Gender development ♀
Development of gender roles
From around 31 months can children successfully sort photographs of self into piles of male and female photographs (Weinraub et al., 1984)
• Even from preschool (4 years) children are well aware of gender differences and gender roles (Liben & Bigler, 2002)
• Young children are gender “essentialists” (Gelman, Taylor & Nguyen, 2004)
Toy preferences
Looking preferences suggest gender-typed toy preferences at an early age (Serbin et al., 2001) ~ 18mths
Hassett et al 2008 - rehesus macaque monkeys
Reading
Essay questions
Gender similarities hypothesis
Hyde (2014) argues that males and females are similar on most psych variables
• Evidence from review of metaanalyses looking at effect sizes overlap is often greater than difference
•Other individual difference factors explain most variation in abilities, beh and achievement
Biology and gender
Theories
Cognitive
Socio-cultural
Stereotyping
men have larger brains
lateralisation: during phonological tasks men used left side, women used both
male brain more intrahemispheric female brain more interhemispheric
however, see paper by Joel 2014
Are M/F brains really different?
effect of experience on brain eg London taxi drivers
sex differences not significant during development (age 4-21)
developmental trajectories different
huge variability in human brain - each is unique
Stereotype threat
manipulating stereotype threat can infl performance
girls susceptible to stereotype threat at age 10
even if girls deny stereotype, stereotype threat still occurs
Challenging stereotypes
are gender diffs a product of biological or social factors?
Describe biological accounts of gender differences
Explain how children develop an understanding of gender
Martin & Ruble 2004
Joel 2015
Joel & Tarrasch 2014
Gender-schema theory (GST; Martin & Ruble, 2004)
an informationprocessing approach
Children develop gender schemas
Gender identity develops based on schemas e.g. “I’m a girl, girls love pink, therefore I love pink”
Gender-role schemas alter the ways children process information
Martin and Halverson (1983)
Children see pictures of gender-consistent or inconsistent activities (e.g. boy playing with train, girl sawing wood)
1 week later; children misremember inconsistent pictures e.g. “it was a boy sawing wood”
Memory “codes” new information into existing gender schema
Parental influences
Will et al. (1976)
observed parental interaction with the same infant either:
Dressed in pink and called “Beth”
in blue and called “Adam”
Mothers behaved differently according to perceived gender
Further, mothers encourage more physical action in boys (Smith & Lloyd, 1976)
At 18 to 23 months child receives more positive responses for picking up gendertyped toys (Caldera et al., 1989)
Sibling influences
McHale et al. (2001)
longitudinal study looking at whether siblings influence gender-typing
Sibling pairs aged 8 to 10, interviewed every 3 years
Older siblings’ gender-typing predicted younger siblings’ gender-typing
Sibling influence > parental influence
Second-born sibling more likely to imitate first-born’s behaviour
Children with an older sibling of the opposite sex have less stereotypical gender roles (Rust et al., 2000)
Peer influences
Cultural influences
Peers react strongly when a child engages in gender “inappropriate” play (Fagot, 1985)
Criticism is tougher for boys violating gender norms than for girls (Langlois & Downs, 1980
Sex segregation: preference for same-sex playmates (Fabes et al., 2004)
This sex segregation exacerbates gender differences (Hoffman & Powlishta, 2001)
Lobel et al. (2001) looked at gender-typing of 8 year olds and 10 year olds in Taiwan and Israel
X culture – more rigid and less elaborated gendertyping
Y culture – more flexible and elaborated gender-typing
Media influences
Ruble, Balaban & Cooper (1981)
tested the impact of gender in advertisements on 4-6 year olds
Children categorised as high or low gender-constant
Watched cartoon followed by advert showing genderneutral toy with either 2 boys or 2 girls playing with it (plus control group)
Given toys to play with, including the one in the advert
High gender-constant children were affected by the gender of the children in the adverts
12 year olds asked to “draw a scientist” – boys tend to draw male scientists, 50% girls draw female scientists (Steinke et al., 2007)
Adolescents who watch more TV endorse gender stereotypes more (Ward & Friedman, 2006)
When asked where they got ideas from – most said the media
Boys’ interest in stereotyped toys remains consistent from 5 to 13 years, girls show a decreased interest with age (Cherney & London, 2006)
Schutts 2009
Describe cognitive accounts of gender development
Describe social and other sources of influence on gender-typing in childhood, and evaluate their significance for the development of gender
documented sex/gender diffs in the brain are often taken as support of a sexually dimorphic view of human brains
however, this view only poss. if brain features highly dimorphic (i.e. little overlap) & internally consistent (i.e. brain has only "male" or only "female" features
analysis of MRIs of more than 1400 human brains from 4 datasets reveals extensive overlap between M & F
analyses of internal consistency reveal that brains at one end of M-F continuum are rare
rather most brains are comprised of unique 'mosaics' of features, some more common to F, some more common to M, some both
findings robust across sample, age, type of MRI etc
findings corroborated by similar analysis of 5000+ indivs (traits, attitudes, interests, behaviours)
conclusion: although there are sex/gender diffs in the brain, brains don't belong to 1/2 distinct categories: M/F
children's search for gender cues
2 major theories of gender - cognitive dev (Kohlberg) and gender schema
on the mis-representation & misinterpretation of gender-related data
cog theories of gender dev characterised by 3 central features: -evaluative consequences (evaluate own group more +ly), self segregation, -motivational & informational consequences (gender stereotypes e.g. study w. toys
active, self-initiated view of gender dev
what causes waxing and waning of beliefs about M & F
Ingalhalikar et al do not provide no. of connections which were diff
no size of differences provided
both M&F brains have connections were they mainly diff or mainly similar
Ruble 1981
The findings of the present study provide a direct link between television viewing and sex-typed behavior; and equally important, they demonstrate an important connection between the child's cognitive-developmental level and the impact of gender-related information provided by television. A single viewing of a commercial portraying a gender-neutral toy in a context that made it seem appropriate for only one sex had a dramatic impact on children's subsequent behavior with that toy-but only for children who were aware of the constancy of their gender
Specifically, for low-gender-stage children, viewing the commercials seemed to produce a simple modeling effect-relative to the control group they played more with the toy when they saw a commercial, even if opposite-sex children were playing with the toy. In contrast, for high-gender-stage children, viewing opposite-sex children playing with the toy led to an avoidance of that toy during the subsequent play period.
It is important to note that the effects in the present study are not due to simple matura-tional effects associated with age. Covariance analyses showed no effect of age on these variables; and there were no differences across gender stages in attention, recognition, or recall variables.
it may be that age represents a variable primarily associated with increasing experience with sex-typed labels and reinforcement for using them correctly. On the other hand, the ability to regulate one's own behavior in terms of such labels may depend on changes associated with gender stage
This distinction between the relatively passive learning process associated with age or experience and the relatively active learning process associated with stage of gender constancy may help explain some apparent inconsistencies in previous literature
For example, one survey found that, in contrast to "boys"' toys, girls' toys are not made to be constructed, taken apart, or repaired (Mitchell 1973).
Several recent studies have reported data suggesting that the type of toy or activity children spend time with may affect personality characteristics, such as compliance, cognitive development, and spatial and verbal skills
Thus, the sex-related behaviors learned during this period of social- ization may have broad and long-lasting im- plications. Clearly, sex-stereotypic information directed toward children during this period of development must be carefully considered
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Shutss et al 2010
prev research shows children prefer own age gender and race as friends
assign more + aspects to own group
preferential imitation (s.s. modelling)
mthod: 32 3 yr olds, 16F, 16M, all white
results: preference for objects endorsed by own gender more than race although also an effect of race
experiment 2: same but with age and gender results: same G>A
children attended to gender, age and race in the absence of categroy labels r informative names or pronouns
when asked tojustify choices children didnot refer to these factors saying "i don't know"
future research - indivs who live in less homogenous areas