Gender - useful quotes and concepts Flashcards
Gender starts early …
from birth, the very first question becomes… is it a boy or a girl? the answer to this question instigates the gendering process - categorically lumps child into either one of two mutually exclusive categories - boy and girl , each implying a different set of accepted models and expectations. - regulates attentional processes
Reinforcement and motivational processes
A persona may acquire , retain, and possess the capabilities for skilful execution of modeled behaviour , but the learning may rarely be activated into overt performance if it is negatively sanctioned or otherwise unfavourable received
Bandura, 1971. p8
Personal history perhaps instructive:
- found shouting up chimney that I wanted a Dolly
- one of favourite games = dressing up as big fat ladies - now successfully gendered style - but if im being honesy, like many other men, when the opportunity arose, I took to the men come dressed as girls party them with gusto: an opportunity to express behaviours successfully modelled but necessarily repressed in every day life
- did ballet, until I realised that this was girly to a socially unacceptable degree (Billy Elliot had not come out yet), at which point I did rugby instead, much better…
-
Reinforcement influences …
not only regulate the overt expression of matching behaviour, but they can affect the level of observational learning by controlling what people attend to and how actively they code and rehearse what they have seen
Bandura, 1971 p.8
again c - how from birth - socially generated gender category determines the ‘reinforcement influences’ alloted - which defines how to ‘appropriately’ model behaviour.
Bandura, 1971 emphasises …
that “psychological functioning is best understood in terms of a continuous reciprocal interaction between behaviour and its controlling conditions”
with special emphasis on “the important roles played by vicarious, symbolic, and self-regulatory processes.”
virtually all learning phenomena …
resulting from direct experiences can occur on a vicarious basis through observation of other people’s behaviour and its consequences for them
witnessing the affective responses of others - pleasurable and painful - can act as an incentive or inhibition for behaviour (differential reinforcement)
bandura 1971
People can represent external influences …
symbolically and later use such representations to guide their actions.
Observers acquire mainly …
symbolic representations of modeled activities rather than specific stimulus-response associations.
Attentional processes ….
A person cannot learn much by observation if he does not attend to, or recognise the essential features of the model’s behaviour (…) simply exposing persons to models does not in itself ensure that they will attend closely to them.
Attention to models is also channeled by their interpersonal attraction. Models who possess interesting and winsome qualities are sought out [C how attractive dolls model quite different sets of behaviours/attitudes]
B.1971p6/7
Rehearsal serves as an …
important memory aid. People who mentally rehearse or actually perform modelled patterns of behaviour are less likely to forget them than are those who neither think about nor practice what they have seen.
Some of the behaviours that are learned observationally cannot be easily strengthened by overt enactment either because they are socially prohibited or because the necessary apparatus is lacking
B.1971.p7
mental rehearsal of modeled activities can increase their retention [Bandura & Jeffrey 1971]
Anticipation of reinforcement …
is one of several factors that can influence what is observed and what goes unnoticed.
Knowing that a given model’s behaviour is effective in producing valued rewards or averting negative consequences can enhance observational learning by increasing observer’s attentiveness to the model’s actions.
Moreover, anticipated reinforcement can strengthen retention of what has been learned observationally by motivating people to code and to rehearse modelled responses that have a high value.
B.1971.p9
Associative learning:
when a subject links certain events, behaviours, or stimuli together in the process of conditioning.
(youtube)
Operant conditioning:
a type of learning in which behaviours is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.
What Bandura’s 1961 Bobo Doll experiments showed however - is that there are other ways of learning. NB - effect of modelling was particularly strong when performed by someone of same sex as child.
(youtube)
What we learn doesn’t only influence …
our behaviour, it also shapes our attitudes.
Our cognitions (thoughts / perspectives / expectations) - as imp to learning as is social context -
BOBO ev. notes
notable that have sex-specific response to models - indicative of the way in which gender primes differential attention/learning
Whilst outcome of 1961 studies could be interpreted as providing empirical evidence that boys are more aggressive than girls ( -the 1963 experiments indicate that one could in fact be witnessing the effect of a history of differential gendered reinforcement for boys and girls - the former being less frequently punished for aggressive behaviour (boys will be boys), than girls, in whom aggression is more actively countered by parental/societal ….
(Other?) 1963 exp also of interest because provides empirical validation for Bandura’s argument (1971) that learning operates just as much (if not much more so) in vicarious / symbolic sphere -
BOBO wiki
The Bobo doll experiment was the collective name of experiments conducted by Albert Bandura in 1961 and 1963 when he studied children’s behavior after watching an adult model act aggressively towards a Bobo doll. There are different variations of the experiment. The most notable experiment measured the children’s behavior after seeing the model get rewarded, get punished, or experience no consequence for beating up the bobo doll.
This experiment is the empirical demonstration of Bandura’s social learning theory. The social learning theory claims that people learn through observing, imitating, and modeling. It shows that people not only learn by being rewarded or punished itself (behaviorism), they can learn from watching somebody being rewarded or punished, too (observational learning).
Actions of others is a particularly …
strong stimuli - which influences how one behaves at any given moment.
The actions of others acquire controlling properties through selective reinforcement in much the same way as do physical and symbolic stimuli in nonsocial forms.
When behaving like others produces rewarding outcomes, modeling cues become powerful determinants of analogous behaviour.
Effect of status on modelling potential:
those who have high status, prestige, and power are much more effective in evoking matching behaviour in observers than models of low standing.
Study of behavioural contagion - Lefkowitz, Blake, and Mouton (1955) - pedestrians more likely to cross a street on a red light when they saw a presumably high-status person in executive attire do it than when the same transgression was performed by the same model dressed in soiled patched trousers, scuffed shoes, and blue denim shirt.
The actions of models who have gained some status are more likely to be successful and hence have greater functional value for observers than the behaviour of models who possess relatively low status.
B.71.p19
NB - the effect of status on modelling potency operates just as much in the symbolic sphere of media - where all the protagonists are high ranking (c the preponderance of royalty in disney movies) and beautiful. Narrative ark in fact often follows a predictable pattern: hero either starts story at low status (or at least loses status very quickly), but always recovers it by the end , recovering true deserved status adequate to their station.
NB - more often than not this recovery of status for men is contingent on the skillfull execution of typically violent behaviour = rewarded as a positive, status conferring behaviour (reinforces the gendered concept of dominant masculinity - fighting for the scarce resource of female attention)
Function of symbols
in situation of uncertainty as to the wisdom of modelled courses of action, they rely of model characteristics and status-conferring symbols (speech, dress, deportment, and material goods)
Vicarious reinforcement:
a change in the behaviour of observers resulting from seeing the response consequences of others.
Bandura bobo 1963 experiment - demonstrates this principle in action.
Witnessing aggression punished usually produces less imitative aggression than seeing it obtain social and material success or go unnoticed.
Self-reinforcement:
in social learning framework is the control mechanism. The behavioural standards represent the values and the anticipatory self-satisfaction and self-criticism for actions that correspond to or deviate from the adopted standards serve as the controlling influences.
Self-concept:
usually signifies a person’s tendency to regard different aspects of his behaviour positively or negatively
Bandura and McDonald 1963
Exposing children to adult models who expressed moral judgement that ran counter to the children’s dominant evaluative orientations was effective in modifyin their judgemental behaviour in the direction of the social influence.
Bandura 1968:
Highlights the influential role played by extra familial adults, peers, and by models presented in symbolic forms
Bandura and Jeffery 1973
If an observer is to reproduce a model’s behaviour when it is no longer present to serve as a guide, the response patterns must be represented in memory in symbolic form - transformed into readily available imaginal and verbal symbols - these carry a lot of information - and can be used as guides for subsequent reproduction of matching responses (nb - responses which are generalisable - links to the more complex agent depicted in social learning theory vs behaviourist proper learning theories)
Bias/stereotype confirmation
C studies where women were reminded of their gender before taking a maths test - on average performed worse than when not reminded!
Same effect for African Americans taking standardised test
Clear that gender associated with a particular kind of self-concept (s-c défined by Bandura 1971 person’s tendency to regard different aspects of his behaviour positively or negatively) - in this case, a construct of self that in case of women has a negative correlation with mathematical ability, impairing its expression. Indicative of our propensity to conform to social expectations, even without realising it.
C reducingstereotype.or
[Bandura & Jeffrey 1971]
mental rehearsal of modeled activities can increase their retention
Bandura, Grusec, and Menlove - 1967
Guided by a similar view as conclusion of 1968 Bandura
Demonstrates that exposure to adult standards of behaviour substantially altered by conflicting standards exemplified by peer models
