W11: GENDER DEVELOPMENT Flashcards
Sex and Gender
SEX: biological differences in physical sex characteristics, chromosomes, hormones
Often characterized as male or female
But variation in the biological aspects of sex (e.g., intersex)
E.g., female chromosomes = xx, but there are people who are born with different combinations of sex chromosomes, maybe intersex individuals = more variation
GENDER: socially constructed roles, behaviours, attitudes (e.g., what it means to “be a boy”)
Often characterized as feminine or masculine (e.g., woman/girl, man/boy)
But gender exists on a continuum (not binary) and can change over time
Transgender = an individual whose gender is different than their sex assigned at birth
Sex assigned at birth = gender based on genitalia when babies are born
Cisgender = an individual whose gender identity is the same as their sex assigned at birth
Most research on cisgender children → especially in terms of looking at gender identity
Gender Development
Children distinguish between boys and girls as early as 6-9mo
Habituation Experiments: differentiate male and female faces
Show a bunch of male/boy faces until baby gets bored, and then you show a girl face and see if the baby dishabituated (pays attention again) → if so = they can tell the difference between these two stimulants
This is based on hairstyle = helps babies distinct between boy and girl face → uses physical stimulants
If you take the cue of hairstyle away, they can’t really tell the difference
Toddlers (≈2-3yos):
Have gender expectations
Label their own and others’ gender
Begin stereotyping and showing preference for gender-typed toys (Gender-Typed = anything that is stereotypically associated with a given person’s gender (toys, behaviours, etc.))
E.g., girl playing with doll = feminine → that’s how western societies and many societies see it in the world
Cross-Gender Typed = opposite of Gender-Typed
Girl is playing with trucks = cross-gender typed behaviour → less consistent with the stereotypes that girls play with
Children’s Gender Stereotyping:
Used preferential looking paradigm with 12mo, 18mo, and 23mo children
Preferential Looking Paradigm = 2 things, you look at what they’re looking at longer → shows that kids can distinguish between the 2, one they look at more = they like it more
Measured preference for looking at pictures of vehicles or dolls
12mo: girls and boys looked more at the dolls than vehicles (early preference for human faces?)
People preference for dolls than vehicles
18mo: girls looked more at dolls, boys looked more at vehicles
Starting to see a stereotypical preference
23mo: girls looked at both equally… but boys continue to look more at vehicles
Preference for gender-typed toys even before children can label their own gender identity reliance (super early) → matching their implied gender
In childhood, Gender Segregation begins:
Begins in preschool, peaks in middle childhood
Boys tend to play with other boys, girls with other girls, happens naturally
Generally universal across cultures. Why?
Differences in preferred types of play (rough-and-tumble vs. cooperative)? = Preferences that you might have that have been reinforced by adults and societal expectations
Drawn to ingroup as their gender identity emerges? = As your gender identity emerges and you are saying more and more that you are a boy, then you might want to associate with other boys → boys become your “ingroup” and girls become your “outgroup”
Conformity pressures?
Adults, teachers, and parents will often reinform these splits (e.g., seating charts, camps)
Lot of parents concerned about girls being around boys
By middle childhood (≈9-10yo), start to understand that gender is socially constructed
Gender is a social construct = there’s no biological basis or essential feature of gender, gender roles are roles that we have made up in society
Awareness that gender discrimination is unfair
Requires cognitive capacities (e.g., understanding of stereotypes, ability to make social comparisons, understanding of fairness/morality)
Adolescence:
Less gender segregation
More opposite-sex friendships during adolescence (coincides with puberty)
More romantic relationships forming → coincides with puberty
Gender-role Intensification: more gendered behaviours
E.g. a girl who used to be a “tom boy” might be more likely now to be a “girly girl” → more of a rigidity in that gender role intensification
Tends to be associated with increased interest in romantic relationships
Increased understanding of gender-role flexibility
Aided by increased cognitive development during adolescent
BIOLOGICAL THEORIES of Gender Development:
Gender development is influenced by both nature and nurture:
Nature → children are born with chromosomes and reproductive anatomy
Chromosomes that they have, hormone concentrations that course through their bodies
Seems to be a close correlation between sex and gender for most but not all
Nurture → children also learn about gender from the world around them
Biological Theories of Gender Development:
- Evolutionary Theory
Hypothesizes that males and females have different evolutionary purposes or ROLES that they have embraced
E.g., males would be in charge with hunting and females might be in charge with child rearing duties in groups (making sure child survives) → a lot based on animal research (99% seen in mammals)
Many societies today promote these gender stereotypes
Could influence children’s play behaviour & cognition (e.g., spatial rotation vs. localization):
E.g., if men are hunters → leads to boys having rough and tumble play because through their play they are practicing the skills they will need to do the hunting
Girls will like to play with dolls and play house → practice for the skills that they are required to have
Spatial Rotation Task = you have a top image and 4 different images that you try to match with the top image → men typically do better
Localization = shows an array of pictures, gives 30s to study it, and then takes it away, puts it back and asks you what is missing → females typically do better
PROBLEMS:
Circular Reasoning
Alot is based on animal research
- Neuroscience Approaches:
Considers how hormones (e.g., androgens) impact neurodevelopmental differences
Prenatally the hormones that you’re exposed to in the uterus and puberty will change the structure of your brain and how it’s shaped → affects how brain functions and its behaviour
All behaviour comes from your brain, and then the brain is impacted by the experiences that you’re having → hormones might affect how brain functions, therefore affecting behaviour
Organizing Influences: hormones affect structural differences in the brain (esp. prenatally and during puberty)
Activating Influences: hormones affect brain function and behaviour
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia and androgen insensitivity syndrome → both syndromes where the androgens released in utero don’t have the effect that they’re supposed to have on external genitalia
Typically androgens like testosterone are released prenatally and then there’s different levels of these concentrations of hormones that will go on to dictate whether a baby has male or female like genitalia
However in this case, you might have people who have XX chromosomes, but have male genitalia or people who have XY chromosomes and they have female genitalia = androgen insensitivity syndrome
This is why “sex assigned at birth” is a term we use because it’s not always confirmed based on chromosomes, it confirmed based on genitalia
BUT, most research on adults
COGNITIVE THEORIES of Gender Develepment
- Kohlberg’s Cognitive Development Theory:
Influenced by Piagetian theory: children construct their own knowledge of gender
Form gender schemas by observing world around them
Schema = mental heuristic for what fits in one category or another
3 Stages (between approx. 2-6yo):
1. Gender Identity (~2-5yo)
Tend to be when kids can label their own identity
- Gender Stability (~3-4yo)
When a boy/girl realizes that they will likely grow up to be a man/women
Gender continuity
Stability within themselves, but not in other people and stability across gender expression (e.g., if you show a kid a boy wearing a dress, they will say that it’s now a girl)
- Gender Consistency (~5-6yo)
Show a boy wearing a dress, kid will say its still a boy
Sees gender as something that doesn’t really change → fixed aspect of their identity (5yos view of gender)
Leads to: gender constancy
Gender Constancy
Usually seen around the same time that kids can pass the conservation task → just because something looks different, doesn’t mean it’s different (its essence is still the same)
Stages generally in this sequence; constancy coinciding with conservation problem success
This is where they will understand gender stereotypes more (gender typed toys, behaviour, etc.)
BUT, children stereotype before constancy & theory only considers gender binary
- Gender Schema Theory:
Combines social learning, information-processing, and cognitive approaches
Gender-typed behaviours occur as soon as children can label their own gender
As soon as kids say “I’m a girl”, they will start doing “girl” things
Children attend to information relevant to their own gender: “gender schema filter” → trying to make sense of the world around them
Example: Dolls are coded for girls, if kids gender identity matches that, then they are going to pay attention to it and engage with it, asking FOR WHOM are these dolls for = gender schema filter
If dolls aren’t encoded for girls, then they aren’t going to play with it:
Leads to biased processing and memory for gender-relevant information
If ambiguous, process using “interest filter” (but also individual differences)
Doesn’t matter for girls or for boys, if doesn’t look interesting to the kid, then they won’t approach and move away from the toy
Allows for individual differences in gendered play
Not all girls like to play with dolls
Your interest filter can override mor modify your gender schema filter
EXAMPLE: 4-9yo explored toys in boxes
One box was written “for boys” and another box was written “for girls” and last box wa written “for girls and boys”
Both boys and girls explored ‘own gender’ box (or ‘both genders’) options more
1 week later, they brought the kids back and asked them questions about the toys → kids remembered more details about their own “coded” toys
Shows how the attention you pay to something to influence your memory later on
- Tajfel & Turners Social Identity Theory:
Based on ingroup/outgroup concepts from social psychology
Ingroup = your group, your people, outgroup = everybody else, not your people
We prefer our own group (“ingroup bias”) + conform to group norms → behave similar to the people in our ingroup to stay in the ingroup (“ingroup assimilation”)
E.g., if you’re a boy, you see everyone play with trucks and you kind of want to play with the doll but since everyone in your ingroup is playing with the truck, you play with the truck = ingroup assimilation
Theory suggest a lot of gender pressures and gender type behaviours as kids associate members of their same gender as their “ingroup”
High-status group is more valued
In a lot of societies, male group is considered more high status in terms of having higher power
Cross-gender-typed behaviours are more common in girls than boys:
Girls are more likely to cross gender in their preferences (e.g., truck instead of a doll) than boys
Gender-typing pressures are stricter for boys:
We allow for more gender exploration and gender fluidity in girls
We are more okay with a girl playing hockey than a boy doing ballet → this is because the more high dominant and more highs status group = the masculine group
These gender rigidity and stereotypes are harmful for both men and women
- Bandura & Bussey’s Social Cognitive Theory:
Bandura = Bobo Dolls = aggressive behaviours are modeled and reinforced when children saw models fighting the Bobo doll and they were more likely to do that behaviour themselves
Developed theory that kids gender-typed behaviours are modeled and reinforced by the people around them
Children learn about gender through:
Tuition → direct instruction they receive
Direct teaching about what it means to “be a boy/girl” (e.g., father teaching son baseball)
Explicit instructions from adults (e.g., “girls don’t play contact sports” “Lipstick is just for girls” “Girls can’t walk home alone at night”)
Behaviours of adults (e.g., buying clothes and toys that are gender-typed)
Enactive experience: children are positively reinforced for gender-typed behaviours
Observations: learning directly from watching others and the media
Gender Differences
Effect size: indicator of the magnitude of an effect
How large or small a difference is
Separate from statistical significance (i.e., difference not due to chance)
Effect size can be indexed by Cohen’s d (how much does distribution overlap?)
Small effect = like a d Cohen’s d of point to small effect, meaning that the distributions overlap a lot
Typical for gender difference → high degree of overlap for boys and girls in a lot of different traits = more variation inside of a gender group than between gender groups
More variation within genders than between genders: boys and girls tend to be more similar than they are different
DIFFERENCES:
1. Physical Growth:
Difference in weight, height, and strength (boys > girls, especially after puberty)
Only one of the large effects that we see
- Cognitive abilities and academics
Very few differences in IQ, but shape of IQ distribution is slightly different
There will be more boys and girls at the extreme low end of IQ → more boys and girls diagnosed with intellectual disability
There will also be more boys than girls on the higher end of the IQ scale → more boys would be labeled as “gifted”
School achievement:
Starting in elementary school, girls tend to outperform boys in school achievement → can be due to temperance like girls being able to sit still and pay attention, instilled at a young age
Girls more likely to graduate from highschool than boys
More women obtain master degrees
More men obtain phD’s and are professors
Girls are better in reading (small effect) and writing (medium effect) → girls better compared to boys
Boys are better in visual-spatial skills (small effect) and math → math effect only starts in high school
(small effect, starting in HS; difference decreasing)
WHY IS THIS:
Generally due to environmental influences
Parents provide gender-typed learning opportunities (e.g., talking to daughters more)
Teachers model and reinforce gender biases (e.g., male teachers in math and science)
Different encouragement (e.g., stereotypes before gender differences in ability
NO DIFFERENCES:
1. Interpersonal Goals and Communication:
No differences in how talkative boys and girls are!
Girls have more intimacy & support goals → peer relationships and creating a sense of intimacy, boys have more dominance & power goals (small to medium effects)
Girls self-disclose thoughts and feelings more (small to medium effect) → gets larger with adolescence
Different communication styles (small effects)
Dimensions of affiliation & assertion
Affiliation = goal of connecting with other people
Assertion = goal-directed behaviour → like you’re calling the shots
Collaboration is most common style for boys and girls
Girls use more collaboration than boys; boys use more controlling style than girls
IMPLICATIONS: GENDER-TYPED TOYS
Children learn about gender-typed behaviours from the world around them… including toys?
Children begin selecting gender-typed toys early (even in infancy)
Toy interests can also be shaped by gender cues
Explicit cues (“that’s a boy’s toy!”) or implicit cues (e.g., making a toy pink)
Weisgram et al., 2014: “Pink gives girls permission”
Examined effects of toy type and colour on 3-5yo children’s interests, Presented with toys
Dependent Variable: children’s interests
Independent Variable: toy changing colour
Gave children a bunch of toys that were crossed → combination of toy colours that were considered masculine and feminine and toy types that were coded masculine and feminine
Asked kids to play with the toys, then asked “How much do you like these toys?”
Boys: rated masculine toys high, regardless of how they were painted
Girls: preferred the monster truck that was painted in a feminine colour
Gender schema theory:
If only approach toys labeled “for them”, limits learning opportunities
Might this impact gender differences in academic achievement?
