter’s syndrome and Turner’s syndrome can be diagnosed prenatally making the research socially sensitive. It may lead to mothers opting to have their pregnancies terminated on discovering that the foetus has the atypical chromosomal pattern
EVALUATION OF KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT (summary)
- Issues with the validity of the research
- Strengths and weaknesses of reliability of the research
- Gender bias (beta bias)
EVALUATION OF KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT
Issues with the validity of the research
- Theory developed using interviews with children in some cases as young as 2 or 3
> May not have been acknowledge that very young children often lack vocabulary to express their views exactly - A very young child may think its a trick question
> e.g. “is this a boy or a girl?” If a male is dressed in a skirt - Posing a question twice may make the child think a different answer is required
> e.g. “is this still a boy?” After changing external appearance - The doll doesn’t really have a fixed gender = possible to change through superficial means
> doesn’t mean a child doesn’t understand humans can’t change their gender so easily
EVALUATION OF KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT
Strengths and weaknesses of reliability of the research
- Research evidence suggests that the concepts of gender identity, stability and constancy occur in that order cross-culturally
- Supporting the idea that the stages do occur through the process of natural maturation, as suggested by Kohlberg
HOWEVER…
BUSSEY & BANDURA:
- children as young as 4 reported ‘feeling good’ about playing with gender appropriate toys and ‘feeling bad’ about doing the opposite.
- Widely believed that the ages at which children are supposed to reach the stages are too old.
Kohlberg’s theory is undermined by the observation that many children begin to demonstrate gender-appropriate behaviour before reaching the stage of gender constancy.
EVALUATION OF KOHLBERG'S THEORY OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT Gender bias (beta bias)
- EVIDENCE SUGGESTS:
> boys have a much less flexible concept of gender role than girls > boys show much greater resistance to opposite-sex activities than girls. - This is likely due to social/cultural differences
- SO, its difficult to explain in terms of Kohlberg’s cognitive / developmental theory (gender formed through maturation of thought processes)
- BETA BIAS in the theory = doesn’t pay attention to the differences between the two genders.
- Presuming girls & boys develop concepts of gender in the same way.
EVALUATION OF GENDER SCHEME THEORY (summary)
- Challenging research
- Comparison with Kohlberg’s theory
- Explains why gender stereotypes persist
EVALUATION OF GENDER SCHEME THEORY
Challenging research
EISENBERG ET AL:
- Asked children to describe toys that other children would like,
- 3 & 4 year old children = used sex-role-oriented thinking to justify their answers
- BUT they used significantly less of this type of reasoning to justify decisions regarding their own toy preferences.
- After a session of free play they didn’t justify their toy choices by referring to gender, but by referring to the toys themselves and what they were like.
CHALLENGE FOR GENDER SCHEMA THEORY = suggests that children’s behaviour is not being shaped by their schemas, but rather that they may fall back on schemas when seeking to make sense of behaviour they may not know the motives
EVALUATION OF GENDER SCHEME THEORY
Comparison with Kohlberg’s theory
MARTIN & LITTLE:
- Children <4, showed no signs of gender stability or constancy, but nevertheless demonstrated strongly sex-typed behaviours and attitudes.
- CONTRADICTS Kohlberg’s notion that gender constancy has to be achieved before stereotypical behaviours emerge.
- SUPPORTS gender schema theory, showing that only a basic understanding of gender is required for sex-role stereotyping to occur.
