gender and behaviour

7/30/2019 Gender and Behaviour

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Gender and Behaviour

Chapter 11


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Gender Stereotypes

Female stereotypes tend to reflect expressiveness Orientation toward emotion and relationships

Male stereotypes tend to reflect instrumentality

Orientation toward action and accomplishment Male stereotype preferred (androcentrism)

Stereotypes bias perceptions & expectations of self/others

Are a type of schema

Widely shared beliefs about abilities, traits

and social behaviour


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Gender Similarities and Differences:

Cognitive Abilities

Verbal ability

Includes vocabulary, reading, writing, spelling, &

grammar

Small difference favouring females

Females:

Speak earlier

Have greater vocabularies

Have better reading scores

Males:

Better at verbal analogies

More likely to stutter


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Gender Similarities and Differences:

Cognitive Abilities

Math ability

Includes computations and word problems

Small difference favouring males

No differences until high school

Differences driven by European Americans

Males:

High school boys outperform girls in area of problem solving

Outnumber girls at high end of math scale of SAT 17 to 1 Spatial Ability

Mentally manipulating shapes and figures

Males significantly better at mental rotation

Experience & training can improve skills for both genders


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Gender Differences in Personality

Traits and Social Behaviour

Self-esteem

Females show slightly lower self-esteem than males

Girls self-esteem does not drop dramatically in adolescence

(contrary to some claims) Gender differences larger in low &

middle SES families

Aggression Behaviour intended to cause harm to another

Males more physical aggression

Females more relational aggression

Verbal aggression unclear


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Attitudes towards sex

Men:

More permissive when it comes to casual sex

Have more interest in sex

Are more likely to be aggressive when it comes to sex

Women:

See a greater connection between sex and intimacy Sexuality influenced more by situational or cultural

factors


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Emotional expression

Women do display more emotion

Sadness

Disgust Fear

Surprise

Happiness

Anger

Does NOT mean men are heartless!

Men feel emotion just as much as women do, they are

just less likely to express it outwardly


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Gender Differences in

Communication

Men:

Talk more than women

Interrupt women more

Women:

Tend to be more tentative in language use

Are more sensitive to non-verbal cues

These differences may reflect power and

status differences


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Gender Differences in

Psychological Disorders The overall incidence of disorders is similar

Some specific differences however, have been found:

Women more likely to have:

Depression, anxiety, and eating disorders

More likely to attempt suicide

Men more likely to have:

Antisocial behaviour, alcoholism, drug-relateddisorders

More likely to commit suicide

Note connection of differences to traditional gender roles


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Reflecting on Gender Differences

Differences refer to groups NOT individuals Much more variability within than between groups

HUGE overlap

Differences do not mean that one gender is superior

Similarities far outweigh differences

Social Role Theory

Minor differences may be magnified by the different socialroles males and females occupy

Social Contructionism

People construct their own reality based on societal

expectations, conditioning, and self-socialization


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Evolutionary explanations

Differences reflect natural selection process

Behaviours favoured that help us pass on our genes

How might we test this explanation?

Look for cross-cultural stability

Cognitive abilities, aggression and sexual behaviour

Consider how the gender differences already described in each

of these domains could contribute to reproductive success

This theory is highly speculative and untestable

Biological Origins of Gender

Differences


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Differences Hemispheric specialization (right/left brain)

Left hemisphere: verbal and mathematical processing

Right hemisphere: visual-spatial, nonverbal processing

Some data suggests males more specialized Female corpus callosum (fibers that connect

the 2 hemispheres) larger

Limited data

Findings on gender differences inconsistent

Different, early, socialization experiences could cause

slight brain differences

Male/female brains MUCH more similar than different


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Hormonal Differences

Prenatal gender differentiation

Sex cells produce androgens: High levels? male

Females exposed prenatally to higher levels of androgenexhibit more male-typical behaviours

Males exposed prenatally to lower levels of androgen

exhibit more female-typical behaviours

Limitations of these findings Evidence much stronger for females

Research is correlational

Most disorders have multiple effects

Generalizeability issues (small samples)


Differences


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Hormonal Differences

Sexual and Aggressive Behaviour

Testosterone linked to sexual desire

and aggressive behaviour

Testosterone levels affected by situational cues

e.g., holding a gun will raise your testosterone level

General conclusions on biology: Hormones do seem to effect some aspects of behaviour

Overall, biological factors play a minor role in gender

differences


Differences


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Environmental Origins of Gender

Differences Gender role socialization

Direct and indirect teaching about gender roles

1.Reinforcement and punishment

For gender appropriate and inappropriate behaviour

Parents focus most upon sons gender inappropriate behaviour

2.Observational Learning

Parents, teachers, siblings, TV/movie characters = role models

More likely to imitate same gender parent (more similar)

3.Self-socialization

Children create gender schemas to organize world

Link gender scheme to their self-concept (by 3 yrs)


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Sources of gender-role socialization

Parents

Encourage gender appropriate play

Assign household chores according to gender

Varies by ethnicity and SES

Peers

Play differs by gender group

Peers critical of violations of traditional gender norms

and perpetuate stereotypes

Gender atypical children at risk for bullying,

increased distress, and loneliness


Differences


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Schools Textbooks use sexist language

Teachers and Counselors

Reward gender-appropriate behaviour More attention paid to males

Media (TV): The Smurfette Principle

Male characters more successful and competent overall

Female characters tend to be young, attractive, less successful

Commercials, & videogames also promote gender stereotypes

Amount of TV watched correlated with acquisition of gender

stereotyped beliefs


Differences


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Questions?

gender and behaviour

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