Psychology of Gender Exam #1 Flashcards
Refers to the biological categories of female and male, categories distinguished by genes, chromosomes, and hormones.
Culture has NO influence over ____;
____- is defined in the same way across cultures.
Sex
A much more fluid category, it refers to the social categories of male and female.
___differs across cultures because each society has its own prescriptions for how women and men should behave.
___- categories are influenced by society, culture, and time.
Gender
When the expectations of one role conflict with the expectations of another role. Ex. In a large lecture class, the expectation of a student is to sit quietly in the class and listen, a passive role that may conflict with the active aspect of the male gender role.
IntERrole Conflict
Expectations within a role conflict.
Ex. A female is expected to be emotional and express their feelings but also be sensitive to the needs of others. What about when she meets the expectation of expressing her emotions to her husband but hurts his feelings in the process?
IntRArole Conflict
o Refers to the expectations that go along with being male versus female
Gender Role
The affective (feeling) component of our attitude toward sex category is called _______or prejudice toward people based on their sex.
Can have a negative or positive affect (hiring someone for being female)
Sexism
The cognitive component of our attitude/beliefs towards sex.
These terms refer to our beliefs about the features of the biological or psychological categories of male and female.
Sex Stereotype or Gender-Role Stereotype
The behavioral component of our attitude toward men and women.
Involves the differential treatment of people based on their biological sex.
Often a result of both sexism and gender-role stereotyping.
Ex. If you fire the male nanny you dislike men as nannies and you doubt his competence because he is a man.
Sex Discrimination
People who believe the two sexes are fundamentally the same.
Minimalists
Believe there are fundamental differences between men and women, however they argue the “difference” DOES NOT mean “deficit”.
Maximalists
Gender is created by the perceiver: facts about gender DO NOT exist; only interpretations do.
Constructionists
- Is the variable being tested in a scientific experiment.
- It is dependent’ on the independent variable.
- As the experimenter changes the independent variable, the change in the dependent variable is observed and recorded.
- Effect of the IV on the participants.
Dependent Vairable
• In an experiment, the investigator manipulates this variable.
Independent Variable
aka third variables) are variables that the researcher failed to control, or eliminate, damaging the internal validity of an experiment.
Confounding Variable
- Variable that is a permanent characteristic of the person and may affect the person’s response to another variable.
- Independent variables are NOT changeable, such as sex, race, and ethnicity.
Subject Variable
- It is the characteristic of something to which people respond.
- Variable that can be manipulated in an experiment.
- Ex. When sex is a ____ variable, random assignment can take place and a true experiment can be conducted.
Stimulus or Target Variable
- The confidence that the true cause of the effect is being studied.
- The extent to which change in the DV is due to change in the IV
- Generally HIGH in Efficacy studies (LAB)
- Not really generalizable
Internal Validity
- Generalizability of results
* Generally HIGH in EFFCIVNESS studies (REAL WORLD)
External Validity
Variables Confounded with Sex?
Status and Gender Role
- People want to behave in in socially desirable ways in which they appear normal and likeable.
- Ways in which participants behave in experiments to give socially desirable answers.
Social Desirability Response Bias
- Occurs when norms (social expectations) for one’s gender role have negative consequences for the individual.
- Likely to occur when gender role expectations conflict with naturally occurring tendencies or personal desires.
- Ex. A man who wants to pursue dance or a women who does not want to have children.
Gender-Role Strain
- Suggests that strain arises when you fail to live up to the gender role that society has constructed.
- Ex. The man who is not athletic, the man who is unemployed, the woman who is not attractive, the women who does not want to have kids.
Self-Role Discrepancy Theory
- Strain arises because the gender roles society instills contain inherently dysfunctional personality characteristics.
- Ex. The male gender role includes the inhibition of emotional expression, which is not healthy, similarly, the female gender role includes dependency, which also may not be adaptive.
Socialized Dysfunctional Characteristic Theory
- Exhibiting the gender-role characteristics that correspond with our sex.
- Ex. A male who scored masculine and a female who scored feminine
Sex-Typed
- Exhibiting gender role characteristics that correspond with the OTHER sex.
- Ex. A masculine female and a feminine male.
Cross-Sex Typed
• People who believe that masculinity and femininity are categories constructed by society and that each society may have a different definition of masculinity and femininity.
Social Constructionists
• Personality orientation characterized by a focus on the self to the exclusion of others.
Unmitigated Agency
• Personality orientation characterized by a focus on OTHERS to the exclusion of the self.
Unmitigated Communion
- Maintains that men’s sphere is work and women’s sphere is home.
- The implicit assumption is that men have greater power than women.
Traditional Gender Ideology
- Maintains that power is distributed equally between men and women and that men and women identify equally with the same spheres.
- There could be an equal emphasis on home, on work, or on a combination of both.
Egalitarian Gender Ideology
• Maintains that it is acceptable for women and men to identify with the same spheres, but women should devote proportionately more time to matters at home and men should devote proportionately more time to work.
Transitional Gender Ideology
• Refers to ones attitude or feeling toward people based on their sex alone.
sexism
- Includes the denial of any existing discrimination toward women, an antagonism to women’s demands, and resentment of any preferential treatment of women.
- Implies that one is not sympathetic to women’s issues and indirectly endorses the unequal treatment of men and women.
Modern Sexism
- Includes endorsement of traditional roles for women and men, differential treatment of women and men, and the belief that women are less competent than women.
- Reflects and open disregard for the value of women.
Traditional Sexism
- Feelings or hostility toward women.
- It is negative attitude toward women, in particular those who challenge the traditional female roles.
- Associated with social dominance orientation-maintaining a position of dominance and superiority over others.
Hostile Sexism
- Reflects positive feelings toward women, including pro-social orientation toward women (e.g., the desire to help women)
- Harmful attitude because it is rooted to the belief that women are less competent than men and are in need of men’s help.
- Viewed more favorable under circumstances when it appears that women need protection for example women’s vulnerability to crime.
Benevolent Sexism
- Men proving more help to women than men.
- It is difficult to reject benevolent discrimination because
- The behavior provides a direct benefit to the recipient
Benevolent Discrimination
• Refer to features we assign to women and me in our society due to the social roles that men and women hold.
Gender Role Stereotypes
- Assumptions about individuals based on characteristics of general categories to which they belong.
- You do not know much about a person except the category to which he or she belongs to, in this case, sex. You might assume sex related traits and rex related preferences.
Category-Based Expectations
- Perception of a person based on individual information about that person.
- Once you acquire more information about a specific _____, besides the person’s sex, you will use that information to make judgments.
Target-Based Expectations
- According to this theory, we are more likely to make dispositional attributions for behavior that is not normative but unique.
- Ex. Assertiveness may be viewed as more extreme when displayed by a women than by a man.
Correspondent Inference Theory
• The penalty that is imposed on people for counter stereotypical behavior.
Backlash Effect
• Idea that there is one standard for defining the behavior of one group, but another standard for defining the behavior of another group.
Shifting Standard
- We often recall information that confirms out stereotypes and disregard information that disconfirms our stereotypes.
- We are more likely to do this when we have strong expectations, when the stenotype is about a group, and when the stereotype is about a trait.
Confirmation Hypothesis Testing
there was no sufficient evidence that the instruments measured what they were supposed to measure.
Construct Validity
• A time when girls and boys are concerned with adhering to gender roles, usually during adolescence.
Gender Intensification
- Is a statistical tool that quantifies the results of a group of studies.
- We take into consideration not only whether a significant difference is found in a study but also the size of the difference or Effect Size.
Meta-Analysis
• If the study fails to detect a difference it is less likely to be published and end up in investigators file drawers☹. Thus published studies present a bias because there are some studies that are excluded.
File Drawer Problem
- Is one that alters the relation between the IV and DV.
- “it depends on” variable
- When making sex comparisons a difference may “depend” on the AGE of the respondents, the GENDER ROLE of the respondents, or the YEAR the study was published.
Moderating Variable
occurs because of the conflict the individual is facing with their gender role.
The example would be actually carrying out the behavior that does not match your gender identity. So in the previous example, if the female actually played football.
Gender Role Incongruent Behavior
- When a person desires to do something that goes against there assigned gender role.
- Let’s say, a female is assigned the female gender role (i.e be feminine and do feminine activities), but later on in life, she really wants to do something that is said to be masculine like play football. The conflict would be that she’s supposed to be feminine, but she has the desire to something masculine. This is where the conflict arises.
Gender Role Conflict
