Lecture 10: Gender Development Flashcards
1
Q
gender vs. sex [5]
A
- Fundamental (social vs. biological)
- Categories; male/female vs. boy/girl
- Cultural differences; what’s a normal gender based behaviour for different cultures?
- More femininity in collectivist men
- Sex doesn’t vary across cultures (not socially constructed)
2
Q
gender typing [12]
A
- Process by which children acquire social behaviours viewed as appropriate for their sex (or gender)
- gender based beliefs (awareness of gender attributes) + gender identity (a child viewing him/herself as belonging to male/female)
* Try to have characteristics appropriate to gender they identify with
- gender based beliefs (awareness of gender attributes) + gender identity (a child viewing him/herself as belonging to male/female)
- gender role preference (e.g. toys)
* Tied to gender identity formation
* Most often reflected through play partner choice (like same-sex partners)
- gender role preference (e.g. toys)
- gender stability (will remain with chosen gender identity) + gender constancy (rules allowing child to understand how changes in appearance don’t influence the gender of that person)
* More complex ideas; but still see gender as a binary
- gender stability (will remain with chosen gender identity) + gender constancy (rules allowing child to understand how changes in appearance don’t influence the gender of that person)
- gender stereotypes + gender roles form
* Very interconnected concepts
* Stereotypes: attitudes, activities, traits, occupations, appearances
* Roles: appearance + behaviour patterns
- gender stereotypes + gender roles form
3
Q
gender differences in preferences [9]
A
- At gender role preference + identity stages → preferences
- In general → boys prioritize: strength, motor skills, physical activity; girls prioritize: verbal, nurturing, emotional and social intelligence
- Obviously these traits overlap (not like girls don’t have motor skills)
- Young kids don’t tend to identify these very well
- At birth: boys fixate → mechanical mobiles; girls fixate → mutual gazing, faces
- Gendered toy preferences start developing at @ 18mos
Generally:
- Girls prefer toys associated with appearance (e.g. cooking, looking after younger children; dancing, craft making; romantic tales; social drama TV; laundry+dishes)
- Boys prefer toys associated with action, aggression fighting/shooting games; competitive+team sports; horror+adventure books; action+sports TV; repair+lawn mowing chores
- Some change in trends (e.g. legos), but tendency remains
4
Q
gender in adolescence [4]
A
- gender intensification: more pressure to act in line with what you’d expect for their gender
- Modern-day changes? Less gender intensification + more freedom in expression
- Gender constancy applies less/doesn’t matter to children nowadays
- Girls (10-16): prefer romantic relationships, caring for others, emotionally expressive + sad symptoms (greater tendency to feel sad if something bad happens + be influenced by things happening around them)
5
Q
gender in adulthood [6]
A
- As parents: traditional gender expression/shift
- Why? Women get pregnant, usually have to default back to their stereotyped roles in order to deal with pregnancy
- Women and men converge with time (around 18 when child leaves)
- No child to be oriented towards, child becoming more independent
- Generally for Western contexts
- 10-15 years after child leaves, parents retire → even more convergence; no need to express these characteristics
6
Q
expressive vs. instrumental characteristics [4]
A
-
expressive characteristics: nurturance, sympathy, concern with feelings, orientation towards children
- Usually taken on by women in families
-
instrumental characteristics: competitive, goal oriented, task + occupation orientation
- Usually taken on by men in families
7
Q
perceptions of gender dynamics for elderly [4]
A
- See women as being more instrumental than men (both positively+negatively)
- Same trend isn’t seen for people under 40 (ascribe equal amounts of both instrumental/expressive for men + women) → don’t feel like characteristics are as important in ascribing gender
- Reflecting on their lives, see social change that’s happened the past few decades, feel like women are actually more instrumental than we give credit for
- Still don’t ascribe as many expressive characteristics to men
8
Q
feminine boys + masculine girls [6]
A
- Men are more bound by gender stereotypes + being instrumental; society not as forgiving of men being expressive as women being instrumental
- Boys in toy + play choices → bigger deal than girl playing with “boy” toys
- → extremely intense interests in gender stereotyped activities/objects for boys
- e.g. Old men still having elaborate model train collections
- Don’t see this intense interest for girls’ toys
- Perhaps related to how men fixate on one thing/girls better at multitasking
9
Q
gender in Western culture [3]
A
- Male oriented, male role more clearly defined
- Physical touch between boys: unless you’re playing on a sports team, male touching isn’t condoned but female touching is really valued
- Pressure to conform, derision of feminine boys
10
Q
Kohlberg’s cognitive developmental theory of gender [10]
A
- Children differentiate male and female roles at an early age + children perceive themselves as more similar to a same-sex other vs. opposite-sex other
- Consonance between actual and perceived gender = better self-esteem
- Appearance + physical cues have precedence over other cues in how children obtain gender-relevant info
- 2-3 years: boy vs. girl
- 4-5 years: gender stability
- 6-7 years: gender constancy → make gender-typed choices
- But! Doesn’t mean that 2-3 yos can’t identify a certain toy as belonging to a gender
- New research: 2-3 yos learn about gender appropriateness through colour alone
- Proposes that sequence is culturally-universal + you move through them invariantly
- Much new research trying to disprove this theory
11
Q
gender schema theory [8]
A
- Schemas to organize gender-role related experience (generalizations)
- Help form selective attention + memory for gendered info/stimuli
- Retain info that’s gender-typical
- And helps you recall info more consistent with your gender group
- Gender schematic children have this heightened awareness/sensitivity to gender info
- Gender aschematic children, those who are parented to not focus on traditional traits → sensitivity for other info (e.g. clothes you’re wearing vs. whether you’re a boy/girl; how many siblings you have vs. whether you’re black/white)
- Remember: schemas affect processing + accurate recall of info!
- Gender typed behaviour does not require knowledge about gender stability or constancy
12
Q
Bussey & Bandura (1999): social cognitive theory of gender development [6]
A
- Observational learning + feedback → gender-appropriate actions (punishment/rewards) → internalize gender-appropriate notions
- Some relation of the feedback process to self-efficacy
- Negative feedback → poor self-efficacy b/c you feel like there’s something wrong with you that you need to change
- Unlike previous two theories, social cognitive theories emphasize:
- Motivational, affective, + environmental (societal expectations) influences
- Embedded in social matrix; can’t parcel out effect of culture
13
Q
parental influences on gender development [5]
A
- Primary and strongest influence → name of child, raising of child (clothing, hobbies, activities, support, feedback)
- Parental behaviour at infancy:
- Verbal responsiveness w/ girls (making more noises/speaking at female babies)
- Description of child → girl babies “gentle/sweet/loving”; boys are “active/curious”
- More marked gendered treatment by fathers (e.g. physical play w/ male infants + talking w/ female infants)
14
Q
parents + gender: toddlerhood+ [7]
A
- Fathers more disapproving of gender inconsistent play
- Moms inconsistent in how they deal w/ boys
- Both parents support boys’ autonomy, (fathers especially) protective of girls
- Fathers not as willing to let daughters explore/do adventurous play
- Both parents encourage boys to compete/achieve, different treatment in maths + sciences (boys more supported for their achievements)
- With boys: emphasize learning, success, curiosity
- With girls: emphasize interpersonal interactions, parents provide fewer scientific explanations for phenomena
15
Q
cultural differences in gender + achievement [4]
A
- African American families show reversed emphasis on achievement (girls more supported)
- Boys more stereotyped as being violent/involved in crimes → AA moms push their daughters into academics for social mobility, but have less expectations for how much boys will be able to achieve
- Mexican American families: more strict emphasis on gendered ideas
- No good explanations yet for why; maybe b/c of machismo
16
Q
McHale et al. (2001) [6]
(hint: siblings + gender)
A
- Younger sibling gender typing + older sibling attributes
- When older sibling believes in traditional gender stereotypes → younger sibling more likely to endorse same gender attitudes
- Older siblings engage in sex-typed leisure activities → younger sibling even more likely to engage in sex-typed activities
- But! Who is the sibling?
- Two females/males > mixed siblings → gender-consistent qualities
- Older sister + younger brother showed same play patterns as sister/sister
