Lecture 8

Question 1

Discuss what gender differences there are in psychiatric disorders

Answer 1

Women are more likely to display: eating disorders (1.4x) and anxiety disorders and depression.

Men are more likely to display: ADHD as children (7x) and adults (1.6x), have antisocial personality disorders (3x) be on the autistic spectrum conditions, have tourettes syndrome (3x) and have alcoholism (3x).

Question 2

Why do males and females differ behaviourally?

Answer 2

There are social roles better suited to a specific gender than the other, and societies are more stable when certain tasks are fulufilled by the appropriate sex. Darwin’s sexual selection theory suggests that competition for mates and discriminative mate choices have shaped the evolution of sex differences. The concept of gender is also socially constructed in our lives - from very early on boys are blue and girls are pink.

Question 3

Discuss the role of testosterone in male development

Answer 3

It is an androgen, used to masculinize genitalia, neural system and behaviour. Testosterone is notably higher in males than females during two periods of early development (before 6 months) - weeks 8-24 of gastation and during first few months after birth.

Question 4

Was is epigenetics and how is it related to sex psychology

Answer 4

Study of changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression, rather than alteration of gene code itself. Sex hormones affect brain development via epigenetic modifications, such as the number of neurons formed, the number of neurons that die, the cell grwoth, dendritic branching, synaptic growth and activity of synapses. For example receptors of estrogen are much bigger in females and androgens are bigger in males.

Question 5

Discuss the role of brain anatomy of sex differences

Answer 5

Juraska (1990) found that males rats reared in complex environments showed more dendritic growth in visual cortex than females, and females showed more dendritic growth in frontal lobes than males - they both benefit from enrichment, but in a way manifesting differently depending on their sex.

Timing of hormal changes also play an important role in cognitive differences. Rowntree (2005) found that from the girls tested at 16 years old, those who had their periods earlier were better in word fluency tasks, and those who had their periods later were better in mental rotation tasks. Boys are also much better at spatial relation and mental rotation type tasks. Whereas girls are generally better as short-term memory and verbal fluency.

There is also a link between sex and aphasia and apraxi after damage - damage in left frontal cortex increases these for women, and damage in left posterior increases them for men. These suggest a sexual difference in intra-hemispheric organisations.

Question 6

Discuss the relationship between sex differences and basic and sensory processes

Answer 6

Stereopsis correlate negatively with plasma testosterone levels - 4 month old girls are better at detecting object location in depth (Baillargeon, 1998).

Infant girls are better able to inhibit responses and show greater sensitivity to environmental changes.

Girls are more sensitive to painful stimuli - facial expressivitiy associated with heel prick (Guinsburg et al, 2000), and pain cries more intense in babies (Fuller, 2002) however some studies have shown female infants to show more emotions anyway.

Question 7

Dicuss the sex differences in cognitive behaviours

Answer 7

3-5 month olds have better mental rotation if they are male. At 9 months, boys are better to follow trajectories and at 8 months visual habituation is faster in little boys. However, these studies are not always replicated, and sometimes they are difficult to interpret - is it hormones, or social influence?

Question 8

Discuss the differences in gender and social behaviours

Answer 8

Girls are more reactive to social stimuli (face, voice and touch, however Lewis & Weinraub found female infants to be touched more frequently). Girls show stronger visual preferences for a doll than for a toy truck (this is found in monkeys too). Girls show better discrimination of emotional expressions than boys. Girls are more sensitive to others cries. 3 month old girls are more sensitive to still-face experiments. 12 month old girls are better at discriminating certain words.

Boys show stronger visul prefences for a mechanical mobile than for a face. Boy more than girl infants imitate propulsive motions (throwing balls etc).

However, a meta analysis of infant response to maternal still face found no main effects of gender (Mesman et al., 2009).

Question 9

How can hormonal influences on human development be studies and give examples of what has been found using these methods

Answer 9

It is unethical to manipulate testosterone in humans during development for experimental purposes, so instead we get information from…

Non-human animal studies. Male vervet monkeys spend more time than females contacting toys that a typically male toys, and less time contacting girl toys. Media and orbito-frontal cortex’s are different sizes depending on what sex (media boys, orbito girls) and these differences are not observed when gonads are removed at birth.

Individuals who developed unusual hormone environments (genetic conditions, mothers prescribed with hormones during pregnancy). Individuals with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome have reduced male-typical and increased female-typical play behahviours, and always develop a female gender identity. Girls with congential adrenal hyperplasia show stronger preferences for toys and mates boys prefer, as well as better peformance on targeting ability and show stronger male-typical perosnality traits and less likely to be exclusively or almost exclusively heterosexual. They have an increased likelihood of developing a male identity despite being raised as female. There is also evidence linking early androgen exposure to sex-typed childhood play, sexual orientation and gender identity suggest a weak effect of early socialisation. As well as this healthy children whose mothers were prescribed androgenic progestins during pregnancy show increased male-typical play while those whose mothers were prescribed anti-androgenic hormones show reduced male-typical play.

Measures of early testosterone concentrations in typically developing individuals (maternal blood, amniotic fluid). For example, measured testosterone in maternal blood during pregnancy - maternal testosterone in pregnancy positively predicted male-typical play behaviour at 3.5 years for girls and sex-typed behaviour in adult female offspring. Testosterone measured in amniotic fluid predicts male-typical play in both boys and girls.

Question 10

Discuss the effects of an early postnatal testosterone surge and human behaviour

Answer 10

Positively predicted male-typical play: negatively predicted observed play with a baby doll in boys and positively predicted observed play with a train in girls. Found no relationship with ASD.

Question 11

Discuss problems with this topic

Answer 11

They need to broaden the variables of interest to include sex-linked physiological processes that may represent an immature form or component part of a more complex behaviour expressed in later development. For example, findings of fewer basic oral movements such as rhythmical mouth movements and lingual movements during sucking in male neonates (Miller et al., 2006), this may contribute to sex differences in language development, including the greater incidence of speech deficits in boys (Tromblin et al., 1997). As well as this, findings that female neonates are more responsive to sweetened formula, a taste that elicits a reflective smile and show greater auditory sensisivity and this may inform an understanding of sex differences in emotional response or language.

Question 12

Do infants understand and use gender?

Answer 12

3 to 4 month-olds distinguis between categories of female and male faces. 6 month olds can discriminate faces and voices by sex, habituate to faces of both sexes, and make intermodal associations between faces and voices. 10 month olds are able to form stereotypic associations between faces of women and men and gender typed objects - suggesting that they have the capacity to form primitive stereotypes, for example infants early associative networks about the sexes may not carry the same conceptual or affective associations that characterise those of older children or adults.

Most children develop the ability to label gender groups and to use gender labels in their speech between 18 and 24 months, knowing basic gender information was related to increased play with strongly stereotyped toys.

Question 13

What is gender

Answer 13

The state of being male or female. It is related to how people learn to conform to social roles of being male/female; gender appropriate VS gender inappropriate behaviour.

Question 14

What is socialization

Answer 14

It is the process by which a person acquires sense of self and identity, and they learn expectations of society that will hold the individual accountable.

Question 15

What is gender socialization

Answer 15

It is the process by which people learn to be feminine and masculine. At birth girls show higher length-to-weight ratio than boys and less prominent chin, and anteriorly narrower dental arcade. The gender role socialization is the lifelong process of learning to be masculine or feminine.

Question 16

Discuss the agents of socialization with parents

Answer 16

Parents perceive infant girls as smaller, softer and finer featured. They handle boys more roughly than girls before 3 months as well as dress baby boys and girls differently. They touch girls more frequently after 6 months and stimulate girls verbally more than boys. Parents enourage them to engage in different activities and expect them to perform differently when facing physical challenges.

Question 17

Do sex differences in infant behaviour elicit differential parental behaviour or do stereotyped parental expectations promote sex differences in infant behaviour via a self-fulfilling prophecy process?

Answer 17

Knowledge of an infants sex if most likely to influences adult’s interpretations of ambiguous infant behaviour, perceptions of infant physical characteristics, beliefs about appropriate infant activity but is unlikely to affect attributions of infant personality traits.

Question 18

Discuss the sex differences in cries and adult perceptions

Answer 18

There was no difference in mean pitch, but a similar range of variability. A discriminant function analysis resulted in a very low correct classification rate. Reby et al., 2016 found men having lower pitches than women influence how adult listeners perceive babies cries. They also found that cry pitch is a significant predictor of what sex the infant is. Also found that higher-pitched cries are rated as expressing more discomfort than lower-pitched cries, and at lower pitch, male listeners over-estimate the discomfort expressed by cries when presented as belonging to boys.

Sex stereoptypes affect parents perception of babies cries, the fact that male listeners assess discomfort from cry pitch differently in boys and girls suggests that inadequate care provision may also arise from these sex-stereotypical biases. Unfamiliar caregivers may over-estimate the discomfort of babies presenting a higher-pitched voice. Differential positive responses could have long-term cognitive consequences.

Question 19

Discuss the agents of socialization in peers

Answer 19

By age 4.5 children believe that girls show more relational aggression than boys. From preschool through fourth/fifth grade girls are seen as nice, wearing dresses and liking dolls whereas boys are seen as having short hair, playing active games and being rough. The peak in rigidity of stereotypes is at either 5 or 6 years of age and then an increase in flexibility two years later.

Ingroup and outgroup biases show that preschool children report feeling more positively about their own sex, and at age 3 children begin to show preferential selection and resources allocation to same-sex peers, but not always clear if children actually dislike the other sex, or if they like their own sex better? And it is not clear niether if hostile or benevolent sexism or both? For example does this indicate outright hostility or stereoptyped judgements about boys getting into trouble.

Children as young as 6 understand that jobs more likely to be held by men are higher in status than female typical jobs. Only older children associate fictitious male jobs as being higher in status. Increase between 7 and 15 years of age in beliefs that males are granted more power and respect than females.

Kidergarten children tend to respond in one of three ways to gender norm violations - correction, laughed at the violator and identity negation. Preschool children are able to identify children who are more likely to enforce the gender rules and children who maintain boundaries are more popular with peers. These findings suggest that there may be individual differences in overt “sexist” behaviour as early as preschool, and that the actions of these gender “police” contribute more broadly to the maintenance of gender distinctions in the classroom.

Question 20

Discuss agents of socialisation in terms of teachers

Answer 20

In teaching situations, parents vocalise more to sons than daughters. A frequent and widespread finding is that boys enjoy more challenging interaction with teachers, dominate classroom activities and receive more attention than girls through praise, constructive feedback and help, but also through reprimand, criticism and behaviour warnings. Teachers usually believe they give equal treatment to girls and boys.

Both teachers and students can be contributors to a pattern that gives girls fewer opportunities to participate in classrooms. However, girls tended to participate more when they consituted the majority of students in the class and less when boys were in the majority.

Question 21

Discuss how agents of socialisation in terms of television

Answer 21

Gender bias in television show that men are strong, efficient and dominant. 2/3 of characters are male and men are portrayed as inept when handling childrens needs. Women are attractive and desirable, with 75% of the women depicted as being in the labor force, compared to the truer figure of 56%. Women are depicted as sex objects more frequently than men.

70% of public programs contain sexual references, but only 4% of those included health/prevention messgaes. Even childrens programs or commercials feature males in dominant and active roles, while showing females in peripheral and passive roles.

Preschoolers spent an average of nearly 30 hours a week watching TV and as a result children were exposed to 20,000 adverts a year. Bu the time a child graduates from high school, they will have witnessed 2600 crimes and 13,000 violent deaths on TV.

In adults, time spent exposed to TV has been linked to, perceptual bias and risky behaviours and health issues. Children without TV’s have been shown to be less stereotyped in their gender role attitudes.

Question 22

Agents of socialization in terms of books

Answer 22

Gender imbalance in favour of male characters in popular childrens picture books. Boys play active roles but girls are passive. Men have careers and women are wives and mothers. Parentings roles also differ with males being underrepresented as parents, and father are presetned as unaffectionate. Mothers made the most of the contact with children, did most of the feeding and expressed emotion more. Mothers disciplined children and expressed anger more than fathers.

Question 23

Discuss todays views of sexual differentiation

Answer 23

Variability in the degree to which brain regions are masculinized or feminized in one individual results in a mosiac of relative maleness or femaleness and thereby greatly increases the variance between individuals of the same sex in a population. Sex differences in brain structure may also prevent sex differences in overt functions and behaviours, by compensating for sex differences in physiological conditions. Such a dual function for sex differences is unlikely to be restricted to adult brains.