Sex and gender Flashcards
(22 cards)
Internal views video
swap boy and girl clothes. Give them toys to play, have volunteers come in and play with them. Then volunteer is tolled they are the opposite gender. biases were shown by both male and female volunteers
Sex
biological identity as male or female
Gender
socially constructed identity
Gender Typing
processes by which children acquire particular (social) behaviors deemed appropriate for sex or gender
Gender based beliefs
awareness of own gender, knowledge of gender labels and stereotypes
Gender identity
perception of one’s self as male or female- developed early in life. Having interests and characteristics appropriate for the gender
Gender role preferences
desire to possess certain gender-typed preferences (choice of toys and play partners)
Gender stability
beliefs in the stability of gender over time- males remain males, females remain females.
Gender constancy
belief that superficial changes don’t impact gender
Gender stereotypes
beliefs about what are, or are not, appropriate attitudes, traits, activities, occupations, physical appearances based on gender
Gender roles
general patterns of appearance and behavior associated with being male or female in a particular culture
Gender Differences in Behaviour, Abilities and Interests
(The gender similarities hypothesis)
The gender similarities hypothesis: Males and females are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables
The characteristics of males and females overlap and most differences are quite small
characteristics of males and females overlap. If females are more compliant and verbal over all some males are more than females. Some women are stronger than the average man. Differences do exist but most of them are small
Girls in Childhood
> Physically more mature than boys from birth- physically and neurologically more advanced, learn to walk earlier…
Better at self-regulation (Inhibitory control)
At 4 months, gaze at faces longer
Maintain more eye contact and better at recognising and processing facial expressions
Tend to have better verbal skills- talk more, learn words more quickly, display more verbal creativity
More compliant, nurturing, and fearful
More emotionally competent
More intimacy in social interaction and friendships- display emotions of sadness more often but also control emotions better. self disclose with friends more often. Characterised by greater helping, validation and caring
Boys in Childhood
> Advantaged in muscular development and lung and heart size
Usually do better at activities involving strength and motor skills
Better at visual-spatial tasks- allows them to read maps…
More physically active; tend to play in larger groups and larger spaces and enjoy noisier, more strenuous physical games
Often concerned with dominance rather than friendship; more competitive
from the age of 2 boy usually engage in riskier behaviour - could be said because they have less inhibitory control
enjoy more physical games, engage in more competitive sports than girls. More aware of the dominant hierarchy
Changes in Adolescence and Adulthood
- Gender intensification with the onset of puberty and parenthood – Shift toward more typical gender-typed patterns of behaviour:
Expressive characteristics - Those aspects of a person involving nurturance and concern with feelings. They are more typical of females
Instrumental characteristics - Those aspects of a person involving task and occupation orientation. They are more typical of males
following the birth of a child parents tend to become more gender stereotypical. Onset of parenthood often leads to the emergence of … gender norms - Gender typing is a dynamic process that, to some extent, continues across the life span:
tom boyish girls at the age of 12 started adopting more female transnational interests. During adolescence girls became more involved in caring for others, became more emotional expressive and boys become more emotional restrictive. and girls developed more sad symptoms
- Stability:
Individuals who are strongly masculine or feminine at one age tend to continue to be strongly masculine or feminine as they age
Adult behavior may be predicted from gender-typed interests in childhood
even adult behaviour can be predicted from gender typed activities in children, involved in similar gender typed activities in adult hood.
when children do not act in a gender typed way in childhood it usually continues into adulthood
- Sex differences:
Boys are more gender typed in their play and toy choices than girls are
Boys’ preference for gender-stereotyped toys remains constant as they age, whereas girls’ interest in gender-stereotyped activities decreases as they reach adolescence
girls interest in stereotyped activities decrease but boys stays the same. Boys are more likely to develop passionate, extreme intense interests such as collecting trains, building models…
Contributions to Gender and Gender Typing
- Biological
- Cognitive
- Social/ structural
Biological contributions: Hormones
> each sex has a big deal of their own hormone and small levels of the opposite sexs hormones. Organise the fetsus psychological and physiological …. Testosterone is the principle male hormone; estrogen and progesterone are the predominant female hormones
These hormones operate during the prenatal period to organize the fetus’ biological and psychological predispositions toward masculinity or femininity; a hormonal surge at puberty activates these predispositions
Evidence of the role that hormones play in human gender development comes from fetally adrogenized girls (androgen is a precursor to testosterone) (enjoyed more vigour and athletic activities, interest more of like boys, attitudes also resembled that of males ):
- Show more interest in stereotypically male activities & toys, more rough and tumble play
- Degree of masculine interest linked to degree of androgen exposure - other studies indicated that they preferred “boy” toys - supports that hormones play an important role in gender role development
Biological contributions: Brain
> Male and female brains are more similar than different
“Social brain”; women show (more activation in social regions):
- More activation in left prefrontal cortex to humorous cartoons or jokes than males
- More medial frontal cortex activation during empathetic reactions to others’ losses
- More inferior prefrontal cortex activation when making decisions based on facial affective cues
Amygdala (emotion processing):
- Women have larger orbital-frontal region (modulates input to amygdala)- responsible for modelling input to amygdala- relatively more cortex available for modulation emotional cortex….
- Women show more sustained activation in amygdala to negative images; linked to internalizing disorders - documented gender differences in the human mirror neurons- female exhibiting stronger empayhic….. exhibit something linked with higher levels of mood disorders
Cognitive Factors in Gender Typing
Social Contributions
The Development of Gender Stereotypes (example)
brought in real people- firefighters, surgeons, teachers of the non stereotyped gender after kids were asked to draw an occupation- kids drew firefighters and doctor’s as males and teachers as women then they had a female firefighter and surgeon come in- showing stereotypes exist in our day to day activities and attitudes
The Trans Youth Project- Fast and Olsen (2018)
3-12 and follow for 20 years. visit every 1-3 years. collect data with siblings and parents too. Also kids who are not trans and do not have trans family as control group. A trans girl has the same stats as a cis girl. trans youth in their project has very good mental health (no higher rates of depression…)
- Preschool years: critical period for developing knowledge of gender stability, i.e understand that gender is stable from infancy to adulthood.
- Is this gender stability knowledge a central factor in enhancing preschool children’s same-gender preferences?
- Participants: socially transitioned transgender children and gender-typical children (control + siblings)
