Exam 1 PBSI 300 Flashcards Set 2

Sex vs. gender

Sex = biological classification; gender = social meanings, roles, and expectations.

What are gender roles?

Culturally prescribed behaviors and expectations linked to socially assigned sex.

Similarities approach / beta bias

Women and men are basically alike; differences are small and mainly due to socialization.

Differences approach / alpha bias

Emphasizes female–male differences, historically explained as biologically rooted.

Essentialism

View that gender differences arise from essential qualities rooted in biology.

Social constructionism

Gendered behavior is shaped by culture, social expectations, and context rather than fixed biology.

Liberal feminism

Seeks equal political, legal, economic, and educational rights and opportunities.

Cultural feminism

Values qualities historically associated with women, such as nurturance and connection.

Socialist feminism

Views gender inequality as tied to economic inequality and interacting class/ethnic inequalities.

Radical feminism

Locates gender inequality in patriarchy and male oppression of women.

Women-of-color feminism / womanism

Stresses that racism, classism, and sexism all shape women’s experiences.

Mujerista psychology

Perspective advocating for the rights and experiences of Latina women.

Neoliberal feminism

Emphasizes individual women’s responsibility for overcoming inequality and downplays structures.

Standpoint theory

Knowledge is shaped by one’s social position and subjective perspective.

Sample vs. population

Sample = people studied; population = larger group researchers want to understand.

Male as normative

Treating men as the human standard and women as the marked exception.

Publication bias

Studies finding gender differences are more likely to be published than null findings.

Qualitative vs. quantitative research

Qualitative = lived experience/words; quantitative = standardized numerical measures.

Core goal of feminist research

Increase understanding of women while correcting bias and promoting social change.

Cross-cultural translation problem

Words and meanings may not translate equivalently across languages and cultures.

Cross-cultural sampling problem

College samples may represent very different portions of populations across countries.

Narrative approach

Reviews many studies and forms an overall impression of general trends.

Meta-analysis

Statistically combines results across studies on the same topic.

Effect size

A statistical estimate of the magnitude of a difference or relationship.

Intersectionality

Intersecting identities combine to create experiences not explained by one identity alone.

Organizational vs. interpersonal power

Organizational = institutional positions; interpersonal = power within relationships.

Power-over vs. power-to

Power-over = control others; power-to = capacity to act and accomplish goals.

Privilege

Unearned advantages associated with membership in a socially favored group.

Margaret Floy Washburn

First woman in the U.S. to receive a PhD in psychology, in 1894.

Mary Whiton Calkins

First female president of the American Psychological Association.

When did psychology of women emerge as a field?

It emerged as a distinct area of study in the 1970s.

Gender stereotype

Belief that certain traits, behaviors, or roles are more typical of one gender.

Communion

Traits emphasizing warmth, relationships, and concern for others; stereotypically feminine.

Agency

Traits emphasizing achievement, independence, and task accomplishment; stereotypically masculine.

Social categorization

Sorting people into social groups using noticeable characteristics to simplify perception.

Social role theory

Stereotypes develop from observing women and men in different social roles.

Modern sexism

Subtle sexism combining stated egalitarianism with denial or minimization of current inequality.

Ambivalent sexism

A combination of hostile sexism and benevolent sexism.

Hostile sexism

Negative attitudes toward women, especially women who challenge traditional roles.

Benevolent sexism

Apparently positive, protective beliefs that still reinforce traditional gender roles.

Backlash effect

Social or economic penalties for violating gender stereotypes.

Why is 'Ms.' associated with feminism?

It identifies a woman without defining her by marital status or relationship to a man.

Media pattern: underrepresentation of females

Women appear less often than men across many forms of media.

Who is especially underrepresented in media?

Older women, ethnic minority women, and sexual-minority women.

Double standard of aging

Aging is judged more harshly for women because youthful beauty is emphasized more for them.

Gender-based social roles in media

Women are linked more to domestic roles; men more to provider/employment roles.

Sexualization in media

Women’s attractiveness and sexuality are emphasized as central to their value or identity.

Androcentrism in language

Language treats male experience or male terms as the norm.

Masculine generic language

Using male terms such as 'man' or 'he' to supposedly represent everyone.

Spotlighting

Unnecessarily marking a woman’s gender, implying men are the unmarked norm.

Sexist language: marked and nonparallel terms

Female suffixes mark women as exceptions; nonparallel terms give female words worse connotations.

Negative terms for women

Childlike, animal, food, and sexual labels can diminish or devalue women.

Gender self-concept

Includes gender identity and gender attitudes.

Gender identity

A person’s internal self-definition of gender.

Sexual orientation

Pattern of sexual or romantic attraction; distinct from gender identity.

AMAB / AFAB

Assigned male at birth / assigned female at birth.

Gender dysphoria

Distress related to incongruence between experienced gender and assigned sex/gender role.

Prenatal sex differentiation order

Chromosomes → gonads → hormones → internal organs → external genitalia → hypothalamus.

Multiple genders across cultures

Many non-Western cultures recognize more than two gender categories.

Intersexuality

Variations in prenatal sex development that do not fit typical male/female patterns.

Turner syndrome

Single X chromosome; typically raised as girls and lack typical sex glands/prenatal estrogen.

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)

XX individuals exposed to high prenatal androgens; external genitalia may be masculinized.

Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS)

XY individuals whose bodies do not respond normally to androgens; external appearance is female.

5-alpha-reductase deficiency

XY individuals may appear female in childhood and masculinize at puberty.

David Reimer case

Raised as a girl after penile injury but later lived as a man, challenging a pure socialization account.

John Money’s theory

Proposed that gender could be shaped largely through rearing and socialization.

Reiner & Gearhart (2000)

About half of boys reassigned and raised as girls later transitioned to living as men.

Phall-o-meter

Tool once used to classify infant genitalia by measuring penis or clitoris length.

INSA

Advocated delaying intersex surgery while still assigning a sex at birth.

Cheryl Chase

Prominent intersex advocate who founded INSA after learning she was intersex.

1996 Olympic gender testing

Seven female athletes were found to have androgen insensitivity syndrome.

Psychoanalytic theory of gender typing

Gender typing comes from identification with the same-gender parent after resolving Oedipal conflict.

Social learning theory

Gender behavior is learned through modeling, reinforcement, and punishment.

Cognitive developmental theory

After gender constancy, children actively seek and follow gender-consistent rules.

Gender constancy sequence

Gender labeling → gender stability → gender consistency.

Gender schema theory — Sandra Bem

Children organize gender information into schemas that guide perception and behavior; associated with Sandra Bem.

Androgyny

Having both relatively high masculine and high feminine traits.

Four gender-trait categories

Masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated.

Gender attitudes

Beliefs and evaluations about appropriate roles and traits for women and men.

Infant gender-cue milestones

3–4 mo: faces; 6 mo: voices; 12 mo: match faces with voices.

When can children label girls and boys?

About 2 to 2½ years old.

When does gender identity emerge?

Typically between ages 2 and 3.

Early stereotype milestones

By 2, children know gender-typed objects/activities; by 3, many know occupational stereotypes.

When are gender stereotypes most rigid?

They become especially rigid around ages 5–7, then grow more flexible.

Gender segregation

Preference for same-gender peers; begins around age 2–3 and peaks in middle childhood.

Typical play patterns

Boys: larger, rougher, competitive groups; girls: smaller, more cooperative and pretend-play groups.

Parents and gender socialization

Both parents reinforce gender-typical behavior; fathers often do so more strongly.

School influence

Boys often receive more teacher attention, praise, calling-on, and constructive criticism.

Peer pressure and cross-gender behavior

Peers enforce gender norms; boys are often judged more harshly for cross-gender activities.

Media influence on children

Heavy viewing is linked to stronger stereotypes; nontraditional models can reduce them.

Gender intensification

Early-adolescent increase in traditional gender-role conformity that later declines.

Girls’ self-esteem in adolescence

Girls’ self-esteem tends to drop relative to boys’ during early adolescence.

Early maturation in girls

Early-maturing girls tend to adjust less easily than later-maturing girls.

Self-objectification

Viewing one’s own body from an outsider’s evaluative perspective.

Adolescent body image

Girls report more body dissatisfaction and dieting, influenced partly by cultural thinness ideals.

Functional ranking

Advertising portrays men as higher in power or authority than women.

Ritualization of subordination

Advertising places women in submissive or physically subordinate poses.

Objectification in advertising

Women are shown as objects or fragmented body parts rather than whole people.

Vanity sizing

Clothes receive smaller size labels over time despite similar actual measurements.

Bechdel Test

A film has two women who talk to each other about something other than a man.