The Development of Gender - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Chapter 10: Becoming Who We Are: The Development of Self, Gender, and Morality

The Development of Gender

By Kati Tumaneng (for Drs. Cook and Cook)

• Sex – The male or female physical and biological characteristics of the body.
• Gender – All the physical, cognitive, and behavioral traits that characterize people of one sex.
• Gender role – The social expectations for each sex within a particular culture. Sometimes called a sex role.
• Gender concept – The understanding that a person’s sex is a permanent feature and cannot be altered through changes in surface features like hair or clothing.
• Sex-typed behavior – Behavior that matches the gender-role expectations of a culture.

More definitions: http://www.transgender.org/transcend/guide/sec131.htm

• In most areas, the similarities far outweigh the differences.
• Cognitive Skills
• Largest and most consistent differences are in verbal, language, and certain spatial skills.
• Verbal skills favor girls.
• Spatial skills favor boys.
• Math – Only consistent differences in elementary school favor girls for computation and for grades; superior performance ends around age 15; by adolescence boys are favored in math problem solving (Halpern, 2000).

Compare gender on Nation’s Report Card:

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/nrc/reading_math_2005/s0010.asp?printver

• Social Behavior and Personality Traits
• Boys show higher activity levels from infancy onward.
• Girls perform better on tasks involving flexibility and fine-motor coordination.

• Social Behavior and Personality Traits
• Boys more physically aggressive and assertive (Feingold, 1994).
• Girls show more relational aggression (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995).
• No consistent differences in prosocial behavior or emotions.

• Gender intensification – The process of conforming more and more closely to gender stereotypes in behavior, emotions, and activities.
• The Development of Sexual Orientation
• Begin to experience feelings of sexual attraction sometime during late childhood or early adolescence.
• Sexual orientation – Tendency to be attracted to people of the same sex (homosexual orientation), of the opposite sex (heterosexual orientation), or of both sexes (bisexual orientation).
• Nature or nurture debate

More info on sexual orientation:

http://www.apa.org/topics/sbehaviorsub1.html

• The Development of Sexual Orientation (cont.)
• Development of homosexual identity (Troiden, 1988)
• Stage 1 – Sensitization
• Stage 2 – Identity confusion
• Stage 3 – Identity assumption
• Stage 4 – Commitment
• Possible influences: Genetic, prenatal hormone levels, some areas of brain, environment.
• “Exotic becomes erotic” theory (D. J. Bem, 1996, 2000) – Adolescents begin to see “exotic,” or very different, attributes and behaviors as erotic, or sexually attractive.

More on Bem:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/96/8.29.96/sex_orientation.html

• During 1970s, researchers began to think of masculinity and femininity as two separate dimensions (Bem, 1974; Constantinople, 1973).
• Individual can possess masculine or feminine qualities to different degrees.
• Androgyny – Possession of many masculine as well as many feminine psychological characteristics.

(Bem, 1974, p. 155; Bem, 1985, p. 195)

• According to Freud’s theory, children will not show sex-typed behavior before the phallic stage (age 4-5), but many studies indicate that sex-typed behavior and preferences begin well before age 4.
• Biological Approaches
• Emphasize genetic basis for gender differences and focus on effects of hormones during prenatal development and at puberty.
• Brain lateralization – The degree to which one hemisphere of the brain is active in a given task.

• Socialization Approaches
• Examine differences in social environment boys and girls experience.
• Two major influences: direct and indirect reinforcement and observational learning.

• Cognitive Approaches
• Emphasize the child’s developing understanding of gender and the impact of that understanding on behavior.
• Based on Piaget’s theory, Kohlberg’s cognitive developmental theory proposed that knowledge of gender and gender-related behavior constitutes a cognitive category and develops in the same way as knowledge of any other cognitive category (Kohlberg, 1966).
• Gender identity (by 2.5 years)
• Gender stability (by 4-5 years)
• Gender constancy (by 6-7 years)

• Cognitive Approaches (cont.)
• Gender schema theory – The theory that gender knowledge consists of a gender schema, a cognitive network of gender-related information that organizes gender knowledge and guides expectations and behaviors.

More info on theories of gender development:

http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/Areas/Developmental/GenderDev/#Theories

• Charts on Slide 5: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 399). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Picture on Slide 8: from http://www.planetout.com/popcornq/movienews/oldnews/deep_hollywood_060697.html, retrieved March 9, 2006.
• Charts on Slide 9: from Cook, J. L., & Cook, G. (2005). Child development: Principles and perspectives (1st ed.) (p. 396). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• All other images retrieved from Microsoft PowerPoint Clip Art.