presents characteristics that would be commonly identified as masculine, feminine, neutral (20 of each) + rate themselves on 7 point rating scale + [high masc; low fem, high fem; high masc, high masc; high fem, low masc, low fem]
women + males doing same task behind split screen + measured time eyes were fixated on screen (gender constancy - watched same sex model most) + children who hadn't reached constancy watched both
BUSSEY + BANDURA [CONTRADICTS COGNITIVE THEORY BUT SUPPORTS GENDER SCHEMA]
children as young as 4 report feeling good about playing with gender appropriate toys + feeling bad about opposite (suggests children begin to absorb gender appropriate information as soon as they identify themselves as either male or female)
gender schema theory: as child gets older schema will get more complex; organised sets of beliefs + expectations appropriate to gender [based on stereotypes] + study; more likely to remember photographs gender consistent behaviour than gender inconsistent
5yr old boy with phobia of horses (+ oedipus complex) unconsciously representing the fear of his father [defence mechanism of displacement; fear of his father onto horses]
freud suggests you need both parents + said raised in a non nuclear family would cause effect on child's development but found that single parent families went on to develop normal gender identities
gender appropriate behaviour is stamped in at an early age (adults selected gender appropriate behaviour for the gender they “thought” the babies were)
children able to take note of behaviour, selection and imitation of behaviour doesnt come until later (reach gender constancy like kohlberg) - influence of age and maturation on learning gender concepts isnt a factor in the SLT + may be a limitation of the explanation
tribal island of new guinea [the arapesh - gentle + responsive, mundugumor - aggressive and hostile, tchamboli - dominant + organised village life; women, passive + considered to be 'decorative'; men] (suggests might not be a direct biological relationship between sex + gender, gender roles may be culturally determined)
critique of meads conclusions, conducted follow up study + found findings were flawed as she was misled by some of her participants (+ her preconceptions influenced findings = observer bias)
NING ZHOU ET AL [GENDER DYSPHORIA - BRAIN SEX THEORY]
studied bed nucleus of stria termanalis + around 40% larger in males than females + post-mortem studies of six male-to-female transgender individuals, the BSTc was found to be a similar size to that of a typical female brain
studied the same brain tissue but focused on the number of neurons in the BSTc rather than the volume + six transgender individuals showed a sex-reversed identity pattern with an average BSTc neuron number in the female range
GUNTER HEYLENS ET AL [SUPPORT GENETIC FACTORS OF GD]
compared twin pairs [23 MZ, 21 DZ] (one of each pair had gender dysphoria) + found 39% (9) of monozygotic were concordant for GD compared to 0% dizygotic twins
LIONEL DVESEY + ETHEL PERSON [GD; SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY]
GD in biological males is caused by experiencing extreme separation anxiety before gender identity has been established (child fantasies of a symbiotic fusion with their mother to relieve the anxiety + danger of separation is removed (consequence = child becomes mother + adopts a female gender identity)
interviews with GD in males seen to display overly close relationships with their mothers would lead to greater female identification + atypical gender identity in long term
extension of gender schema theory that emphasises individual differences in gender identity (dual pathway theory); 1st - acknowledges development of gender schema + then direct gender appropriate attitudes + behaviour as part of 'normal' development + 2nd gender attitudes are affected by his or her activity (personal interest become more dominant than gender identity - turn influence in gender schema
suggests that gender dysphoria in those assigned male at birth is more likely to be associated with the absence of the father than the fear of separation from the mother; the assumption that GD is caused by separation anxiety in childhood is very difficult to test
found that children as young as 2-3 demonstrated strongly sex-typed behaviours and attitudes, supporting the prediction that only gender identity is needed to develop a sense of gender, and weakening Kohlberg’s theory.