Individual differences Flashcards
What is learning?
Individual differences must be differentiated from changes that originate from internal processes, such as maturation or illness
Cause of difference: why does it matter?\
What is the 2 theory?
Biological determinist (essentialism) and social determinist
What is Biological determinist (essentialism)
Biological:
- males and femalres charactirizes are diffrrent- due to gentics and biology
these are univrsal and cross cultural
biologically determined differences which are: ¡ Stable? § Across time and context ¡ Universal? § Occurring cross culturally
What is social determinist ?
differneces are learned and shaped
Differences that are learned or shaped by social and environmental influences:-
Flexible?- Open to change
- Culturally / context specific?
Nature via Nurture….
Learning occurs as an interaction with the environment and is initiated to adapt personal needs to the external world”
Individual differences in learning potential are not “nature versus nurture” but
“Nature via nurture….”.
e-g: tall- the environmet needs to support these is not only the genetics- learning occurs with the interaction of the environemt
What are the 3 areas of different found in the sex diferences?
(verbal, spatial and maths ability
Verbal ability differences?
¡ Females seen as being better than males at verbal reasoning
¡ Lateralisation – the left hemisphere specialises in language skills, the right in spatial skills
§ When solving verbal problems men used the left hemisphere…
§ whilst women used both (Shawitz et al, 1995)
parenrts and teachers speak different depending on the sex
Visual Spatial differneces?
¡ Males: better map reading and logic § Spatial visualisation
¡ Females: better memory for object positions § Perceptual speed
§ Object placement
-this can be learn through toys, femlaes are more placement than mens
this differences are social form
Maths ability ?
¡ Equal ability at primary level
¡ Males perform better in secondary school
and adulthood
¡ Hyde (1981, 1990) confirmed this difference BUT reported that it was smaller than often cited in many text books!
Self fulfilling prophesy?
Schober and Finsterwald (2016)
¡ Trainee teachers attributions of maths success or failure:
§ Females’ success due to hard work whereas males’ success due to talent.
§ Males failure due to laziness, females due to lack of ability
¡ Implications for feedback and motivation.
- males are assumed to be good at maths and can have an impact on the feedback
- teachers perceveid boys to be better than girls
Sex differences in behaviour?
men are more agressive in a work envrionmet
Myth? Men are more aggressive than women throughout their lives
females are reinforce for good behaviour while males punished for good behaviours- sex type behaviour are being reinforced
Women are more emotional than men, cry more easily, and show their feelings
Social Construction theory ?
We cannot know whether males’ and females’ characteristics are genuinely different because we can never be totally objective.
§ Our whole culture revolves around categories such as male/female, masculine/feminine, and we see the world through these distorting ‘gender lenses’
- the social constuction- there is no obejctive reality
What is the social Construction?
The view that there is no single, fixed, objective reality, but different versions used by different people of different backgrounds at different historical times.
¡ i.e. reality is a subjective human concept invented or constructed for various purposes.
¡ i.e. what we think of as reality is simply a working model of the world and everything in it.
Key references of the social constructionism :
Social phenomena are created and maintained by social practices. This occurs through the processes of
§ Externalisation § Objectification § Internalisation
Example of the key refererences of social constructionism
selfie concept 20 years ago didnt exist but know wxist so the idea became externalisation , when people start talking became a objectification, a objext, and they intenalize and somethin they know