Gender psychology AQA alevel revision notes PSYA3

What you need to know...

Biological influences on gender

• The role of genes and hormones on gender development
• Evolutionary explanations of gender role
• Biosocial explanations of gender development
• Gender dysphoria

Psychological explanations of gender development

• Kohlberg's cognitive developmental theory
• Gender schema theory

The social context of gender roles

• Social influence on gender role
• Cultural influence on gender role

Gender

Sex = biological fact. Gender = sense of who you are.

XX = Male XY (testosterone) = female (oestrogen and progesterone)

AIS= androgen insensitivity syndrome. Insensitivity to testosterone, externally look female but has testes where ovaries should be

CAH = congenital adrenal hyperplasia

Batisa Family

37 children from Dominican Republic inherited recessive gene. They externally had female genitalia, at puberty this healed over and they grew male genitalia from the burst of testosterone. They accepted this change well; this could be due to them being uncomfortable as female or cultural differences.

Evolutionary perspective

Division of labour = man (hunter) woman (domestic goddess) enhance reproductive success.

Mate choice = physically attractive, resources, youth and fertility

ES theory = women better at emphasising, men better at systematising

Evaluation

Speculative theories = evolutionary explanations are speculative, there is no factual basis

Attachment is for survival = division of gender roles appeared as an adaptive response to the challenges our ancestors faced, this is a biological approach.

1.      Division of labour, 2. Mate choice, 3. Cognitive style

Division of labour

Women are often pregnant or nursing and if she was hunting this would put her life in danger and would not have promoted reproductive success. Division of labour enhances reproductive success, the female can also provide additional food if male hunt fails.

+ Kuhn and Stiner = division of labour lead to the survival of homosapien. Homosapiens eat meat and plants. Both male and female skeletons showed signs of injuries occurred while hunting. The lacks of division lead to Netherlanders dying out. A negative of this study is that it is fitting theory to evidence, it is not falsifiable. An alternative explanation to this could be SLT. You learn gender roles through observation though parents and the media for example.  This could be set by your society and your culture.

Mate choice

Behaviours develop to ensure reproductive success. Men look for strong child bearers so they look for fertility, youth, small waist and large hips. Women want to be protected from danger but also seek comfort and food.

+Buss 1989 = they studied sex choices in a large scale study. He used questionnaires and interviews of over 10,000 people in 37 different cultures. Women looked for financial prospects and ambition. Males looked for physical attraction and both sexes looked for intelligence. 

This study was translated when it in different countries and this could be linked to validity. A negative of this study is that it has social desirability bias as people would answer what they thought the interviewer would want to hear. 

An alternative explanation would be that it is reductionist as mate choices are simplified and other factors are important too

.

Cognitive style (es theory and tendbefriend)

This refers to the way that we think. Es theory was developed by baron cohen and he argued women are better at emphasising and men are better at systemising. This could be due to selective pressures as men hunted and they needed to be better at protection strategies and women focused on child rearing. Tend befriend = women may be more focused on interpersonal concerns.

+Baron Cohen = study of autistic people who have struggles with social relationships. They do well at systemising but not emphasising, they have an extreme male brain.

+Taylor 2000 = Supported tendbefreind as women under stress have increased levels of the hormone oxytocin. This reduces anxiety and makes people sociable.

-          Cant generalise Baron Cohen as autistic people aren’t like normal people

+oxytocin is scientific evidence and that shows that it is accurate

Alternative explanation = biological determinism. This suggests that behaviour is set for us by our biology. It ignores of environment and the fact that we have a choice.

Biological approach to gender development including gender dysphoria

This argues that there is an interaction between biological and social influences. Gender is socially constructed and there are also cultural differences.

Biosocial explanations = biosocial theory = Money and E hrhardt

Social role theory = Eagly and Wood

Biosocial theory – Money and Ehrdardt

Biology determines sex and everything else follows on from there. The child can be labelled and sexualised from the moment the mother finds out its sex. This label is vital and the child could also be mislabelled. Different treatments can interact with biological factors such as the child being exposed to prenatal testosterone.

Selective pressure > physical difference > sex role > psychological difference

Sex/ Social role theory = Eagly and Wood

Evolutionary and social = SRT (social role theory)

Evolution > physical > psychological > sex role

Evolutionary theory states that selective pressures have caused physical and psychological differences but this is not the case.

A01 = evolution may have caused physical differences but the sex role allocated causes physiological differences.

Division of labour = SRT argues that biologically based physical differences, allows them to perform tasks e.g. child bearing. Mens upper body strength is used for hunting. If social roles are similar physiological differences are reduced.

Mate choice = SRT argues that what men and women week in a partner can be related to social roles rather than reproductive traits. Physical differences create social roles. To maximise outcomes wage earner is an added extra.

Hormonal differences = Eagly and Wood have suggested hormonal differences are the outcome of social roles and psychological sex differences, rather than the cause. For example testosterone is not the cause of aggressiveness, it is because men engage in athletic events which create high testosterone levels.

Evaluation of biosocial

Biosocial theory

+ David Reimer biologically a male, raised as a female.

·         Lack of evidence. Money and Ehrdharts theory took a blow from David Reimer study which they hoped would be in their favour.

·         - sample bias. Money and Ehrdharts collected other evidence to support but it all came from study of abnormal individuals e.g. study of genetic females exposed to male hormones such as testosterone in the womb. This evidence is not relevant to normal gender development.

Debates = nature nurture > approach emphasises nurture, the evidence points to nature

Social role theory (alternative to evolutionary approach)

·         Luxen 2007 argues evolutionary theory can explain this. Luxen found sex differences without socialisation. Young children

+monkeys chose sex preferred toys (opposes theory)

-children could be picking toys they recognised e.g. what they have at home > can be socialised from birth so this could support biological predetermination

SRT > Holistic approach – encompassing both biological sex and social theory.

EEA = Evolutionary environment Adaption (how we started off, tribal time period)

Gender dysphoria/ Gender identity disorder

Sex = birth, biological

Gender = 3 years old, culturally derived. Biological approach can give us an indication of how gender dysphoria occurs.

Gender dysphoria = when an individual experiences a mismatch between their biological sex and their gender identity

Symptoms = feeling uncomfortable with gender assigned at birth. Might feel withdrawn or frustrated. It affects male’s 5:1 females. Another symptom is a lack of interest in gender specific things. The suicide attempted rate is 40%.

Biological explanation = Mismatch between hormones and genetic sex. AIS and CAH result in intersex conditions. External genitalia doesn’t match the genetic sex.

Brain sex theory = BSTC area of brain twice as large in heterosexual males as heterosexual females with twice the amount of neurons. Number of neurons in male to female transsexual is similar to that of females and number of neurons in female to male  transsexual was not found in male rang.

EVALUATION = dessens et al > 250 females with CAH raised as females. No relationship between male hormones and gender dysphoria.

Chung et al = differences in BSTC volume do not develop until adulthood but people report feelings in early childhood.

Psychological explanations

·         Coates et al = case study of a boy with gender dysphoria. Coates argued that this was a defence mechanism to his mother’s depression following an abortion.

·         Stoller = Gender dysphoria is the result of an overly close relationship between mother and son. This leads to child identifying with mother and leads to confused gender identity.

Evaluation of psychological

·         Zuker et al = found a link between males with gender dysphoria and separation anxiety disorder, this can only explain male to female transsexuals.

·         Cole et al = found that the range of psychiatric conditions displayed by those with gender dysphoria was no greater than those in a normal population.

Kohlberg’s cognitive development theory

Stage 1 = gender labelling, stage 2 = gender stability, stage 3 = gender consistency

Jean Piaget = leading expert in developmental psychology. Argued that the way we think changes as we get older, this is because of physical changes in the brain.

Children can’t distinguish between appearance and reality. Kohlberg argued changes in gender thinking came about because of natural changes of a child’s cognitive development.

Gender labelling = age 2-3 they can label themselves and others, this label is based on outward appearance

Gender stability = age 4-6 children recognise gender is constant over time. Boys grow into men and girls grow into women. Their understanding of gender is stable but isn’t constant; they think males can change into females if they do female activities.

Gender constant = Age 6+ the children realise that gender is stable across time and situations. 

Child now fully understands gender so they see gender appropriate behaviour. Up until now it was not relevant as a child they believed that gender may change.

GST = Gender Schema Theory Martin and Halverson 1981 = start gender age 2-3

Martin and Halverson believed that the key to gender development is getting information about gender, not just through reward and punishment of gender appropriate behaviours. They thought that this happened before gender consistency which is age 2-3 this is different to Kohlberg. Basic gender identification is enough for a child to identify themselves as boy or girl. They learn schemas through interactions with others

Outgroup = groups we don’t identify with e.g. girls don’t identify with boys

Ingroup = the groups which a person does identify with e.g. boys identify with boys

Once a child has identified with a group this leads to them positively evaluating their own group. This leads them to be like their own group as they take the responsibility to investigate ingroup behaviours and avoid outgroup behaviours. They focus on ingroup schemas before gender constancy. Activities of ingroup leads to the expansion of schemas.

Resilience = This explains why children have fixed gender attitudes. Any information not consistent with ingroup schemas is over looked and ignored.

e.g. if a child sees a program with a male nurse they will simply call this man a doctor instead as his is not acting consistently with ingroup schemas. The existing schema is not changed as they have gender resilience.

Alternative explanation = The compromise ( Stangor and Rubble)

·         Gender schema = organisation of information and is linked to memory

·         Gender constancy = theory concerned with motivation when you find out you are a girl, you are motivated to find out behaviour gender appropriate to that role

Tested children ages 4-10 and found:

·         Memory and organisation for gender constant pictures increased with age (GST)

·         Preference for same sex toys increased with gender constancy = GCT

EVALUATION

+ MARTIN AND LITTLE 1990 SUPPORTS GENDER STEREOTYPES WITHOUT CONSTANCY

Children under age of 4 showed no signs of gender stability, let alone signs of consistency. They did display strong gender stereotypes. This shows they have acquired information about gender roles before Kohlberg suggested, in line with GST

-          HOFFMAN 1998 =

Children whos mothers work have less stereotyped views of what men do. This suggests that children are not entirely fixed on gender schemes and can take on gender inconsistent ideas.

+ MARTIN AND HALVERSON SUPPORT RESILLIENCE

They showed children pictures of individuals in cross gender activities eg male nurse. The children all ignored the point, distorted the information or forgot it. This demonstrates the resilience of childrens gender role beliefs. They admit data that is consistent with their schema and disregard data that isn’t.

Social Influences on Gender Role

Bandura = SLT, BoBo doll study, vicarious learning, imitation, same sex models, observation, reinforcement and reward.

Sources of information = parents, friends, media.

Social Cognitive Theory:

o   Indirect reinforcement Children observe the behaviour of others and learn consequences of behaviour (vicarious reinforcement). This information this information is then stored as an expectancy of future outcomes, the learning behaviour is imitation or modelling.

o   Direct reinforcement Through praise or absence of praise. Children observe the behaviour of both male and female role models but they may not imitate everything they learn. This could be explained by direct reinforcement where boys are praised for ‘male behaviour’ and girls for ‘female behaviour’.

o   Direct tuition Children also learn behaviours through direct tuition; explicit direct instructions about appropriate gender behaviour. Children also learn through vicarious reinforcement (indirect) but also through explicit (direct) instructions about appropriate gender behaviour. Direct tuition begins as children acquire linguistic skills

Cross cultural studies of gender

Culture = ideas, rules, customs, morals and behaviours that bind a particular group of people together

Cross cultural studies help us decide if its biology or socialisation which determine gender

Cultural similarities division of labour

·         Munroe and Munroe 1975 = every society has some division of labour and behaviour by gender

·         Girls are socialised more to compliance (nurturing, responsibility, obedience)

·         Boys are socialised to assertiveness (independence, self reliance, achievement)

Cultural differences – magnitude of sex differences:

·         Berry et al 2002 = studied spatial perception in 17 societies. Male superiority was only found in tight knit sedimentary societies, but was absent or reserved in nomadic societies

·         Also found conformity in highest sedimentary societies.

·         Found historical changes = the gender gap is decreasing which supports the role of changing social influences

·         Gender differences are due to the society you live in

Cultural differences UK = men have better spatial awareness this was for hunting and suggests that there is an evolutionary link

Cultural differences Sahara = men and women have the same spatial awareness as they are nomadic = this suggests and social link.