Sex And Gender

Question 1

Sex identity

Answer 1

A biological term. A child’s sex can be identified by their hormones and chromosomes. This determines whether the child’s sex identity is male or female.

Question 2

Gender identity

Answer 2

A psychological term. A child’s gender can be identified by their attitudes and behaviour. This determines whether the child’s gender identity is masculine and feminine.

Question 3

Phallic stage

Answer 3

Freud’s third stage of psychological development, in which gender development takes place.

Question 4

Identification

Answer 4

To adopt the attitudes and behaviour of the same-sex parent.

Question 5

Oedipus complex

Answer 5

The conflict experienced by a boy in the phallic stage because he unconsciously desires his mother and is afraid of his father.

Question 6

Electra complex

Answer 6

The conflict experienced by a girl because she unconsciously desires her father and is afraid of losing her mother’s love.

Question 7

Gender disturbance

Answer 7

Not developing the gender identity usually associated with one’s sex.

Question 8

Modelling

Answer 8

A role model provides an example for the child.

Question 9

Imitation

Answer 9

Copying the behaviour of a model

Question 10

Vicarious reinforcement

Answer 10

Learning from the model’s being either rewarded or punished.

Question 11

Media

Answer 11

Means of communication- television, radio, the internet and newspapers are all examples of different types of media.

Question 12

Gender stereotypes

Answer 12

Believing that all males are similar and all females are similar.

Question 13

Gender schema

Answer 13

A mental building block of knowledge that contains information about each gender.

Question 14

Gender role

Answer 14

Behaviour seen as masculine or feminine by a particular culture

Question 15

Highly gender schematised

Answer 15

Where gender is important way of thinking about the world so information is organised according to what is gender appropriate and what is gender inappropriate.

Question 16

Freud 1909

Answer 16

Freud carried out a case study to investigate the gender development of a boy known as “little Hans”.

Aim- to investigate Little Hans’s phobia.

Method- Hans’s father wrote to Freud to tell him about Hans’s 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 to horses. The white horse with the black 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 his his father dead.

Conclusion- this supports Freud’s ideas about the Oedipus Complex.

Question 17

Rekers and Moray 1990

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

Perry and Bussey 1979

Answer 18

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 others played with another.

Results- in the first condition, children intimidated what they had seen the same-sex role model doing. 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 this sex. If it is, the child will imitate that behaviour.

Question 19

Williams 1986

Answer 19

Aim- to investigate the effects on the gender development of children.

Method- he studied the effects of tv 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 intimidating attitudes and behaviour seen ok tv.

Question 20

Martin 1989

Answer 20

Aim- to show that children’s understanding of gender becomes less stereotypes and therefore more flexible as they get older.

Method- children heard stories that make and female characters enjoyed played with. Some of the characters were described as liking gender-stereotyped activities, while other characters were described as liking non-gender-stereotyped activities. The children were then asked to predict what other toys each character would or wouldn’t like to play with.

Results- the younger children used only the sex of the character to decide what other toys he or she would or wouldn’t like. The older children considered both the sex of the character and the other toys that the character enjoyed playing with.

Conclusion- older children have a more flexible view of gender that younger children do.

Question 21

Levy and Carter 1989

Answer 21

Aim- to show that there are individual differences in the way children think about gender.

Method- children were show. Pictures of two toys and asked to choose the one that they would like to play with. Sometimes the toys would be both stereotypically masculine, sometimes both stereotypically feminine and sometimes one masculine and one feminine. These pictures were shown to high and low gender schematised children.

Results- the highly gender schematised children chose quickly between the pictures when they were shown one masculine and one feminine toy. If, however, they were shown two masculine or two feminine toys they took longer to decide because they either wanted both or neither of the toys. The less gender schematised children chose on the basis of personal preference. It therefore took them the same amount time to choose between the toys on each set of pictures.

Conclusion- highly gender schematised children choose on the basis of whether or not they are appropriate for their sex. Less gender schematised children choose on the basis of their personal preference.