PSYC 305 Lecture 8, Chapter 16-17

cultural identity

a person’s sense of belonging to a particular culture/group

inhibitory control

the ability to control inappropriate responses/behaviours

• higher in girls, related to conscientiousness, BUT differences disappear in adulthood

perceptual sensitivity

the ability to detect subtle stimuli from the environment

surgency

a cluster of behaviours, including approach behaviour, high activity, impulsivity

• higher in boys

sex

biological categorization of people as male, female, intersex

gender

the social and cultural meanings of different sex categories, including commonly associated attributes

gender identity

a person’s deeply-felt, inherent sense of being a man, woman, other gender

• may not correspond with sex

gender expression

a person’s presentation and expressed behaviour that communicates aspects of their gender/gender role

sexual orientation

a person’s sexual or romantic attraction to others based on their sex/gender

sexual identity

a person’s identity as it pertains to their orientation

effect size (d)

expresses the difference in standard deviation units

lack of identity clarity - impact on mental health

• increased suicidal ideation

• alcohol misuse

heritability of gender identity?

somewhat more heritable that personality

gender similarity hypothesis

women and men are similar on most psychological variables

• small differences, close to zero

minimalist view

suggests that are small differences in personality between women and men, but these differences are not very meaningful

maximalist view

suggests there are small differences in personality between women and men, which add up to have large importance

why are there sex differences in personality?

• most likely due to socialization

• some personality traits are equal, but displayed differently (eg: physical vs verbal aggression)

which personality traits are more present in men?

• aggression, low agreeableness

• dark triad traits

sex differences in emotionality

• women report more pos and neg emotions

  • associated with higher E and N

• 2-3x more depression

  • more rumination

self-esteem across the lifespan - women vs men

both decrease at puberty, then slowly increase and then sharp drop in older adulthood

• but, womens’ consistently lower throughout the lifespan

negative affectivity

includes components such as anger, sadness, difficulty, amount of distress

systemizing

the drive to comprehend how things work, how systems are built, how inputs into systems produce outputs

• eg: higher scores in men

gender dysphoria

one’s sex or gender assigned at birth causes significant distress/impairment in one or more life domains

evoked culture

a way of considering culture that concentrates on phenomena that are triggered in different ways by different environmental conditions

culture of honour

cultures where insults are viewed as highly offensive, must be met with direct confrontation

• helps obtain food

authoritarianism

a trait involving blind allegiance to conventional ideas, respect for submission to authority, aggression towards people who disagree

transmitted culture

ideas, values, beliefs that exist in one' person’s minds that are then transmitted from them to other people’s minds

• eg: the idea that it’s wrong to eat meat

value orientation

an individual’s beliefs about the importance of personal vs collective goals

self-construal

the extend to which you define yourself as independently or interdependently

holistic

a way to process info that involves attention to relationships, contexts, and links between the object and the field as a whole

analytic

a way to process information detached from its context, with reliance on rules taht explain behaviour

acculturation

after arriving in a new culture, the process of adapting to the ways of life/beliefs common in that new culture

self-enhancement

the tendency to describe oneself using positive attributes

• these tendencies are stable over time

within-culture dimensions

variations within a specific culture that arises from several sources

• eg: growing up in different SES, historical era, or racial context

historical era

a type of within-cultural variation that explains the effects of historical era on personality

cultural universals

features of personality that are common to everyone in all cultures

• on a human nature level, things in personality we share with most/all people

Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic relativity

peopels thoughts/emotions are constrained by the words that exist in their language and culture

interpersonal relatedness

a personality factor that might be unique to Eastern culture

• harmony, reciprocity in relationships

• not measured by conventional big 5 models