Sex-role stereotypes

• Definition of sex-role beliefs?

  The types of qualities and characteristics expected of members of each sex
• What did Ingalhalikar do?

  Scanned 949 brains of young men and women using high tech diffusion MRI imaging, they mapped the connections between the different parts of the brain.
• What did Ingalhalikar discover?

  Women's brains have far better connections between left and right hemispheres of the brain while men's brains display more intense activity within the brain's individual parts - particularly the cerebellum (controls motor skills)
• What did Ingalhalikar conclude?

  The female brain is hard-wired to cope better with several tasks at once whereas the male brain prefers to focus on a single complex task
• Sex-role beliefs can become sex-role stereotypes when applied as 'rules' to be followed by all
• Sex-role stereotypes teach children what qualities are seen as masculine and feminine and thus create norms that people feel pressured to conform to. Perceived examples tend to be overstressed e.g. instances of male aggression might be overstressed whilst simultaneously aggression in females is downplayed
• Holding such beliefs also leads to an overemphasis of differences between genders e.g. males being seen as more competitive and females more co-operative - alpha bias
• How are children socialised differently based on their sex?


  Parents play with children of different sexes differently

  Set up play dates with children of same sex

  People gravitate towards people of same gender

  The way they encourage each other/interact with each other

  Teachers praise children differently
• What did Urberg do?

  Told children 3-7 years old stories that stressed sex-role stereotypes: bravery and being caring were demonstrated int he stories without specifying the gender. After each story, children had to state which characteristic illustrated was typical of boys/girls
• What did Urberg find?

  Responses favoured sex-role stereotypes: males being brave, females being caring

  Tendency which peaked at age 5 for children to attribute the 'positive behaviour to own gender.

  Older children showed an increasing tendency to see characteristics as both

  Therefore, children lean sex-role stereotypes at early age but they can change with age
• Cross-cultural differences suggest sex roles are culturally transmitted

  Mead found that due to globalisation we may see a movement towards uniform sex-role stereotypes in all cultures - this could be more harmful. Also, the fact that sex-role stereotypes have been found to differ cross-culturally implies that environmental learning experiences (nurture) are stronger than biological forces (nature) in determining such stereotypes.
• If SRS are learned, it implies that they could be addressed by providing learning experiences for children that reinforce positive sex-roles being equally applicable to males and females - research in this area could therefore have positive practical applications - educational media - not mainstream
• Positive application due to the media being criticised for stereotypical presentations, their portrayals have become less stereotyped. For example, Steinke et al's study highlights the improvement in how female scientists are presented in TV shows - Nina and the neurones. However, mainly occurs in educational programmes and some argue it will only be when mainstream programming follows suit that real progress in breaking down stereotypes will be seen
• Categorising behaviours, occupations, qualities etc (as seen in Sood et al study) may place restrictive barriers on positive roles that both males and females could play in society, for example women being able to make positive contributions in science - cuts people off from jobs