Gender

• A strength is that allows researchers to compare people with atypical chromosomes to typical chromosomes this enables researchers to investigate biological origin for sexual development and gendered behaviour overall suggest there is a powerful effect on genetic makeup on physiological and psychological behaviour
• Although we cannot establish that biological genes ( different in sex chromosome patterns) cause difference in behaviour could also play in environmental factors ... correlation does not link to causation no cause and effect
• Studies of people with atypical sex chromosome patterns are useful contribute t understanding of nature nurture debate, by comparing people who have these conditions with chromosome typical individuals becomes visible to see psychological and behavioural differences ie those with Turner's syndrome tend to have higher verbal ability and tend to talk more than 'typical girls"

  May be inferred these differences have a biological basis and result of abnormal chromosome structure suggest innate influences have powerful effect on psychology and behaviour
• A weakness is that does not determine cause+ effect

  social and environmental reasons are responsible for behavioural differences in these atypical individuals

  Eg girls born with TS an environmental reason for social immaturity may be due to a result for how they are treated by people around them

  parents teachers and others may react to prepubescent physical immature appearance which may encourage this immaturity which may have indirect impact on their performance and other developmental factors so wrong to assume observed psyhcological differences due to nature
• Caution should always be exercised when drawing conclusions from unusual and unrepresentative sample of people. Main issue is lack of generalisability from atypical individuals to wider population also the case that individuals who look different bc of unusual chromosomes are unlikely to be treated in same way as peers

  can muddle and limit generalisability when assessing their biology is responsible for their behaviour when drawing their conclusions
• a further strength led to practical applications in regards to medical interventions

  oestrogen therapy in females with TS shown to normalise physical development in puberty

  As a result those treated from a young age experienced benefits to those treated in adulthood
• A strength of Bem's study is that there is research support for distinct sex types + androgyny

  • Bem measured 561 males and 336 female students using the BSRI questionnaire
  • Bem found that most males sex type classed as masculine and most female sex type is feminine
  • 34% males + 27%= classified as androgynous

  This suggest that masculine and feminine personality traits are distinct

  However on Bem's original research she did not include a category for people with few masculine or feminine traits this was later updated as (undifferentiated) in 1981
• A weakness that there is research which contradicts Bem's claim that androgyny is less suitable

  • Adam and Sherer compared ppts gender using BSRI with personality traits
  • researchers found on assertiveness and self efficacy masculine and females were best adjusted
  • This suggests masculine males and females are well adjusted which contradicts Bem's suggestion that androgyny was the most psychologically healthy
  • However this could be due to society being male dominated, prioritising competitive traits -androgynous people could be best adjusted in a more equal society
• A strength of Bem's methodology to collect data is that a self report design was used (questionnaire)

  + quick and easy to obtain lots of responses this generates quantitative data which is easy to analyse and has objective interpretations

  + the inventory was tested on over 1000 students and it produces similar results if repeated with the same sample - therefore has good test-retest reliability
• • -although a weakness of Bem's study is that can generate Social desirability bias since participants could lie
  • bc conducted in the 1970s where society had heavy gender stereotypes ppts could respond in a way to appear more masculine or feminine (what they believe what society expects from them is right not what they truly believe about themselves )
• • bc of Social desirability bias this lowers the validity although (COUNT.) answers were given in confidentiality so this could reduce the effects of SDB
  • Further limitation is that gender is complex and using a self report design requires people to have an insight into their personality and behaviour ( which not everyone does has) ie the words used in the questionnaire may be unfamiliar led to subjective interpretation of what it means to them ... answers may not be an accurate representation of themselves
• Another limitation of Bem’s sex role inventory is that it lacks temporal validity. , the questionnaire created more than 40 years ago no longer matches contemporary understanding of gender. Many of the traits Bem measured such as gentle considered feminine and dominant  considered masculine are now not limited to one gender or the other + would be seen as stereotypical in themselves when stated this way which means that  conclusions about the impact of certain traits are likely to be biased too. 
• Therefore, this explanation of gender is outdated doesn't accurately represent gender under the view of dominant modern social norms.

  EV on lack of temporal validity

  in addition the scale was devised using a panel of judges who were all from United States the "individualist notions" that are stereotypically attributed to males and females may not be shared across all cultures and societies
• in addition Bem's study lacks temporal validity since social attitudes have changed over time / 40 years so views on gender traits will be outdated and therefore it cannot be accurately applied to modern society

  • support from study where in 2001 400 students failed to reach an agreement on what adjectives were stereotypically masculine or feminine - thus lack temporal validity
  • attributes of western culture bias using stereotypes of masculinity and femininity y may be different in other cultures
• • Similar to the criticism of Kohlberg, there are methodological issues with interviewing children to investigate cognitive theories. Children may be more subject to demand characteristics, giving the answer they think will please the researcher, which might not be what they actually believe. This weakens the evidence for gender schema theory.
• • there is further research to support gender schema theory
  • Martin and Little (1990) found that children as young as 2-3 demonstrated strongly sex-typed behaviours and attitudes despite having no signs of gender stability or gender constancy , supporting the prediction that only gender identity is needed to develop a sense of gender, than reaching gender constancy stage to have full established sense of gender this contradicts and weakening Kohlberg’s theory.
• • there is research support for gender schema theory
  • Martin and Halverson (1983) found that children were more likely to remember photographs of gender-consistent behaviour (e.g. a male firefighter) than inconsistent behaviour (e.g. a female firefighter), and they often changed the sex of the person carrying out gender -inconsistent activity , saying that the firefighter was male when they were female. This supports idea memory may be distorted to fit with existing gender schemas
• one limitation of gender schema theory is the issue of individual differences as this cannot explain why children who are reared in the same environmental influences respond differently to gender appropriate behaviour for eg this can't explain why some girls may prefer action figures and some boys prefer dolls , this may be due to biological differences which gender schema theory largely ignores
• although possibly a difference between cognitive theories which both

  Ruble and Stangor have suggested gender schema and gender constancy may actually describe two different processes

  -gender schema is concerned with how information affects memories and this explains why gender inconsistent behaviour is often disregarded or forgotten

  • alternatively gender constancy is linked with motivation once children have grasped of what it means to be a boy or girl at Gender constancy stage they are then motivated to find out more about this role and engage in gender appropriate activities