culture

• Culture

  The ideas, customs & social behaviour of a group of people in society.
• Cross-culture research

  Research to support that different cultures have different gender roles
• Mead's research


  • Investigated gender roles in 3 different cultures
  • Found that they all had different role patterns
  • Supports nurture & Social Learning Theory
• Gender role patterns in different cultures

  • Culture 1: Similar to traditional Western societies, males were breadwinners & females took on the caregiver role
  • Culture 2: No difference between males & females, they both had masculine qualities
  • Culture 3: Males were more artistic & put on the evening entertainment, females went out fishing & hunting & made all the decisions
• Williams & Best study

  • Experiment on 24 different cultures
  • Involved 5-8 year old children
  • Showed silhouettes of male and female
  • Asked children to identify which silhouette is more aggressive/emotional
• The majority of cultures were in agreement that males are more likely to be aggressive & females are more likely to be emotional
• Similarities in gender roles across cultures

  Support the biological theory that gender role differences between males and females are due to genetics
• Evaluation of Mead - strengths

  La Fromboise - conducted observations & interviews of North American Indian tribes & found that women were often warriors which is traditionally seen as a more masculine role in the West
• Evaluation of Mead -Weakness

  There is a possible issue of cultural bias as a Western researcher can only understand what they see & hear from their own Western perspective (imposed etic). Mead may not have fully understood the cultures she was reporting on therefore lacking external validity.
• Evaluation of Williams & Best - Weakness

  Cross-cultural research doesn't solve the nature/nurture debate. In reality it is practically & theoretically impossible so separate the two influences on the development of gender roles.
• Buss' research 


  Found consistent patterns in mate preferences in 37 countries across all continents. In all cultures, women sought men who could offer wealth & resources, whilst men looked for youth & physical attractiveness in a potential partner. This suggests that gender roles may be due to biological factors rather than cultural ones.