Gender Development

Question 1

what is broad level and personal level gender

Answer 1

Broad level gender:
- How gender is visible in the world
- Stereotypes regarding appropriate behaviours for men and women

Personal level gender:
- Our own gender related cognitions, physiology, and experiences

Question 2

Outline the historical context of gender/sex

Answer 2

popularised in the 1960s by John Money, Rhonda Unger encouraged psycholgosists to use the concept of gender,

Question 3

What is the hypothesis of no difference

Answer 3

apparent male/female differences are generally unsupported by research, any apparent differences between men and women have a negligible effect size

Question 4

Outline the timeline of gender stereotypes

Answer 4

• Children’s gender stereotypic knowledge expands over preschool
• at around 5-6 years old child have extensive stereotypical knowledge
• 5 years onwards child broaden their gender stereotypic knowledge from concrete to abstract ideas

Question 5

As child’s gender stereotypes expand what occurs

Answer 5

• boys and girls also begin to attribute more positive features (e.g. nice, sweet) to girls and negative characteristics (e.g. mean, plays rough, fights) to boys
• Children begin to realize that there is variation in the adherence and gender stereotypically
• Young men (12-17 years) reported higher felt pressure to conform to same gender behavior than did young women, and young women reported felt pressure to conform to other gender behavior whereas young men reported pressure to avoid other gender behavior
• For males, high other-gender typicality and low same-gender typicality were associated with high cyber victimization

Question 6

Outline the milestones that are evidence for development of gender

Answer 6

• at the first year, they can discriminate male and female faces and voices
• at second year, they have a preference for gender stereotypical activities and objects, gender self-categorisation emerges, and can discriminate gender labels
• from two years to 31months, they have gender stereotype awareness

Question 6

Infants demonstrate a preference for the ______ gender by _____

Answer 6

same, looking longer at those of the same gender as themselves

Question 7

Preschoolers were more likely to interact with ______ peers than ______ peers

Answer 7

same - gender, other - gender

Question 8

Outline the research of Bigler, Brown and Markell and children and gender.

Answer 8

Children were arbitrarily assigned 7 to 12 year olds to either the “blue” or the “yellow” group and wore tshirts to match the colour.

children provided more positive evalutation of the in-group than the outgroup when the group assignments carried functional significance and group status differences

Question 9

What are the three theoretical explanations for gender development

Answer 9

cognitive-developmental theory, developmental gender schema theory and social cognitive theory

Question 10

Outline cognitive-developmental theory for gender development

Answer 10

a stage theory developed by Piaget and developed by Kohlberg involving the three stages of gender self-categorisation, gender consistency and gender stability to achieve gender constancy

Question 11

Outline the research on transgender children and gender constancy

Answer 11

• Transgender children and siblings displayed greater flexibility in gender stereotype knowledge
• Trans children no different to cisgender peers for gender consistency and self-categorisation
• Some differences in personal gender stability between transgender children and cisgender peers

Question 12

Outline developmental gender schema theory

Answer 12

Individuals observe their world and use that information to build a schema regarding gender. These schemas then guide behaviours
Schemas aid in the processing of new information

Question 13

Outline the social cognitive theory of gender development

Answer 13

An individual’s gender related behaviour, conduct and responses are guided by sociocognitive regulatory processes including gender linked social sanctions, regulatory self-sanctions and regulatory self-efficacy beliefs.

Question 14

What are the gender linked social sanctions, regulatory self-sanctions and regulatory self-efficacy beliefs

Answer 14

gender linked social sanctions: this is the predictive knowledge children have about the expected social outcome for engaging in particular gender behaviours or responses,

regulatory self-sanctions: social cognitive theory proposes that over time some social sanctions become internalised as personal standards, wherein individuals regulate their own behaviour based on their own guidelines of appropriate gendered behaviour for themselves

regulatory self efficacy beliefs: elf-efficacy is the extent to which we feel that we will be successful at a particular action, and in the context of gender self-efficacy relates to how capable we feel of achieving particular gendered conduct

Question 15

What are the three main factors of social cognitive theory

Answer 15

Person factors: gender-link knowledge, values, affects, personal standards, and belief systems

Behaviour factors: styles of behaviour that tend to be linked to gender

Environmental factors: social and institutional influences like family members, peers, schoolteachers, the media etc

Question 16

What are the three main modes of influences

Answer 16

modelling, enactive experience, direct tuition

Question 17

What are the features of transgender experiences

Answer 17

• Holding an internal sense of their gender
• Experimentation and exploration expressions and identities
• Nonbinary identities and expressions of gender
• Varying levels of body dysphoria/dissatisfaction
• Trying out different names, pronouns, or identity categories
• Transition in some form (e.g. social, surgical, or medical)
• View transition as ongoing
• Affirmation or actualization of transgender identity as personally important

Question 18

What are the implications of transgender experiences on classical theories of gender

Answer 18

• Challenging the assumption of a cisgender, binary developmental trajectory
• Re-interpret existing concepts (e.g. gender stability in gender constancy)
• What is the “outcome” of gender development
• Importance of social context and visibility

Question 19

Outline responsive gender self-categorisation

Answer 19

active self-categorisation, other people’s perceptions, gendered attributes, internal sense of gendered self.

Question 20

Male and female fetuses start out ____- but ______ testes develop and the genitalia begin to differentiate

Answer 20

the same, at 6-8 weeks

Question 21

Outline the issues with CAH

Answer 21

Female infants with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) develop partially masculinized genitals which are typically feminized after birth through intervention and they are bought up as girls while male infants with CAH develop genitals typical of other boys. Although CAH girls engage in more male stereotypical activities than do non-CAH girls, they do not engage in these activities to the same extent as boys.

Question 22

What is CAH

Answer 22

a genetic disorder where high levels of androgens are produced by the adrenal gland prenatally

Question 23

When men interact with their infants more than their partners they show a _____ in testosterone levels and an _____ in hormonal levels such as cortisol which is associated with care giving

Answer 23

reduction, increase

Question 24

What is the influence of parents on gender development

Answer 24

• Boys and girls are provided with different toys and activities
• Mothers talk more about emotions with their daughters
• mothers direct children’s play by their comments
• When fathers instructed their children about a physical science task, they used more scientific terms when they communicated with their sons than with their daughters.
• Girls, but not boys, do better academically when they are raised by parents who espouse gender egalitarian views
• Boys are sanctioned more strongly for cross-sex conduct than are girls

Question 25

What influence does Media and Education have on Gender Development

Answer 25

• Gender stereotyping is alive and well on the television and in books - Many teachers hold gender stereotypic conceptions about boys’ and girls’ abilities which influence their interactions with their students and consequently the self-beliefs that students develop about their own competencies
• Teachers are more inclined to attribute boys’ academic failure to lack of effort and girls’ academic failure to lack of ability
• In classrooms where teachers emphasize the importance of math and highlight its usefulness, girls have stronger math self-efficacy beliefs

Question 26

What does Fabes, Martin and Hanish outline on sex segregation among children

Answer 26

• More same peer play than other-sex peers
• More likely to play in dyads than in groups
• Boys are more active-forceful with same-sex peers and girls are the least active-forceful with such peers
• When boys play with girls they are less forceful

Question 27

Outline the influence Peers have on gender development

Answer 27

• Boys engage in much less forceful play in mixed-sex play than with groups or dyads
• When girls received encouragement and support from their peers for engaging in science, their expectations for achievement in science was greater 6 months later than for girls who received less encouragement and support
• Self selection: girls who develop interests in stereotypical male domains such as math and science establish groups with other girls who have the same interests