Personality and gender differences Flashcards
What did Maccoby and Jacklin find in their narrative review?
Main findings:
Men>women on assertiveness, aggression, internal locus of control
Women>men on anxiety
What was the influence of Maccoby & Jacklin’s narrative review ‘The Psychology of Sex’ on research and practice?
- first interest seen in sex differences
- previous research only used men
What were some criticisms made to ‘The Psychology of Sex’? How was this solved?
- more differences exist than reported by the book
- crude methods –> subjective interpretation and synthesis of studies.
- brought in meta-analysis: systematic summary of different studies –> calculates the average difference across studies -d
What did Feingold find in his meta-analysis after re-analysing Maccoby and Jacklin’s data?
- females were greater on anxiety
- males greater on assertiveness
- trivial differences in self-esteem and locus of control
What did Costa, Terriacciano & McCrae’s (2001) comprehensive analysis of the Big 5 with gender suggest?
- each of the 5 domains consists of 6 underlying facets
- gender differences on the domain do not necessarily mean that there are gender differences on ALL FACETS
- they said that if sex differences are biological, they should not differ across different countries
What facets of Extraversion was men higher on? Females?
Males: - assertiveness - excitement seeking Females - gregariousness - warmth - activity - positive emotions (Gender differences are larger for US than elsewhere)
Which facets of Neuroticism do women score higher on? Men?
Women score higher on all facets of Neuroticism, particularly anxiety and vulnerability to stress.
Smallest differences seen were for anger and impulsivity
- differences are small to moderate (not different across cultures)
What facets of agreeableness are women higher on? Men higher on?
Women score higher on all facets of Agreeableness.
Differences are consistently bigger for US than elsewhere
What facets of Openness are females higher on? Males?
Females are higher on: - aesthetics - feelings -actions men are higher on: - ideas
What facets of conscientiousness are females/males higher on?
Only small differences between the two.
Men are higher on competence and deliberation (small differences)
What are some possible reasons for sex differences found?
- Socialistion and social roles (social modellling- children learn by copying their parents; social reinforcement)
- Biological models: (differences in hormones e.g. testosterone, oestrogen, progesterone; chromosomes: e.g. affective illnesses caused by mutant gene on X chromosome)
- Evolutionary model: men and women have evolved to have different roles –> different personality traits are adaptive for men versus women; due to the heavy investment women require for reproduction, they are theorist to have evolved to prefer mates who have abilities and willingness to invest in them and children
- artefactual explanations (expectancy model- self-fulfiling prophecy, people behave according to their stereotypes;
artefactual explanations: ppl answer questionnaires according to their stereotypes)
What does Bandura’s (1977) social learning model suggest about gender differences?
- parents encourage dependency more in daughters than sons
- girl assigned “housework”, boys engage in physical activities with fathers
- ‘gendered toys’
- parents encourage daughters to stay close to home, sons to roam.
What are some criticisms of Bandura’s social learning model?
- correlation does not equal causation: ? don’t know if children’s behaviour causes parents to act in a particular way
- theories provide no accounts of origins of differential parental socialisation practices.
What are some criticisms of hormonal theories of gender differences?
- correlation does not equal causation: higher testosterone may result from, as well as cause, behaviour changes.
- theory doesn’t identify the origins of the differences
What are some criticisms of the evolutionary psychology theory?
- there is absolutely no way of proving it.
