SLT applied to gender development

• Social learning theory


  As applied to gender development
• Gender behaviours

  • Set of behaviours acquired from the environment
  • Learned via observational learning: people observe behaviours relating to gender
  • Children pay attention to their models and encode their behaviour, and imitate if they may do this even if the behaviour is not gender appropriate but are most likely to reproduce behaviour society deems appropriate
  • Child is most likely to attend and imitate people they perceive similar to itself; more widely imitate the behaviour of same sex models
• Gender development

  1. Reinforcement or punishment from those around the child

  2. Child observes consequences of other people's behaviour and will be motivated to continue behaviour it has seen reinforced and avoid behaviour it has seen punished

  3. Once a child begins to imitate their models, they will act in gender specific ways receive direct reinforcement from socialising agents causing them to continue behaviour

  4. They will also learn through direct tuition and instructions
• Influence of parents


  • Parents treat children in gender specific ways, suggesting they will be expected to respond in a gender specific way and they will be rewarded causing repetition
  • Parents use rewards and punishments to encourage gender-appropriate behaviour
• Influence of peers


  • Peers reinforce gender stereotypes by providing gender appropriate behaviour and ridiculing non-appropriate behaviour
  • Gender differences develop in social interactions; children display preferences for some gender play activities and restricting interaction with the opposite gender