Lecture 4

Question 1

What is the biological asymmetry argument?

Answer 1

Belief that in all human populations, there are consistent morphological and physiological differences between the sexes. These differences impact what males and females can do=sexual division of labour

Question 2

What has anthropology traditionally made of the differences between male and female bodies?

Answer 2

Historically, anthropology has said that biology matters-dimorphic human bodies are important in explaining behavioural differences

Question 3

What is the sexual division of labour?

Answer 3

Assumes that certain tasks are universally assiged male female.

Question 4

What are the male tasks and what are the female tasks?

Answer 4

Male: Producers, aka hunters
Female: Reproducers, pregnancy, childcare

Question 5

What are sex roles?

Answer 5

The differential tasks/jobs males and females do that are biologically determined

Question 6

What are gender roles (Aka gender division of labour)

Answer 6

Doesn’t assume universals. Differential tasks/jobs that males and females do are culturally prescribed.

Question 7

What is the man the hunter model?

Answer 7

A narrative on human origins. Reconstruction of what early human life looked like. Sexual division of labour is built in. Originated in the 60s. Hunting way of life has been the most successful and persistent adaptation man has ever achieved. Hunting is universal and consistently a male activity, so it must have been a basic part of early cultural adaptation. (This model is widely discredited in literature yet still shapes thinking today).

Question 8

What are 2 implications of the man the hunter model?

Answer 8

1) Importance of male hunting. Males hunt (valued), females gather (less valued)
2) Diminished importance of female roles. Females are limited by biology , females stay home, provisioned by males.

Question 9

What did the diminished importance of female roles give rise to?

Answer 9

1) Monogamy: Predominant sharing pair bond. Male shares food specifically with his partner
2) Nuclear family (mom, dad, offspring) .

Question 10

What is the problem of the man the hunter model?

Answer 10

Sets the stage for us to think that males and females did very different tasks

Question 11

What are some of the overlapping tasks of the Agta women and men?

Answer 11

1) Trade with farmers
2) Fish
3) Collect plants
4) Hunt game animals

Question 12

In which groups of the Agta do women hunt`?

Answer 12

The Dianggu and the Malibu

Question 13

How do female hunters deal with pregnancy?

Answer 13

1) Do not hunt in late pregnancies or in the first few months of nursing
2) Some hunt by giving the child to their mothers or older female siblings
3) Women with young kids hunt less than teens and old women

Question 14

What did Gettler discover about males as active caregivers?

Answer 14

First, he modelled the estimated reproductive energetic costs incurred by females in the early genus homo versus females in other hominin genera. Discovered that female members of the early genus homo reproduced with shorter interbirth intervals

Question 15

Why did females in the early genus homo reproduce with shorter interbirth intervals?

Answer 15

Because males assisted mothers by participating in the carrying of young, contributing to the short interbirth interval-this made us successful. Males carry the young which takes the energetic burden off of the females and frees up calories so that females can reproduce more.

Question 16

Is pregnancy or childcare the main burden that females face?

Answer 16

Childcare. Females are not automatically burdened by pregnancy.

Question 17

What was the question of the meta meta analysis done by Hyde in 2005?

Answer 17

How different are men and women?

Question 18

How many people participated in Hyde’s study and what were some of the variables studied?

Answer 18

46 meta analysis of gender differences, 5000 studies, 7 million people. Looked at cognitive variables, communication, social and personality variables, psychological well-being, and motor behaviours

Question 19

What are the 3 effect sizes you can find in a meta-analysis?

Answer 19

Close to zero-small, moderate, large-very large

Question 20

What does the gender similarities hypothesis predict with Hyde’s study?

Answer 20

1) Most differences will land in the close to zero-small rage
2) A few differences will be in the moderate range
3) A few differences are in the large-very large range

Question 21

Was there a sex difference in the domains of communication, care orientation, leadership, and happiness?

Answer 21

No. All effect sizes were close to zero to small.

Question 22

What percentage of effect sizes were close to zero and what percentage were small?

Answer 22

Close to zero: 30%

Small: 48%

Question 23

Which domain had the largest effect sizes?

Answer 23

Motor performance, measuring things like grip strength, throwing velocity, throwing distance (exceptions include things like balance, vertical jumping, and flexibility)

Question 24

What measure of sexuality has a large effect size?

Answer 24

Attitudes about sex in a casual, uncommitted relationship

Question 25

What measure of sexuality has a close-to-zero effect size?

Answer 25

The difference in reported sexual satisfaction in their relationships.

Question 26

What is one other domain that shows moderate to large effect sizes?

Answer 26

Differences in physical aggression

Question 27

How did Carothers and Reiss confirm Hyde’s findings in their study “Men and Women are from Earth”

Answer 27

1) Looked at psychological data sets where, based on mean/average scores, differences between males and females were found (also looked at physical characteristics like height and strength)
2) Looked within that mean/average range of scores that made up the mean

Question 28

What does it mean that differences are categorical versus dimensional?

Answer 28

Categorical: Certain behaviours should always co-occur in members of that group. Between sex variability is high
Dimensional: Individual scores are dispersed along a continuum. Within sex variability is high

Question 29

What were the four areas that were looked at by Carothers and Reiss?

Answer 29

1) Sociosexual orientation
2) Interpersonal orientation
3) Gender-related dispositions (Big 5)
4) Intimacy
Then the results were combined

Question 30

What characteristics showed a categorical difference?

Answer 30

Physical- strength, height, shoulder breadth

Question 31

What did the psychological data sets show?

Answer 31

Dimensional differences. This concludes that it is problematic to assume a correlation between body dimorphism and behavioural differences

Question 32

Are there sex differences in the brain?

Answer 32

Yes. However, we are unsure how, or even whether these differences contribute to behavioural differences

Question 33

What are some of the problems with sex differences in the brain as cited by Joel et al?

Answer 33

1) Lack of consistency in literature on what the differences are
2) Sex differences in the adult brain may be a result of different life experiences
3) Sex differences in the brain may not be permanent!

Question 34

How is there a lack of consistency in the literature?

Answer 34

The hippocampus and amygdala were said to have sex differences, but recent literature says this is not true.

Question 35

What is the idea of a multi-morphic/mosaic brain?

Answer 35

Different individuals have different combinations of male and female brain characteristics.

Question 36

What did Joel et al discover about the human brain mosaic?

Answer 36

Analyzed 1400 different brain scans and looked at the brain as a whole to see if brains had two types (male and female). Found that no, most brains are comprised of unique mosaics