Week 5 Chapter 8 Psychology 456 – Flashcards

Males, who need only contribute sperm to produce offspring, can best ensure that their genes survive by mating with multiple partners and producing many children. By contrast, females must invest much more to achieve the same objective, taking nine months from conception to the birth of each offspring and years to raise each to ensure that their genes survive. To successfully raise children, women presumably evolved in ways that would make them kind, gentle, and nurturant (expressive characteristics) and to prefer men who would display kindness toward them and would provide resources (food and protection) to help ensure children's survival. Men, by contrast, should become more competitive, assertive, and aggressive (instrumental traits) because these attributes should increase their chances of successfully attracting mates and procuring resources. According to evolutionary theorists, males and females may be psychologically similar in many ways but should differ in any domain in which they have faced different adaptive problems throughout evolutionary history. It fails to recognize how important socialization is and how even if a female lacks the Y chromosome, they still carry the same capabilities as a male, even spatial skills, which may be better in men due to socialization. It is still true that we are the result of natural selection, but no to the point this theory suggests. Is not as considered as other theories. Most theorists use it carefully and argue both for biological and social influences.

The gender role is developed by some critical episodes or events which will affect the person's decided prescribed roles. These important factors are whether or not they inherit an X or Y chromosome and what kind of hormones are present during genital development. Sometimes testosterone is not present around 4-6 months after conception and the embryo that is male, will develop feminized genitals. Once a child is born, social factors immediately come into play. Parents and other people label and begin to react to the child based on the appearance of his or her genitals. If one's genitals are abnormal so that he or she is mislabeled as a member of the other sex, this incorrect label can affect his or her future development. Finally again biological factors enter the scene again at puberty, when large quantities of hormones are released, stimulating the growth of the reproductive system, the appearance of secondary sex characteristics, and the development of sexual urges. These events, in combination with one's earlier self-concept as a male or a female, provide the basis for an adult gender identity and gender-role preference. The combination of both your biological characteristics as well as your socialization affects the outcome of your gender identity. Evidence being that several of the developmental disorders more commonly seen among boys may be X-linked recessive traits for which their mother is a carrier. Furthermore, timing of puberty, a biological variable regulated in part by our genotypes, has a slight effect on visual/spatial performances. However, later research indicates that the spatial performances of both boys and girls are more heavily influenced by their previous involvement in spatial activities and their self-concepts than by the timing of puberty. Results from several behavioral genetics studies of adolescent twins suggest that genotype accounts for about 50 percent of the variability in people's masculine self-concepts but only 0-20 percent of the variability in their feminine self-concepts. Biological influences on development are much more apparent in studies of children who have been exposed to the "wrong" hormones during the prenatal period. Although the genetic code imposes some constraints on brain development, it does not provide specific "wiring" instructions, and the precise architecture of the brain is heavily influenced by the early experiences one has. What both biosocial theory and the psychobiosocial model do not do is to specify the precise social processes that contribute most heavily to children's emerging gender identities and gender-typed patterns of behavior. this theory is more considered in very early (prenatal) and puberty development. ESPECIALLY BIRTH

a psychobiosocial model to explain how nature and nurture might jointly influence the development of many gender-typed attributes. Halpern agrees with Money and Ehrhardt that prenatal exposure to male or female hormones initially influences the organization of male and female brains. in ways that might make boys, for example, somewhat more receptive to spatial activities and girls somewhat more susceptible to quiet verbal exchanges. These heightened sensitivities, in concert with parents' beliefs about the kinds of experiences most appropriate for boys and for girls, means that boys are likely to (and actually do) receive a richer array of spatial experiences than girls do, whereas girls will be exposed more often to verbal play activities Halpern then proposes that the different early experiences that boys and girls have will influence the neural pathways laid down in their immature and highly plastic (that, is changeable) brains. according to Halpern, boys, who receive more early spatial experiences than girls do, may develop a richer array of neural pathways in areas of the brain's right cerebral hemisphere that serve spatial functions, which in turn may make them ever more receptive to spatial activities and to acquiring spatial skills. By contrast, girls may develop a richer array of neural interconnections in areas of the brain's left cerebral hemisphere serving verbal functions, thereby becoming ever more receptive to verbal activities and to acquiring verbal skills. What both biosocial theory and the psychobiosocial model do not do is to specify the precise social processes that contribute most heavily to children's emerging gender identities and gender-typed patterns of behavior. Has more influence on the development of birth to 3 years.

Freud believed that our sexual instinct was inborn. However, he believed that one's preference for a particular gender role emerges during the phallic stage of psychosexual development as children begin to emulate and to identify with their same-sex parent. Specifically, Freud claimed that a 3- to 6-year-old boy will internalize masculine attributes and behaviors when he is forced to identify with his father as a means of renouncing his incestuous desire for his mother, reducing his castration anxiety and thus resolving his Oedipus complex. However, Freud believed that gender typing is more difficult for a young girl, who lacks a penis, already feels castrated, and will experience no overriding fear that would compel her to strongly identify with her mother and resolve her Electra complex. Freud offered several suggestions, one of which was that the object of a girl's affection, her father, was likely to encourage her feminine behavior—an act that increases the attractiveness of the mother, who serves as the girl's model of femininity. Our sexuality is inborn but we identify with our same sex parent and through our desire to be with them do we build our gender identity. Many 4- to 6-year-olds are so ignorant about differences between male and female genitalia that it is hard to see how most boys could fear castration or how most girls could feel castrated as Freud says they do. Furthermore, Freud assumed that a boy's identification with his father is based on fear; but most researchers find that boys identify more strongly with fathers who are warm and nurturant rather than overly punitive and threatening. Finally, studies of parent/child resemblances reveal that school-age children and adolescents are not all that similar psychologically to either parent.

parents are actively involved in shaping the child's gender identity. This is called Direct Tuition teaching young children how to behave by reinforcing "appropriate" behaviors and by punishing or otherwise discouraging inappropriate conduct. fact, parents who show the clearest patterns of differential reinforcement have children who are relatively quick to (1) label themselves as boys or girls, (2) develop strong gender-typed toy and activity preferences, and (3) acquire an understanding of gender stereotypes. Peers will uphold these roles by disrupting children who are playing with the incorrect gendered toy. According to Bandura (1989), children acquire many of their gender-typed attributes and interests by observing and imitating a variety of same-sex models. The assumption is that boys, for example, will see which toys, activities, and behaviors are "for boys" and girls will learn which activities and behaviors are "for girls" by selectively attending to and imitating a variety of same-sex models, including peers, teachers, older siblings, and media personalities, as well as their mothers or their fathers. Media also affects this. First, through direct tuition (or differential reinforcement), children are encouraged and rewarded for gender-appropriate behaviors and are punished or otherwise discouraged for behaviors considered more appropriate for members of the other sex. Second, through observational learning, children adopt the attitudes and behaviors of a variety of same-sex models. there is a lot of evidence that differential reinforcement and observational learning contribute to gender-role development. However, social-learning theorists have often portrayed children as passive pawns in the process: Parents, peers, and TV characters show them what to do and reinforce them for doing it. Think of those children who do what they wish despite the gender stigma (tomboys). It rates well especially in early child development as the child learns through observation. Before the age of 3. However, as the child grows into themselves it is no longer valid.

Believes children are active in achieving their own gender identity via cognitive development. Kohlberg believes that children pass through the following three stages as they acquire a mature understanding of what it means to be a male or a female:1) Basic gender identity. By age 3, children have labeled themselves as boys or girls 2) Gender stability. Somewhat later, gender is perceived as stable over time. Boys invariably become men and girls grow up to be women, 3) Gender consistency. The gender concept is complete when the child realizes that one's sex is also stable across situations. Five- to 7-year-olds who have reached this stage are no longer fooled by appearances. They know, for example, that one's gender cannot be altered by cross-dressing or taking up cross-sex activities. Gender-role development depends on cognitive development; children must acquire certain understandings about gender before they will be influenced by their social experiences. Children actively socialize themselves; they are not merely passive pawns of social influence. Studies conducted in more than 20 different cultures reveal that preschool children do proceed through Kohlberg's three stages of gender identity in the sequence he describes and that attainment of gender consistency (or conservation of gender) is clearly associated with other relevant aspects of cognitive development, such as the conservation of liquids and mass. Furthermore, children who have achieved gender consistency display more gender-stereotypic play preferences and begin to pay more attention to same-sex models on television; and boys now clearly favor novel toys that male models prefer to those that female models like—even when the toys they are passing on are the more attractive objects. The major problem with Kohlberg's theory is that gender typing is well underway before the child acquires a mature gender identity. Kohlberg badly overstates the case in arguing that a mature understanding of gender is necessary for gender typing to begin. - it has some merits but it would fall mostly on the ages 7 to puberty range

Like Kohlberg, Martin and Halverson believe that children are intrinsically motivated to acquire interests, values, and behaviors that are consistent with their "boy" or "girl" self-images. But unlike Kohlberg, they argue that this "self-socialization" begins as soon as the child acquires a basic gender identity at age 2½ or 3 and is well underway by age 6 to 7, when the child achieves gender consistency. According to Martin and Halverson's "gender schema" theory, establishment of a basic gender identity motivates a child to learn about the sexes and to incorporate this information into gender schemas—that is, organized sets of beliefs and expectations about males and females that will influence the kinds of information the child attends to, elaborates, and remembers. First, children construct a simple "in-group/out-group schema" that allows them to classify some objects, behaviors, and roles as "for boys" and others as "for girls" (for example, trucks are for boys; dolls are for girls; girls can cry but boys should not, and so on). In addition, children are said to construct an own-sex schema, which consists of detailed plans of action that they will need to perform various gender-consistent behaviors and enact a gender role. So a girl who has a basic gender identity might first learn that sewing is "for girls" and building model airplanes is "for boys." Then, because she is a girl and wants to act consistently with her own self-concept, she may gather a great deal of information about sewing to add to her own-sex schema, while largely ignoring information about building model airplanes Once formed, gender schemas "structure" experience by providing a framework for processing social information. They must build their in group/out group schemas and own-self schema. 4- to 9-year-olds were given boxes of gender-neutral objects (for example, burglar alarms, pizza cutters) and told that these objects were either "boy" items or "girl" items. As predicted, boys subsequently explored "boy" items more than girls did, whereas girls explored more than boys when the objects were described as things girls enjoy. One week later, boys recalled much more in-depth information about "boy items" than girls did, whereas girls recalled more than boys about these very same objects if they had been labeled "girl" items. If children's information-gathering efforts are consistently guided by their own-sex schemas in this way, we can easily see how boys and girls might acquire very different stores of knowledge and develop different interests and competencies as they mature. Not only does this model describe how gender-role stereotypes might originate very early and persist over time, but it also indicates how these emerging "gender schemas" might contribute to the development of strong gender-role preferences and gender-typed behaviors long before a child may realize that gender is an unchanging attribute. It also shows why myths about genders are so hard to kill. Gender schemas theory fits for the 3-6 year olds as well as the puberty and beyond class. It also holds up very well against others because it shows why it is so hard to get rid of those socially prescribed beliefs about gender differences.

Ties all the theories together. Biological theories account for the major biological developments that occur before birth—the events that induce people to label the child as a boy or a girl and to treat him or her accordingly. The differential reinforcement process that social-learning theorists emphasize seems to account rather well for early gender typing: Young children display gender-consistent behaviors largely because other people encourage these activities and will often discourage behaviors considered more appropriate for members of the other sex. And as Diane Halperin proposes in her psychobiosocial theory, encouraging gendertyped activities and experiences can even affect the ways that boys' and girls' brains are wired, making them even more responsive to different kinds of stimulation. As a result of early socialization and the growth of categorization skills, 2½- to 3-year-olds acquire a basic gender identity and begin to construct gender schemas which tell them (1) what boys and girls are like and (2) how they, as boys and girls, are supposed to think and act. And when they finally understand, at age 6 or 7, that their gender will never change, children begin to pay more and more attention to same-sex models to decide which attitudes, activities, interests, and mannerisms are most appropriate for members of their own sex (Kohlberg's viewpoint). integrative theorist would emphasize that from age 3 on, children are active, self-socializers who will try very hard to acquire the masculine or feminine attributes that they view as consistent with their male or female self-images. All theories of gender-role development would agree that what children actually learn about being a male or a female will depend greatly on what their society offers them in the way of a "gender curriculum." In other words, we must view gender-role development through an ecological lens and appreciate that there is nothing inevitable about the patterns of male and female development that we see in our society today.

What chromosomes were you given (XX XY), What hormones were present or absent during development, Genes.

1) 4-6 year olds are ignorant about the differences between male and female genital. 2) Boys don't identify with their fathers out of fear, they are more incline to identify with a warm nurturing father. 3) Child and parent are nowhere near psychologically similar.

Albert Bandura and Walter Mischel's Social learning theory of gender-role development has two parts: children learn their gender differences and identities though observation and direct tuition. Direct tuition is a parent's set "cirriulum" of what they prescribe a male or female to be. They enforce this by rewarding or reinforcing correct gender behavior or punishing or discouraging incorrect gender behavior.

According to Martin and Halverson's gender schema theory, children who have established a basic gender identity construct "in-group/out group" and own-sex gender schemas, which serve as scripts for processing gender-related information and socializing oneself into a gender role. Schema-consistent information is gathered and retained, whereas schema-inconsistent information is ignored or distorted, thus perpetuating gender stereotypes that have no basis in fact.

-Biological theories account for major biological developments that occur before birth -Social learning theories account rather well for early gender typing -2 ½ -3-year-old acquire a basic gender identity and begin to form gender schemas -At age 6-7, children pay more attention to same-sex models

They wanted to see if there was any basis to the gender stereotypes.

These findings cannot make prediction about individual persons because these are done on groups of subjects. 1. Verbal ability. When differences are found, girls display greater verbal abilities than boys on many measures. Girls acquire language and develop verbal skills at an earlier age than boys and display a small but consistent verbal advantage on tests of reading comprehension and speech fluency throughout childhood and adolescence. Boys, however, perform slightly better than girls on tests of verbal analogies. 2. Visual/spatial abilities. Boys outperform girls on some tests of visual/spatial abilities—that is, the ability to draw inferences about or to otherwise mentally manipulate pictorial information. The male advantage in spatial abilities is moderately robust, detectable by age 4, and persists across the life span 3. Mathematical reasoning. Beginning in adolescence, boys show a small but consistent advantage over girls on tests of arithmetic reasoning. Girls actually exceed boys in computational skills and even earn higher grades in math, in part because girls are more inclined than boys to adopt learning rather than performance goals, thereby working harder to improve their mathematical competencies. Nevertheless, boys feel more self-efficacious in math than girls do and have acquired more mathematical problem-solving strategies that enable them to outperform girls on complex word problems, geometry, and the mathematics portion of the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). 4. Aggression. Finally, boys are more physically and verbally aggressive than girls, starting as early as age 2, and are about 10 times more likely than girls are to be involved in violent crime during adolescence. 5. Activity level. Even before they are born, boys are more physically active than girls and they remain more active throughout childhood, especially when interacting with peers. 6. Fear, timidity, and risk-taking. As early as the first year of life, girls appear to be more fearful or timid in uncertain situations than boys are. They are also more cautious and less assertive in these situations than boys are, taking far fewer risks than boys do. 7. Developmental vulnerability. From conception, boys are more physically vulnerable than girls to prenatal and perinatal birth hazards and to the effects of disease. Boys are also more likely than girls to display a variety of developmental problems, including autism, reading and language-related disabilities, attention-deficit, hyperactivity syndrome, emotional disorders, and mental retardation. 8. Emotional expressivity/sensitivity. As infants, boys and girls do not differ much in their displays of emotion. But from toddlerhood onward, boys are more likely than girls to display one emotion—anger—whereas girls more frequently display most other emotions. 9. Compliance. From early in the preschool period, girls are more compliant than boys to the requests and demands of parents, teachers, and other authority figures. And when trying to persuade others to comply with them, girls are especially inclined to rely on tact and polite suggestions whereas boys, who are quite capable of being tactful and who usually do collaborate amicably, are nevertheless more likely than girls to resort to demanding or controlling strategies. 10. Self-esteem. Boys show a small edge over girls in global self-esteem. This sex difference becomes more noticeable in early adolescence and persists throughout adulthood

1. Girls are more "social" than boys. The two sexes are equally interested in social stimuli, equally responsive to social reinforcement, and equally proficient at learning from social models. At certain ages, boys actually spend more time than girls with playmates. 2. Girls are more "suggestible" than boys. Most studies of children's conformity find no sex differences. However, sometimes boys are more likely than girls to accept peer-group values that conflict with their own. 3. Girls are better at simple repetitive tasks, The evidence does not support these assertions. whereas boys excel at tasks that require Neither sex is superior at rote learning, probability learning, or concept learning.- higher-level cognitive processing. 4. Boys are more "analytic" than girls. With the exception of the modest sex differences in cognitive abilities that we have already discussed, boys and girls do not differ on tests of analytical or logical reasoning. 5. Girls lack achievement motivation. No such differences exist! Perhaps the myth of lesser achievement motivation for females has persisted because males and females have generally directed their achievement strivings toward different goals. Myths are a powerful thing and it is hard to change. They are so well integrated into our social thinking and cognitive schemes that we use to interpret and often to distort the behavior of males and females

The first step in the development of a gender identity is to discriminate males from females and to place oneself into one of these categories. By 6 months of age, infants are using differences in vocal pitch to discriminate female speech from that of males and by the end of the first year, they can reliably discriminate photographs of men and women (women are the long-haired ones) and are beginning to match male and female voices with faces in tests of intermodal perception. Between ages 2 and 3, children begin to tell us what they know about gender as they acquire and correctly use such labels as "mommy" and "daddy" and (slightly later) "boy" and "girl". Many 3- to 5 year-olds, for example, think that boys could become mommies or girls daddies if they really wanted to, or that a person who changes clothing and hairstyles can become a member of the other sex. Children normally begin to understand that sex is an unchanging attribute between the ages of 5 and 7, so that most youngsters have a firm, future-oriented identity as a boy or a girl by the time they enter grade school or shortly thereafter. Remarkable as it may seem, toddlers begin to acquire gender-role stereotypes at about the same time that they become aware of their basic identities as boys or girls. Almost all the 2½-year-olds had some knowledge of gender-role stereotypes. Over the preschool and early grade-school years, children learn more and more about the toys, activities, and achievement domains considered appropriate for boys and for girls. Between ages 3-7 children become ridged in gender specific activities and do not tolerate violations of what is acceptable "girl" or "boy" behavior. Boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls. Greater gender segregation can start as early as two as children show a preference for same sex playmates. Why does gender segregation occur? Eleanor Maccoby believes that it largely reflects differences between boys' and girls' play styles—an incompatibility that may stem from boys' heightened levels of androgen, which fosters active, rambunctious behavior. Between the ages of 4 and 10, both boys and girls are becoming more aware of what is expected of them and conforming to these cultural prescriptions. An adolescent's increasing intolerance of cross-sex mannerisms and behaviors is tied to a larger process of gender intensification—a magnification of sex differences that is associated with increased pressure to conform to gender roles as one reaches puberty. Boys begin to see themselves as more masculine; girls emphasize their feminine side. Adolescents increasingly find that they must conform to traditional gender norms in order to succeed in the dating scene. A girl who was a tomboy and thought nothing of it may find during adolescence that she must dress and behave in more "feminine" ways to attract boys, and a boy may find that he is more popular if he projects a more sharply "masculine" image

Psychological androgyny is a term used to describe someone whose personality traits fall somewhere in between the traits that are typically associated with males and those that are typically associated with females. Recent research shows that androgynous people do exist, are relatively popular and well adjusted, and may be adaptable to a wider variety of environmental demands than people who are traditionally gender typed. However, androgyny may not be that advantageous in childhood and early adolescence, when such aspects of identity as gender typicality and gender contentment predict adaptive psychosocial outcomes.

a behavior, value, or motive that members of a society consider more typical or appropriate for members of one sex.

a social prescription, usually directed toward females, that one should be cooperative, kind, nurturant, and sensitive to the needs of others.

a social prescription, usually directed toward males, that one should be dominant, independent, assertive, competitive, and goal-oriented.

the process by which a child becomes aware of his or her gender and acquires motives, values, and behaviors considered appropriate for members of that sex.

phenomenon whereby people cause others to act in accordance with the expectations they have about those others.

one's awareness of one's gender and its implications. Basic gender identity is the stage of gender identity in which the child first labels the self as a boy or a girl.

to gain an understanding that males and females are different, that they have different physical traits or social traits.

the stage of gender identity in which the child recognizes that gender is stable over time.

the stage of gender identity in which the child recognizes that gender is stable over time.

organized sets of beliefs and expectations about males and females that guide information processing.

a magnification of sex differences early in adolescence; associated with increased pressure to conform to traditional gender roles.

children's tendency to associate with same-sex playmates and to think of the other sex as an out-group.

females who develop male-like external genitalia because of exposure to male sex hormones during the prenatal period.

a gender-role orientation in which the individual has incorporated a large number of both masculine and feminine attributes into his or her personality.

a genetic anomaly that causes one's adrenal glands to produce unusually high levels of androgen from the prenatal period onward; often has masculinizing effects on female fetuses.

a genetic anomaly in which a male fetus is insensitive to the effects of male sex hormones and will develop female-like external genitalia.