Self concept and Gender identity Flashcards
What are gender stereotypes?
Beliefs about what is typical of one’s own or the other gender group
Increase with age
At what age does gender labelling, gender stability and gender constancy occur? What happens in each stage?
Gender labelling: 2 to 3 and a half years, correct identification of ‘male’ or ‘female’ of oneself or others, don’t understand that gender is constant over time or changes in physical appearance
Gender stability: 3 and a half years to 4 and a half years, partial understanding that gender is constant over time, but doesn’t understand that gender is constant over changes in physical appearances
Gender constancy: 4 and a half to 7 years, gender is constant, even through temporary and superficial change of physical appearance
What are self concepts and social identities?
Self concept: ideas we have built up about ourselves including our physical and mental qualities
Social identities: a sense of identity derived from our membership of social groups, includes feelings of belonging, following social norms and evaluations
How do self concepts change at the age of 4 years?
Concrete physical characteristics
No firm grasp of personality traits just yet
How do self concepts differ between the ages of 5 and 9 years?
Organise the behaviours and internal states into general dispositions
Realistic: focus on both negative and positive traits
Qualifiers: not extreme e.g. ‘a little bit’ engage in social comparisons
Shift towards internal descriptions e.g. relationships, feelings, beliefs
How do self concepts differ in adolescents?
Unify traits into abstract descriptions e.g. smart to intelligent
Generalisations can be contradictory
This may be due to social pressures, behave differently in different situations
More qualifiers e.g. often, sometimes
Self control
In early infancy, do children have basic self awareness?
Don’t perceive themselves as distinct human beings
No unique appearances
Don’t understand they have agency (can make things happen)
What is the I- Self? What is self awareness? What is self continuity, self coherence and self agency?
The I-Self: a sense of self as KNOWER and ACTOR
SELF-AWARENESS: that the self is separate from the surrounding world and has a private, inner life not accessible by others.
SELF-CONTINUITY: knowledge that the self remains the same person over time.
SELF-COHERENCE: self as a single, consistent, bounded entity
SELF-AGENCY: the self
controls its own thoughts
& actions
What is the me self?
Sense of self as an object of knowledge and evaluation
Material characteristics e.g. physical appearance and possessions
Psychological characteristics e.g. beliefs, desires, personality traits
social characteristics e.g. roles and relationships with others
When does I-Self develop? What can influence this?
Self awareness is the early development of the I-Self
I-Self develops when we realise our own actions cause objects and people to react in a certain way
Attachment style can influence this
What is the rouge test? What is the procedure and findings for this?
Infant placed in front of the mirror
Cg wipes a red dye on the child’s face
Observe the child’s behaviour
At 12 months: infants touched mirror as if the red mark had nothing to do with them
At 15 months: infants rubbed their noses and reached for their face
What is self esteem?
Reflective and evaluative aspect of self concept
Depends on evaluations from others in ourselves
Consequences for our emotional experiences, future behaviour and long term psychological adjustments
How does self esteem develop in early and middle childhood?
Early childhood: No self esteem but positive
Focus on abilities in different areas
Global self evaluations like who they are
Middle childhood: more aware of their own uniqueness and other people’s appraisals
Separate judgments on different aspects
What is the real and ideal self? How does this relate to self esteem?
Self esteem as a discrepancy between ideal and real self
From 5/6 years, children internalise others expectations of us and create the ideal self
Use the ideal self to evaluate the real self
Discrepancy between the 2 leads to low self esteem
How does competence and importance affect self esteem?
Some aspects of self esteem are more important than others
Self esteem depends on competence and importance
e.g.
Competency low, importance high, leads to low self esteem
But competence low, importance low, leads to high self esteem
How does self esteem differ in young children in self esteem compared to older children?
Children are very positive about themselves
This is because they struggle to tell the difference between the ideal and actual self
Children underestimate how difficult things are
Maintain self esteem by valuing other domains
Self esteem becomes more realistic with age due to social comparisons
How does social media impact teenagers?
Adolescence is a vulnerable and critical period of development
Young people who support heavy use of social media are more likely to report poor mental health, symptoms of depression and anxiety
What is FoMo, and does this affect teenagers?
Seeing friends on holiday can make young people feel like they’re missing out while others are out enjoying their life
Other people may photoshop videos or photos of themselves, which young people may compare themselves to this
Creates anxiety and feelings of inadequacy
What are some positive effects people can experience when using social media?
Access to others health experiences and expert health info
Emotional support and community building
Self-expression and self-identity
Making, maintaining and building upon friendships
What are rigid gender stereotypes? How early can this begin?
At 3 years we’re already looking at the world in a very gender stereotyped fashion
Think these characteristics are defining features of being a boy or girl
What is the procedure for Blakemore’s gender stereotype study? What were the results of this study?
Children between ages of 3 to 4 years old
Present children with gender stereotype scenarios
These gender stereotypes were inconsistent and consistent
Scenarios involved: hair, clothing, toys, adult occupation, physically based roles (mummy and daddy)
Measured the children’s knowledge of stereotypes based on whether they think it’s possible to violate these stereotypes
Results:
At 3 years old, there was some knowledge on gender roles
Awareness that norm violation is possible but over half of children said no
What is gender flexibility?
In middle childhood gender stereotypes expand
More flexible- overlap between what men and women can do
Why does gender flexibility develop?
Children develop their cognitive ability
Integrate conflicting social cues
Used to rely on gender only but now they rely on other social cues to form opinions of others
What factors influence gender stereotypes and gender role adoption?
Biological: biological makeup leads each sex to be uniquely suited to particular roles, that most societies just encourage gender differences that have a genetic basis
Social learning theory: children shaped into gender roles by behaviour from adults and other children
How does treatment by parents encourage gender stereotypes?
Adults look at children through gender tinted lenses e.g. boys- action and competition
and girls- nurturing, physical attractiveness
Parents rarely buy sex inappropriate toys
Boys are more likely to receive positive reinforcement for asserting negative behaviours
More likely to engage with physical lay with boys and pretend play with girls
In boy rooms: sports equipment, tools vehicles, military toys but in girls rooms: more dolls and doll furniture
What did a study by Will 1976 find about how gender stereotypes are influenced through treatment by adults?
Appears that adults want their children to behave in gender stereotypes ways by playing with gender appropriate toys
Adults played with a child
Beth or Adam and dressed in sex typed clothes
Three toys available: train, doll, fish
Beth: doll, and received more smiles
How does parents behaviour impact gender in middle childhood and adolescence?
Achievement becomes salient
Parents demand more independence for boys
More likely to refuse help for son, help daughter immediately
Stereotypes school subjects: boys better at math than daughter regardless of ability
How do peers influence gender stereotypes?
At 3 years, children reinforce one another for gender appropriate behaviour
Praise, imitate, criticize
What did Aubrey and Harrison find on gender stereotypes in TV shows?
TV show episodes
More male lead characters
More male minor characters
Women more likely to be attractive and frail
Men more likely to express opinions, show anger, be a boss, get laughed at, answer questions
Women more likely to receive or make comments about body/beauty
What are the criticisms of the social learning approach in explaining gender?
Doesn’t explain cognitive development
Assumes children adopt gender roles/stereotypes through observation, imitation and reinforcement
Developmental changes in concepts of stereotypes, flexibility and gender rigidity
What is the cognitive development theory in explaining gender?
Cognitive changes in the way children understand the world and themselves
These affect gender roles and stereotyping
Explains developmental trends
Focus on gender identity
Child actively seeks out information on gender
