Sex and Gender Flashcards
Psychodynamic-
Frued
Aim: to investigate Little Hans’ phobia.
Method: Hans’ father wrote to Freud to tell him about Hans’ development. At the age of four Hans developed a phobia of horses. He was frightened that a horse might bite him or fall down. He was particularly afraid of large white horses with black around the mouth. Freud analysed this information.
Results: Freud claimed that Hans was experiencing the Oedipus complex. He unconsciously sexually desired his mother and saw his father as a rival and feared castration. He displaced the fear of his father on to horses. The white horse with black around the mouth represented his father who had a dark beard. His fear of being bitten by a horse represented his fear of castration and his fear of horses falling down was his unconscious desire to see his father dead.
Conclusion: this supports Freud’s ideas about the Oedipus complex.
Gender development in lone-parent household
Rekers and Moray
Aim: to investigate whether there is a relationship between gender disturbance and family background.
Method: researchers rated 46 boys with gender disturbance for gender behaviour and gender identity. Their family background was also investigated.
Results: of the group, 75% of the most severely gender-disturbed boys had neither their biological father nor a father substitute living with them.
Conclusion: boys who do not have a father figure present during their childhood are more likely to develop a problem with their gender identity.
Evaluation of the psycholodynamic theory of gender development
Frued’s ideas are very difficult to test because they are based on unconscious thoughts and feelings.
There is little evidence to support the idea of the Oedipus and Electra complexes. The Little Hans case study was carried out on one child and therefore the findings cannot be generalised.
SLT of gender development
Perry and Bussey
Aim: to show that children imitate behaviour carried out by same-sex role models.
Method: children were shown films of role models carrying out activities that were unfamiliar to the children. In one condition, all of the male role models played with one activity while all the female role models played with the other activity. In the second condition some of the male role models and some of the female role models played with one activity while the other male and female role models played with the other activity.
Results: in the first condition, the children imitated what they had seen the same-sex role models doing. The boys chose the activity the male role models had played with while the girls chose the activity the female models had played with. In the second condition, there was no difference in the activities the boys and girls chose.
Conclusion: when children are in an unfamiliar situation they will observe the behaviour of same-sex role models. This gives them information about whether the activity is appropriate for their sex. If it is, the child will imitate that behaviour.
Media and gender development
Williams
Aim: to investigate the effects of television on teh gender development of children.
Method: in 1975, Williams studied the effects of television on children living in Canada. At the beginning of the study one of the towns was being provided with television for the first time while the other towns already had television. He measured the attitudes of children living in these towns at the beginning of the study and again two years later.
Results: the children who now had television were more sex stereotyped in their attitudes and behaviour than they had been two years previously.
Conclusion: gender is learnt by imitating attitudes and behaviour seen on television.
Evaluation of SLT
This study is well supported by research. There are a large number of studies that have found that children learn their gender through the observation and imitation of role models.
It does not explain why children brought up in one-parent families, without a strong same-sex role model, do not have any difficulty developing their gender.
