Lecture notes Flashcards
Gender related definitions
A. Sex— biological construct, chromosomes, genitalia, hormones.
B. Sex roles— roles tied to biological sex. Pregnancy, menstruation (not necessarily a role).”, provision of semen, breastfeeding.
C. Gender— socially constructed categories of roles, behavior, personality characteristics that are typically linked to biological sex. More fluid than sex roles, vary across time and culture.
Multiple genders
Atypical, usually a divide of masculinity and femininity.
Cultures with multiple genders
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Native Americans— Berdache are third and fourth genders; historically respected and seen as sacred.
Balkans: people who take on other gender role to fill societal need; remain virgins, respected.
Jichitan, Mexico: muxe, third gender; male who take on feminie characteristics and roles; respected.
India— Hijrah.
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Cultures with rigid gender/ gender roles
- Morocco— also Muslim, so distinct clothing— including hijab and djellaba in public.
Cultures with less rigid gender/ gender roles
- Agra Negrito— Philippines— very little division of labor
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Gallup poll shows across history there has been a large preference for males.
Ex. In china— single child families— preference for males and would abort girls or commit infanticide.
Gender roles
Socially constructed.
- Masculine— aggressive, stoicism.
- Feminine— emotional, weak, nurturing.
Intrarole conflict (gender roles cont’d)
Can interfere with the role. Conflict within the person in their expected gender role.
Ex.
Women— expected to be nurturing and expressive. Going to feel conflicted about hurting someone’s feelings.
Men— independent and achieving— going to a meeting and gets lost— does he stop and ask for directions— conflict between maintaining independence and achievement of getting there on time.
Intra
Inter
Intra— Within
Inter— Between
Interrole conflict (gender roles cont’d)
Conflict between your gender and other roles you occupy.
Male— parenting, nurse (might conflict with gender role).
Female— work (have to be aggressive at work).
Gender role violations
Step out of your gender role. A woman choosing not to have kids. With men, it’s not necessarily as tied to masculinity.
A. Backlash effect (people acting negatively toward your gender role violation). Men staying home with kids, out with them during the day and not at a job. People react to it negatively.
Gender identity/ gender role identity
How you identify and act that out in the real world.
Attitudes about gender roles
Traditional
Egalitarian— equal.
Transitional— not rigid, but not more egalitarian.
Sexism and discrimination
Hostile sexism— overt, angry.
Vs.
Benevolent sexism— love women, but treat them poorly.
Intersectionality
Gender, race, class, come together.
The scientific method (in general)
Science— rigorous methodology.
Vs.
Pseudo science— do not have science— dietary fads, horoscopes (astrology).
Attempt at not being biased. Be careful what you buy into.
Scientific method (steps and potential bias)
Bias can creep in. Scientific method: 1. Formulation of question (not really formulating a question on something that’s important— morning sickness, yet little comprehensive research on treatments that do not cause birth defects— not a lot have studied) 2. Hypothesis 3. Test the hypothesis 4. Draw conclusions 5. Make the findings available
Directional hypothesis
What kind of dependent variables do you come up with— if you expect effects to be negative, you tend to pick negative dependent variables. Did not look at social skills, cognitive development. Piaget would say that kids have to fight it out to learn to solve problems.
Ex. Women working in large numbers voluntarily— daycare— this will be horrible for kids— how’s it going to affect kids— can be biased by political views and values.
Ex. Video game aggression study— blood pressure was higher. Look at physiological response and negative outcomes. Early camps of this research has negative views about this research. Buschman Prof.— Had her degree taken away because they published false data.
Reviewers (of research) need to
Be careful that the researcher reflect their results. Do not just read the conclusions— look at the results to see if what they found is what they found.
Buschman and Anderson’s general aggression model— heart rate, blood pressure, EMG. Did not find that video game play affected these things.
Editor was a classmate the man who falsified data— and they had bad reviewers.
Gathering data
Systematic observation:
Naturalistic— go into daycare or playground and code their behavior. Structured— items that characterize aggression.
Self-reports:
Clinical interview (serial killer example— not a lot of them— good for non-cisgendered as well)— lose base rate of something you are trying to investigate.
Structured interviews— questionnaires, tests— thesis student did mock interviews on playful aggression— particular questions to ask.
Physiological measures—
Heart rate, blood pressure, EMG, cortisol.
Behavior measures— assessing how often kids are aggressive with each other, could measure PDA of college students.
Cognitive measures.
General research designs
Experimental and correlational (not able to show causality— looking at the mathematical relationship between two things).
Correlational research:
A. Size/ strength of correlation— absolute value of variables is between 0 to 1, irregardless of sign. 0.6 and above has a lot of meaning in the real world.
Direction of a correlation is tied to the sign.
Positive correlation (same direction, increasing or decreasing together).
Negative correlation (as vaccinations increase, the disease decreases— opposite directions, as one goes up, the other goes down, and son on).
Direction of correlation
Things that are correlated, but not causality, there is a third factor— ice cream and violent crime— but third factor is hot temperature (more people go outside when it is hot out).
Limits— cannot assume causality.
Experimental research
Have one variable you are manipulating (independent variable) and a variable you are measuring (dependent variable).
Experimental research (independent variables)
A. Control of certain things or levels.
B. Look at the outcomes on what you are looking at— blood pressure and heart rate.
Limits of experiments
In a controlled environment, artificial setting, may see different levels at home, people do what they think you want them to do— demand characteristic.
Regulations— ethical bounds— cannot do anything that causes harm— prisoners, children, special needs, etc.
Common problems with research studies
- Selection bias— Who serves as participants for medical and psychological research? College students. Self-selection bias— SONA— pick what you want.
- Lack of internal reliability— not really measuring what you think you are measuring. Measures of aggression in the lab— not sure how much called students register what they are doing. Hot sauce challenge— do a study, then comes out and says we would like them to participate in this study too. Punishment— Hot sauce. Pour how much hot sauce they should have to eat.
- Lack of external validity— whites, college students, gender of experimenters may affect outcomes as well.
Approaches to studying gender differences
- Subject variable (persons self defined sects of gender)— cannot assign people to these conditions— can only be used as a subject variable in correlational research because it cannot be manipulated.
- Social category (stimulus or target variable)— taking a product like a resume, product on this product.
John— Jessica— take resume and put the names on either one and read it on various kinds of things. John’s is rated more highly. If there’s a male name on a product it is rated more highly.
APA Style— supposed to use initials. People underestimate the amount of female researchers when using initials.
Ethnicity— same phenomenon. White people will be rated higher.
Ethical issues
Informed consent, minimize risk, etc. Nuremberg trials— nazis— tried because they experimented aggressively on twins in handicapped people, how long it would take their pilots to die.
Nuremberg code— first coat of ethics. Millgram and Stanford prison study. IRB— institutional review board. Before they approve research with kids and prisoners it is more rigorous.
APA tips for nonsexist writing— resource to look at.
Philosophical political issues in the study of psychology of gender
A. Views on sex/gender differences
1. Minimalist view— other than phenotype sex differences and differences and basic levels of hormones, there is little true gender differences.The differences we see comes from our rearing, not our biology.
2. Maximalist view— most the differences we see in behavior are tied to differences in genes, brains, hormones, and sex differences.
3. Difference versus deficit—
Ex. Hierarchy of morality— punishment avoidance to justice/fairness. Looked at women and said that it was about making people happy, so they did not have a moral gauge. Men and women are reared differently— that is why they respond differently.
Minimalist
Believe— We should not examine sex differences because then it makes it overly important.
Maximalist
Believe— We should examine sex differences.
Feminism and women studies (philosophical political issues in the realm of studying gender)
- Feminism
A. Liberal/egalitarian feminism— equality, equal pay. Equal rights, opportunity, and public, home and work.
B. Cultural feminism— more conservative you — focusing on increasing the value of women’s role in the home but not across contexts.
C. Radical feminism— whose name? Marxist theory –– deconstruct stuff in general. Deconstructing some basic sociopolitical structures. Revolutionary moment. In particular, the patriarchy –– getting rid of male power and control. Changing how society works by doing so.
D. African-American feminism— mainstream feminism is to white middle-class and it’s concerns and does not focus as much on African-Americans and working-class women. Angela Davis – – black panther. Marxism – – she has written on the dialects of oppression. Radical feminism, and rights for women overall.
Bell Hooks— Prolific in their writing.
Gloria Steinem.
NOW (National organization for women)
Pretty big group and extremely active when she first got here. Protested the silence of the walk for awareness. “No shirt, free beer“ – – made news, where dose amigos was.
What can these groups do that NOW cannot do? That they protested the state funding of the women center –– not allowed to protest or anything. If you don’t receive state funds, you can protest. Bree Newsom–– she climbed up the flagpole at the state house and took down the Confederate flag. After the women center became a force, died away and disappeared.
Examples of feminist activism
-Volunteering at a women shelter
-Helping set up a day care program
-Volunteering at a rape crisis center
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The men’s movement
- Boy Scouts— issues: (tied to the development of Boy Scouts): give them a context to be around strong righteous male role models (Christian emphasis)— Hello sexual male leaders were the only ones allowed. When along in this frigid away, then what started to happen? Took a while, but then became more excepting. Did not let gay scouts in. Either kicked out or in protest of their rule. First thing that bent was accepting gay scouts. Presbyterian churches kicked them out, then gay leaders, then trans, and now girls. Maybe just make a “scouts” group?
Primarily agrarian, primarily rural areas, everyone worked hard, men and boys were outside more, have rural areas now still some to some extent – – concern was that they were not going outside, not in nature learning how to be men, doing stuff with their hands.
