Gender Flashcards
(43 cards)
Kohlberg’s gender constancy theory is made up of 3 stages, which are…
Gender labelling. Gender stability. Gender constancy.
What is the Paigetian theory?
The belief that the way we think changes as we get older because of physical changes in the brain.
What is gender labelling?
(Happens between the ages of 2-3 years.) Child making judgements on someone as a result of their outward appearances only. (then leads to them labelling themselves.)
What is gender stability?
(Happens age 4.) When a child realises that gender is consistent over time.
What is gender constancy?
(Happens age 6.) Realise that gender is constant across different situations.
Thompson (supportive evidence for Kohlberg’s theory)
Found that 2 year olds were 76% correct in identifying their sex, whereas 3 year olds were 90% correct.
Slaby and Frey (gender differences with Kohlberg’s theory)
Found that boys tended to achieve gender consistency before girls. Could be due to SLT? Male and female role models.
Huston
Pointed out that it seemed that boys find it easier to label themselves as males, due to the much more powerful role models than men portray themselves as. Girls find it easier to do ‘masculine-type activities’ than boys do with ‘feminine-type activities’.
Slaby and Frey (supportive evidence for Kohlberg’s theory)
Found that when they asked children questions such as: “When you grow up will you be a Mummy or a Daddy?”, the children showed that they did not recognise that these traits were stable over time until they were about 3/4 years old. (as Kohlberg suggested.)
What is gender dysphoria?
A condition which people experience when they feel like their biological sex and gender don’t match up. (trapped inside wrong body.)
Coates (psychological explanation for G.D.)
Looked at a case history of a boy who developed GID, which Coates discovered could have been a development as a defensive reaction to his mother’s depression after an abortion. (when he was 3.)
Cole
Studied 435 individuals who were experiencing gender dysphoria, yet he found that the number of people showing any signs of psychiatric condition were no more than the ‘normal’ population.
Biological explanations to GD
If the prenatal hormone levels are affected by genetic conditions it can therefore lead to confusion between hormones and genes.
Hare (investigated that there may be such a thing as a transsexual gene)
Looked at the DNA of 112 male to female transsexuals and found that they were more likely to have a longer version of androgen receptor gene than in a ‘normal’ sample. (Therefore they have less testosterone.)
Martin and Halverson’s gender schema theory consists of…
Building schemas. The idea of in-groups and out-groups. Resilience of gender beliefs.
Martin and Halverson’s supportive evidence for learning through schemas
Asked children to recall pictures of people that they had just been shown. Children under 6 remembered gender-consistent people rather than inconsistent people.
Bradbard
Boy’s tended to show greater interest in toys labelled ‘boy’s toy’, than those labelled ‘girl’s toy’, even though they were gender neutral toys. Found that a week later when asked the same children aged 4-9 to recall some of the toys, could remember details of in-group toys better than out-group toys.
Who proposed the bio-social theory?
Money and Ehrhardt
Bio-social theory overemphasises…?
Nurture rather than nature. Social rather than bio. Labelling rather than sex.
Money and Ehrhardt argued:
If a male for example was mislabelled as a girl at birth and therefore treated as one before the age of 3, he would acquire the gender identity of a girl.
David Reimer
Penis was burned off in surgery at 6 months old. Never settled to his female identity he was given, as biological make-up of a male was too strong.
Who suggested the social-role theory?
Eagly and Wood
The social-role theory argues:
The evolutionary theory is not fully correct, as it proposes that selective pressures (differences in men and women) are both physical and psychological and that causes their differences in roles. Whereas the social-role theory argues that it is the physical differences alone which cause the difference and the psychological differences come as a result of their different job roles.
Luxen (comes under social-role theory bit)
Suggests that sex differences can in fact occur without any nurturing/socialisation. Found that in very young children and even animals, sex differences in their toy preferences. Therefore biological rather than psychological?- as sex role association is unlikely to have occurred yet.
