SLT - Gender

• Social learning theory


  A combination of cognitive and behaviourist ideas, its main idea is we learn our behaviour through experience with the world, and this of course will include behaviour that is gendered
• Socialisation

  The process where children learn the norms and values of a society, these vary depending on the culture they belong to, and they learn to imitate members of the culture by seeing those people being rewarded in some way for gendered behaviour
• Vicarious reinforcement

  Younger children experience this and are likely to want to imitate the behaviour they have seen
• Differential reinforcement


  The fact that in society different behaviours are rewarded depending on the sex of the individual
• Role models

  Older children who are models for the younger children, can be siblings, friends or parents (live models), or people in the media like storybook characters, TV and film characters (symbolic models)
• Mediational processes

  Attention, retention, reproduction, motivation - these determine whether gendered behaviour will be imitated
• Differential reinforcement is real, as shown by the Smith and Lloyd study where mothers played differently with babies depending on whether they thought the baby was male or female</b>
• Children with an older sibling of the opposite sex are likely to show more cross-sex gendered behaviour, as shown by the Rust study
• Culture

  Gender stereotypes vary between cultures, and the socialisation performed by peers, teachers and parents depends on the culture
• Media


  Symbolic models in the media can influence gender development, as media often portrays gender stereotypes and normative gender roles
• Mead's research showed that gender roles can vary radically between cultures, suggesting they are a product of culture rather than biology
• Adverts often portray gender stereotypes, with women shown in dependent roles and men in professional roles, across different cultures
• Social learning theory struggles to explain atypical gender development, where people's gender identity does not match their assigned sex, as it cannot account for why people would continue to display cross-sex gendered behaviour despite social pressure
• While gender roles have become less strict in modern culture, social learning theory cannot fully explain how they have changed, as it focuses on how gender roles are maintained over time