Gender Role Development

1
Gender Role Development

• Introduction
• Categorizing males and females
• Sex-role standards or stereotypes
• Cross-cultural trends
• Facts and fictions about sex differences
• Sex differences that appear to be real
• Cultural myths
• Developmental trends in sex typing
• Development of Gender Identity
• Discrimination of male versus female
• Development of gender constancy
• Acquiring Gender-role Stereotypes
• Development of Gender-typed Behavior
• Theories of sex-typing and gender role
  development
• The biological approach
• The psychoanalytic approach
• Social learning theory

2
Categorizing Males and Females

• Sex-role or gender-role standards
• A value, motive, or class of behavior that is
  considered more appropriate for members of one
  gender than the other
• Girls and the expressive role
• Boys and the instrumental role

3
Gender Typing in Non-Industrialized Societies
Sex differences in the socialization of five
attributes in 110 non-industrialized
societies Percent of societies in which
socialization pressures were greater
for Attribute Boys Girls Nuturance 0
82 Obediance 3 35 Responsibility 11
61 Achievement 87 3 Self-Reliance 85
0 Source Barry, Bacon, Child
(1957)
4
Facts and Fictions About Gender Differences

• Actual differences between the genders
• Verbal ability Girls have greater verbal
  abilities than boys
• Visual/Spatial ability Boys outperform girls in
  visual/spatial tasks

5
Gender Differences in Visual-Spatial Ability
Mental rotation and Water Level tasks
6
Facts and Fictions About Gender Differences,
cont

• Actual differences between the genders
• Verbal ability Girls have greater verbal
  abilities than boys
• Visual/Spatial ability Boys outperform girls in
  visual/spatial tasks
• Mathematical ability
• Beginning in adolescence, boys show small but
  consistent advantage in arithmetic reasoning
• The role of social factors?
• Aggression Boys are more physically and verbally
  aggressive than girls

7
Facts and Fictions About Gender Differences,
cont

• Differences that may be real
• Activity level Boys are more physically active
  than girls
• Fear, timidity, and risk taking Girls or more
  timid than boys
• Developmental vulnerabilities
• Boys are more physically vulnerable than girls
• Boys are more likely to display developmental
  problems
• Emotional expressivity
• Girls are more emotionally expressive than boys
• Empathetic sensitivity?
• Compliance Girls are more compliant than boys

8
Developmental Trends in Gender Typing

• Development of the gender concept
• Discrimination of males versus females
• Childrens knowledge of boys versus girls
• Gender constancy
• Development of gender-role stereotypes
• Timing of gender stereotypes
• Growth of gender stereotypes during preschool and
  elementary school
• How serious are gender-role prescriptions?
• Flexibility in gender stereotypes
• Development of gender-typed behavior
• Sex appropriateness of play
• Gender segregation
• Preference for same sex playmates
• Why does segregation occur?

9
Social Play and Gender
10
Theories of Gender TypingBiological and
Psychoanalytic

• Biological approach
• The role of genetic and hormonal differences
• Sex-linked constitutional factors and the
  environment
• Freuds Psychoanalytic approach
• The process of identification
• Evidence for and against Freudian theory

11
Theories of Gender TypingSocial Learning and
Cognitive-Development

• Social learning theory
• Direct tuition
• Parents, teachers, etc., reinforce
  sex-appropriate responses
• Do parents shape behavior?
• Observational learning
• Learning of sex-typed attitudes by observing
  same-sex models
• Why might children preferentially attend to
  same-sex models
• Reinforcement
• Perception of similarity
• Kohlbergs Cognitive-Developmental theory
• Cognitive judgments about self precede selective
  attention or identification
• Stages of understanding gender
• Basic gender identity
• Gender stability
• Gender consistency
• Problems with theory

12
Theories of Gender TypingGender Schema Theory

• Martin Halversons Gender Schema theory
• Information processing theory of sex-typing
• Children motivated to acquire values consistent
  with judgments about self
• Self-socialization begins when children get basic
  gender identity
• Development of gender schemas
• In group / Out group schema
• Own sex schema
• Gender schemas as organizers of social information