gender

• Sex


  Whether an individual is biologically female or male
• Gender


  The social and psychological characteristics of males and females
• Sex-role stereotypes


  Types of qualities and characteristics seen as appropriate for each sex
• Where do we learn sex-role stereotypes?

  1. Socialisation (learning what is normal in a culture)

  2. Media (televisions, magazines, etc.)

  3. Family and friends (learning what our role is within a family)
• Ingalhalikar (2014)


  • Investigated the difference between men and women's brains, using MRI imaging
  • Women had better connections between the left and right sides of the brain
  • Men had more intense activity in individual parts such as the cerebellum
  • The female brain was better at multitasking, males prefer to focus on a single complex task
• Mead (1935)


  • In Papua New Guinea some tribes had both males and females showing caring behaviours
  • Therefore gender roles are socially constructed
• Archer and Lloyd


  • 3 year old children who played with toys from the opposite sex were ridiculed and ostracised
• Renzetti and Curran


  • Teachers gave reinforcements to boys, praising them for 'cleverness' and praising girls for 'neatness'
• Androgyny


  A type of gender in which someone shows high levels of masculine and feminine behaviour
• Bem Sex Role Inventory


  • A systematic attempt to measure androgyny using a scale of 60 traits to produce scores on masculinity-femininity and androgynous-undifferentiated
• Golombok and Fuvush


  • Gender identity is a much more global concept than is suggested by BSRI
  • In order to understand gender identity fully, the person's interest and perception of their ability should be used
• Adams and Sherer


  • Disagree with Bem, argue that people with masculine traits are more highly valued in a patriarchal Western society
• Chromosomes


  Initially determine sex, but most gender development is determined by hormones
• Hormones prenatally


  Act upon brain development and cause development of reproductive hormones
• Nanne Van De Poll

  • Female rats injected with testosterone became more physically and sexually aggressive
• Testosterone


  Development of male sex organs, linked to aggression
• Oestrogen


  Heightened emotionality and irritability during menstrual cycle
• Oxytocin


  Stimulates lactation for breastfeeding, reduces stress hormone cortisol, released during childbirth, known as the 'love hormone'
• David Reimer


  • A boy named Bruce, due to a complication during circumcision was castrated and raised as a girl. However, they became suicidal and when they were told the truth as a teenager, they immediately changed back to living as a man, under the name David
• Dabbs

  Criminals with higher levels of testosterone were more likely to have committed violent or sexually motivated crimes
• Van Goozen

  Transgender women undergoing hormone treatment showed decrease in aggression and visuo-spatial skills
• Tricker conducted a double blind study where men were injected with testosterone or placebo, and found no significant difference in aggression
• Rodin argued that PMS is a social construction, a way of privileging men over women, and an example of the medicalization of women's lives and dismissal of their emotion
• Klinefelter's syndrome physical characteristics

  • Less body hair
  • Breast tissue
  • Softened/rounded body shape
  • General clumsiness
• Klinefelter's syndrome psychological characteristics

  • Poorly developed language skills
  • Lack of interest in sexual activity
  • React badly to stress
• Turner's syndrome physical characteristics

  • Absence of menstrual cycle (amenorrhea)
  • Sterile
  • Hips are not much bigger than waist
  • Look physically immature
• Turner's syndrome psychological characteristics

  • Higher than average reading ability
  • Poor social ability
  • Lower mathematical abilities
• Quigly


  when those with Turner’s syndrome were given oestrogen supplements they developed breasts earlier than non-TS girls, showing that the symptoms of TS can be overcome with biological intervention
• Herlihy 


  those identified from an early age with KF and TS and treated accordingly had significant benefits
• Stage one, gender identity

  • Can identify themselves as a girl or a boy (age 2)
  • Can identify other people as a girl or a boy (age 3)
  • Does not understand that sex is permanent
• Stage two, gender stability

  • At age 4, they understand that they will always stay the same gender, consistent over time
  • They can get confused with external changes in appearance, and think people can change sex if doing an activity of the opposite sex
• Stage three, gender constancy

  • At age 6, they understand that gender is permanent across time and situations
  • They are no longer confused by external appearance
  • They seek out gender appropriate roles
• Slaby and Frey


  • Showed children split screen images of men and women completing the same task
  • Children in the gender constancy stage spent more time looking at the same-sex model
• Munroe


  • Found support for Kohlberg's theory in Kenya, Samoa and Nepal
  • Suggests the sequence of stages may be universal
• Bussey and Bandura


  • Children as young as 4 said they 'felt good' about playing with gender appropriate toys, and 'bad' about doing the opposite
  • Suggests that we absorb gender-appropriate information as soon as we identify as male or female
• Gender schema


  A generalised representation of everything we know in relation to gender
• Martin & Halverson


  • When children were asked to recall pictures of people, children under the age of six recalled more gender consistent ones
  • This is in line with gender schema theory predictions
• Gender schema theory


  Explains why gender schema affects our memory
• Kohlberg's theory


  • Explains our motivation
  • Once we understand what a boy or a girl is (gender constancy stage) we are motivated to engage in gender appropriate activities
• Stangor and Ruble = The gender schema theory and Kohlberg's theory work better together