Lesson 5 - Gender development (gender typed behaviour)

Question 1

What is biological sex?

Answer 1

Assigned at birth and determined by our genitalia, chromosomes, and hormones.
A child may be categorised as a woman or a man, or intersex at birth based on these characteristics.

Question 2

What is gender?

Answer 2

A broad social construct that takes into account broad social construct that takes into account psychological, behavioural, social or cultural aspects that may change over time. An individual can be cisgender or transgender.

Question 3

What are the chromosomes of a male and female?

Answer 3

XX - female , XY male

Question 4

What is gender-typing and what is gender expression?

Answer 4

Processes that adopt observable behaviours in line with our construction of gender.

Question 5

What is gender typing associated with?

Answer 5

Societal norms of gender and can be linked to gender stereotypes

Question 6

Gender typing and expression ___

Answer 6

Change over time and vary across culture

Question 7

What do gender typed behaviours result from?

Answer 7

Combination of and influence of biological, psychological and sociocultural processes
such as Leaper 2013 bio psychosocial model

Question 8

What are the three approaches of gender development?

Answer 8

Kholberg’s 3 stages of gender development (focuses on nurture)
Biological accounts (focuses on nature)
Social Cognitive theory (focuses on a bit of both)

Question 9

What are the 3 stages of gender development include?

Answer 9

Gender Identity
Gender Stability
Gender Constancy

Question 10

What does Kholberg’s 3 stages of gender development say?

Answer 10

Children develop concepts of gender from ppl around them through observation and practice
3 stages are developed driven by natural maturation (as they age)

Question 11

What is the gender identity stage?

Answer 11

(2-3 yrs)
Children label themselves and others as boy/girl based on external appearance
children do not understand the difference between biological sex and gender or that both tend to remain stable over time

eg little girl may say she is a girl bc she has long hair

Question 12

What is the gender stability stage?

Answer 12

4-5 yrs
Children recognise now that gender remains constant over time but this understanding is still based on appearance.
Kholberg theory assumes gender to be binary and assumes children will understand that boys will become men and girls become women with age.

Question 13

What is the gender constancy stage?

Answer 13

6-7 years
Children understand gender identity is invariant despite changes in appearance, dress/activity.
EG if a woman has short hair and is a builder she will be female. children are NOT expected to adopt gender type behaviours consistently until they reach this stage at about 6-7 years of age.

Question 14

Once children reach gender constancy stage what happens?

Answer 14

Children seek out same sex playmates and engage in gender-typed behaviours and activities associated with their gender identity
Children are now considered to have gained an understanding of gender and begin to seek out same sex role models to identify with

Question 15

Cognitive consistency is gratifying so individuals attempt to behave in ways that are what?

Answer 15

Consistent with their self conception
eg i am a boy, therefore i want to do boy things, therefore the opportunity to do boy things (and to gain approval for doing them) is rewarding

Question 16

Gender difference in colour preferences are present by what year of age in children?

Answer 16

3 years

Question 17

What are androgens?

Answer 17

A group of hormones affecting physical development and are present at higher levels in MEN than women
form external genitalia during prenatal development - linked to aggression

Question 18

How can fluctuations in androgen hormones influence behaviour?

Answer 18

Body increasing androgen production in response to perceived threats can lead to increased aggression

Question 19

What is Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS)?

Answer 19

Occurs in people who are genetically male but their androgen receptors malfunction leading to external genitalia / characteristics that are associated with women. Individuals with AIS are more likely to identify as female.

Question 20

What is Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)?

Answer 20

Affects the adrenal glands
People genetically female may develop male genitalia/
May express more male like behaviour

Question 21

Twins are more likely to have ___ gender identity including whether they are cis or transgender

Answer 21

Concordant (in agreement or harmony)

Question 22

What is the social cognitive theory? (Bussey and Bandura 1999)

Answer 22

Bussey and Bandura proposed 3 interacting causal factors that determine gender development

Question 23

What are the 3 interacting causal factors determining gender development by BUSSEY and Bandura?

Answer 23

Tuition - children are directly taught gendered behaviours (Grusec et al observed that boys are more likely than girls to take out the bins/mowlawns/help wash car. Girls are more likely to care for younger siblings. This gender assignment of chores implies a natural division of labour & may influence children’s interests and understanding of gender roles)

Enactive experience - when children learn to guide their own behaviour by considering reactions from others (Gender schemas may be developed thru conditioning. gender appropriate behaviours are rewarded by others through praise and attention.

Observational learning - seeing others behave and watching the consequences of their behaviour on others’ reactions

Question 24

What is observational learning?

Answer 24

Gender related behaviours may be learnt simply through observing others eg peers

Question 25

What is The Gender Similarity hypothesis? (Hyde 2005)

Answer 25

review of hundreds of studies looking at female - male gender differences across 128 domains including: strength, moral reasoning, cheating behaviour, problem solving, self-esteem, leadership, and more
78% of studies report small or close to 0 effects
Hyde concluded boys and girls are more alike than they are different and that differences within genders are larger.

Question 26

What are some examples of gender differences in development?

Answer 26

Mathematical skills
(women make up a relatively small % of the workforce in STEM)
(Gender differences in maths tend to only emerge in late adolescence)
(difference is only found on maths tasks that involve advanced problem solving and not standard school assessments)

Question 27

Why are these small differences found in later development and only on more complex tasks?

Answer 27

-Girls often show higher maths anxietyand less confidence in their ability than boys despite having a similar level of interest (Ganley & Lubienski, 2016).

-Tuition/Biological factors- It could be down to teacher perceptions or the fact that girls tend to use procedural strategies they have been taught; whereas boys tend to use ‘bolder, novel strategies’.

Question 28

What age does physical aggression against peers emerge?

Answer 28

1 year of age
some studies show 5% of male toddlers were frequently physically aggressive compared to 1% of female toddlers
THESE GENDER DIFFERENCES INCREASE W DEVELOPMENT

Question 29

What is direct aggression?

Answer 29

Physical and verbal acts of aggression eg shouting , hitting

Question 30

What is indirect aggression?

Answer 30

Refers to relational aggressive acts by manipulating peer relationships and damaging the target’s social position (e.g., spreading gossip, threatening to terminate friendship, excluding peers from friendship groups).

Question 31

Why might there be variations in the type of aggression used across the genders?

Answer 31

1. Biological explanation- females generally have lower physical strength which necessitates reliance on indirect means of aggression.
2. Sociocognitive explanations- Girls’ peer groups are often characterised by being smaller but closer than boys’ peer groups suggesting that indirect aggression is particularly hurtful among girls because it targets these relationships.
3. Tuition -there are differences in the degree to which parents and other adults discourage directly aggressive behaviour in girls which leads them to use more covert forms of aggression.

Question 32

What are spatial skills?

Answer 32

Spatial skills involve comparing, manipulating, and transforming mental pictures.

Question 33

What are the 3 primary components of spatial skills?

Answer 33

1. Mental rotation - identifying a model in a different orientation
2. Spatial perception - determining the spatial relations of objects with respect to one’s own body.
3. Spatial visualisation- being able to visualise spatially presented information.

Question 34

What are the reliable differences in some spatial skills favouring males?

Answer 34

1. Gender difference in favour of boys are largest for mental rotation, medium for spatial perception, and smallest for spatial visualisation tasks (Linn & Petersen, 1985).
   - However, these differences also seem to be getting smaller with time perhaps as a function of social changes (Halpern, 1992)