Social Development Exam 2

What are the three families of theories in gender development?

Biological Theories

Learning Theories

Cognitive Theories

- what are the two sub components for biological, learning, and cognitive theories of gender?

Biological

-sex differences

- hormones/prenatal androgens

Learning

- Operant conditioning

- Social learning theory

- socialization

Cognitive

- Kohlberg's

- Martin and Halverson’s Theory of Gender schemas

How do the families of theories for gender development differ? Similar?

• Theories progress from most to least biological

• They are ALL having something biological (genes) and something environmental (socialization), but they weight then in different ways

  • Remember: gene/enviro interactions are always biological grounded

Sex difference

difference between males vs females

Sex:

biological point of view

Gender:

cognitive point of view

Gender role:

socialized roles based on/dictated by culture. Ex. female role is typically caregiver, and male role which is typically provider. Cognitively thinking about gender

What are some gender roles and the status of them>

• Ex. provider = achievement, success oriented, self sufficient

• Ex. caregiver = nurturing, helping others, cooperating.

Men are typically higher status than women, so male traits are higher status traits than womanly traits

When women have higher status, how do their traits/gender roles change?

• When women want to have higher status, they take on some masculine traits for themselves; they become a little more androgynous 

  • Sometimes called being a tomboy

  • Ex. female CEOs were tomboys!!

Gender role behavior:

 how do children learn to act their gender?

Example of gender roles

• Female: caregiver

• Male: provider

Are sex differences 100% connected to gender roles?

• sex differences IRL have nothing to do with these cultural roles of caregiver and provider. Loosely related 

Gender stereotype:

Thinking rigidly about gender group and roles. Its NOT healthy to learn stereotypes. Stereotypes are sometimes NOT related to roles…

ex. “All women are bad drivers”

• how is a gender role different from the gender stereotype? 

• Stereotype is thinking rigidly “all women ___”. More rigid than the role

• Because I see you as a woman, you must be _____. 

Its healthy for children to adopt a gender role, but unhealthy to adopt a steryotype

Biological theory of gender

Study of sex differences between males and females

• There are some psychological differences, but they are small

psychological differences between males and females graph

• Between group differences between the two groups exist, but are very small

• Everyone in the red is woman, that spread is within group difference!! HUGE

Between vs within group difference for males vs females

• For EVERY trait comparing two groups, the between group differences is always SMALLER than the within group difference 

  • Girls are more different than each OTHER than the average girl is different from the average boy

How big are psychological sex differences? Is one always better than the other?

• Sex differences are TINY differences between the means

• Even if we see a difference, it just means a difference. It does not mean that one is better or worse

  • Ex. women tend to use landmarks to tell directions, men tend to use compass or directions “south”, quarter mile

What is one way we can combat childrens steryotypes about gender via learning about sex differences?

Children do have strong stereotypes, so we need children to think differently about groups. Children can think about the individual differences within the group rather than between groups

How is the male’s curve different than females for sex differences?

Males are more plastic in the sense that their distribution has more men in the tails! The male curve is more spread out, more “extreme” values

What are some examples of psychological sex differences?

Sexual orientation

Rates of death

types of aggression

verbal ability

spatial ability

left handedness

Sexual orientation: sex differences

• more men prefer same sex partners than women

Rates of death: sex differences

• rates of death are higher for males, prenatally through life 

  • Male fetuses are more vulnerable to fetal death

  • Early childhood, boys take more risks (jump into bodies of water, drive recklessly)

  • As they get older, boys have more heart attacks

Types of aggression: sex differences

•  women have more verbally, indirect aggression, men have more physical aggression 

  • Verbal aggression hurts more

Verbal ability: sex differences

• girls have better verbal ability than boys

Spatial skills/mental rotation: sex differences

• boys have better spatial skills and mental rotation than girls

  • If you delay puberty in monkeys, they get better spatial skills!

Left handedness: sex differences

more boys are lefthanded than girls

What are the causes of sex differences?

The causes of these differences are unknown

• Over time, teen girls have been scoring closer and closer to boys on exams. The difference then was historical…

• Now, more women go to college than boys. Its even harder to get into college for girls

• There are also differences in culture (even in sex differences)

Chromosomes: males vs females

• XX for women, XY for male

Androgens:

hormones

When do males and females begin diverging in the womb?

• At 6 weeks gestation, if you have a Y chromosome, boys start diverging

  • Before this, their chromosomes do not have any effect on gender

  • Everyone starts as a girl

Female vs male hormones

• Female: estrogen

• Male: 2 hormones: testosterone, MIS

Why might males be more fragile neonatally?

The default fetus is female. Male hormones release and the fetus responds, turning them male, which may make them more fragile

What happens when scientists inject different male androgens into female fetuses of rats and monkeys?

 increases “rough and tumble” play in females

betters female spatial learning

What always affects androgens?

• The environment always has an effect. Hormones do not exist in isolation

Learning theories:

 older theories in psychology that still partially apply for gender development, like operant conditioning

How does operant conditioning influence gender?

via reinforcement and punishment

Reinforcement vs. Punishment

Reinforcement=increases behavior. Strengthens behavior

Punishment= decreases behavior. Weakens behavior

Fill out reinforcement vs punishment graph

Example of positive vs negative reinforcement with gendered clothing

• Praising clothing: positive reinforcement

  • If we don’t want little girls to worry about appearance, STOP praising appearance 

• Removing teasing: negative reinforcement

  • Wear what everyone else wears to stop getting picked on: negative reinforcement when people Subtract teasing, strengthened wearing dress because ur not teased anymore

Example of positive vs negative punishment with gendered clothing

• Ex. boy is wearing a dress 

  • If boy puts on apron, remove friendship. Negative punishment

• Ex. boy is wearing a dress

  • Slap them. Positive punishment

When you step out of gender roles, you are ______ as a kid

punished

If you conform to gender roles, you are ______ as a kid

reinforced

Bandura’s bobo doll study procedure

• How do children learn about aggression?

• Privileged children watched a model on film beat up bobo doll

  • Sometimes same gender model, sometimes different gender

• Then children given free reign with bobo doll

Bandura’s bobo doll study results/conclusion

• Children imitated the model, but ESPECIALLY if the model was the same gender as them

  • MORE imitation

  • Even girls did physical aggression

• We learn by imitation, and that can affect gender

Social learning theory on gender

• We learn gender roles through observation and imitation

  • Called “no trial learning”

  • You do nothing, just watch others, and imitate

What is the importance of the model in social learning theory?

• Not the same as a “role model,” but an example of a category like gender as a whole

• Mom’s behavior → female gender model

• Imitation goes beyond the specific example…children generalize to whole groups

  • Mom likes to cook, so ALL women must like to cook

  • Mom is an example of all women

What can children use a model for? What does a model do for children?

• You can teach new behavior to a child

• Can also strengthen or weaken behavior you already have

• Help child focus on specifics (draw attention to specifics)

• Model increases interest or arousal, that helps memory

You can teach new behavior to a child with a model example?

• Ex. Daughter watches mom exclude or shun another woman, indirect verbal aggression, so the daughter learns something new!

You can strengthen or weaken behavior you already have with a model example?

• Inhibitions: you are not supposed to do something or you will get punished. See model be disinhibited, child can be disinhibited!! (bobo doll study)

How can a model help a child focus on specifics example?

Because a child is motivated to pay attention to gender congruent model, lead them to pay attention and learn those specifics especially after they know they will keep being this gender. They need to figure it out!

Ex. mom puts on makeup, female child pays attention to learn how to do mascara

Are all models created equally?

Some models are better than others (high status)

• Parents typically

• Often shows that displayed indirect aggression between girls have high status models (hanna montana is a high status model)

Socialization:

 How children get taught to conform to gender roles. There are many, many, many, many ways. The world can be powerful. Socialization is powerful

Early, pervasive!

How is socialization early?

• Socialization occurs in the first 24 hours 

  • Parents describe girls and beautiful, and boys as strong. Nothing to due with weight or health score 

  • Babies start getting treated differently

• Babies go home to different environments

  • Girl rooms are super pink and boy rooms are more blue

Label influencing play with babies and undergraduates study

• If undergraduates are told it is a 

  • Boy: throw the baby in the air, built blocks, roll around with baby on floor

  • Girl: look at baby, hold baby, talk to baby, read the book, doll

• Label influenced play

• Socialization starts early and is pervasive!

How do we differ in how we give help to young girls and boys?

• Tend to help girls right away, you need me here to help you

• Let boys struggle even when they are not doing well. Teach them the strategy to help. Master the task 

• Socialization starts early and is pervasive!

Examples of socialization with toy selection, play style, and emotions

• Toy selection: Encourage children to choose sex-typed toys

• Play style: boys are encourage in vigorous, active play. Girls are discouraged from this

• Emotions: verbal, talk about fear with girls and madness and anger with girls

Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory

• Took piaget’s idea about active child development applied it to gender development, child actively constructs their own gender

• Functional use: “The way to make a child’s sense of gender strong is to act like gender is really important”

How can we use Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory to reduce stereotypes

Avoid boys vs girls. Do not use it as an easy way to divide people. Try to divide them mixed gender for teams. Act like gender is not important, and just small differences like it actually is!!

Stages of gender development (kohlberg’s stages)

1. Gender awareness

2. Gender identity

3. Gender stability

4. Gender constancy

1. Gender awareness; stages of gender development

•  Gender awareness: become aware there are two genders and form these categories

  • 5-6 months

  • Tested using habituation, habituated to boys, novelty affect for girls

2. Gender identity; stages of gender development

• Linked male and female to activities and dress, typical behavior, look By 18 months

• Learn labels girl and boy and what they are at 2 year old

3. Gender stability; stages of gender development

• Understanding that what your gender is right now, you are going to grow up and still be that gender

• Don’t know its stable until 4 years old

• Motivates them to learn stereotypes

4. Gender constancy; stages of gender development

• No matter what you look like, you will always be this gender. There is something deep inside of me that makes me female or male, specific biological knowledge

• Underlying essence 

• Kohlberg thought this wouldn’t be until 7 years old, but…Sandra Bem’s Study showed children as young as 3-5 could conserve gender

Sandra Bem’s Study:

• Showed naked photos and photos dressed up as both girl and boy

• As young as 3-5 could conserve gender

  • Even if the boy was wearing a dress, still a boy

• If children run around naked, they get constancy earlier

• Girls get constancy before boys 

Is gender constancy good for children?

• If you have constancy, then its freer for children, if they play with girl things, it doesn’t matter because they are still a boy

Schema:

• filter. You see all examples at once, so you use a schema to decide what actually to pay attention to

  • Enhances schema consistent information

  • Ex. if information is consistent with gender schema, you pay attention to it and remember it more

Schemas affect your inferences (predictions, what you guess someone will do) affect preferences, attitudes, and memories

Naive Theory:

• creating a theory of race, gender, has hypothesis, statements, parts to it!

Schema vs Naive Theory

Schema is smaller than a naive theory

Martin and Halverson’s Theory

• KEY: Schemas affect Memory (and interests)

• Two schemas the child learns

  • 1. Same sex AND opposite sex schema

    • schema  creating a list of boy and everything that goes with boy, likes, behaviors, toys

    • Also create one for girls

    • Both children create one for both genders

  • 2. Own sex schema

    • Just for your OWN gender than has a lot more specific information

    • Storing the specifics to be your gender

Martin and Halverson’s Theory: how can if affect careers?

• If math/science ends up on the boy list…

• And english, nurse, teaching ends up in girl list…

• Schemas can then this can affect how children end up in certain careers

Children’s interest in STEM in elementary school, grades and diffficulty trends

• In the first grade, girls score as well as boys on standardized math tests and get equal grades

• By 3rd grade, girls in US rate math as more difficult than boys do and think of themselves as less able to do math than boys\

Trends in STEM careers for men and women

• Men are getting more stem jobs with less education

  • Women in STEM look about the same since 2009

  • BUT once it gets to the doctoral level, it gets moreeee even between genders

Is the wage gap larger or smaller in STEM?

Stem jobs make more money, and the wage gap gets smaller

Ethnicity:

 language you speak, the place you are from, and the religion you have. Culture! Ethnicity is real

Race:

• a cognitive category that we created to put people into categories. It's not real! BUT we relate it to biology

Stereotypes: (for race/ethnicity)

 thinking rigidly about a trait or group of people

Prejudice:

 The attitude that we have about a certain trait or group

Is race about differences in skin color? Is that how it is defined and why it exists?

• English vs irish !!

• Italians are white… jewish people have the same skin color

• Latin America, more money = whiter you are. Colorism, not about skin color

• Caste system in india with similar skin colors

• Asia has similar features but there is a hierarchy

• You do not need differences in skin color to get racism. Racism can come out of anything!!!

How do we know race is not based in biology?

• Race is a set of beliefs about groups, that cannot just come from perception

  • Babies do not pay attention to skin color, they have to learn to pay attention to skin color

• Biologists don’t agree on how many races there are 

  • 5? 10? 50? How many groups are there actually? So race is not that biological

Historical examples of defining race that let us know its not biologically based

• One drop rule: if you had one drop of black blood, you were black, no matter your skin color…But blood and ancestry does not say anything about race

• Germany had to decide how jewish a person is…They had to be super complex

• There are continuums of ethnicity that we divide into categories

If race is not biological, what is it?

• Racism still exists, but its not biological. Its an artifact of human culture!

What are two reasons we create race?

• There are cognitive reasons

  • These are the least important reasons

• There are also sociocultural and historical reasons

  • Most important reasons

What are psychology’s goals for understanding race?

• How do children develop an understanding of Their racial identity AND Others’ racial identity

• How do both of these identities relate to stereotyping and prejudice?

  • So we can reduce stereotyping and prejudice

What are the three psychological theories of racial development?

1. Perceptual processes (Katz)

2. Conceptual processes/categorization

3. Theory view

Theory 1: perceptual process (racial development)

• By Katz

• Children learn about race by looking out into the world and its there

• Problem: children focus on people’s hair (language) first (also facial features). Children have to learn to look at skin color

• Problem: we see racism even when people have similar features

• This theory is wrong. Children do not just look out into the world and see race

Theory 2: conceptual processes and categorization (racial development)

• We are forming categories of people based on race. This is probably true, but cannot be the whole answer. This itself is not evil…

• BUT Problem: A cold cognitive process that becomes twisted, has to be more than categorization because then why does prejudice creep in?

• These categories have SES consequences, racism, prejudice, school, job, etc. 

Theory 3: Theory view (racial development)

• Children and scientists face the same problem. 

  • Scientists only see part of the data. They study a SAMPLE and create the theory to describe everything from a sample

  • Children only see a small number of people. 

    • Then they have to extend that to cover all of humanity, so they create a theory of race

Theory view of race has characteristics of general theories (6 characteristics) that allow us to understand that some children are forming race theories

—Abstract

–Go beyond evidence

–Allow predictions

–Provide explanation

–Allow evidence to be interpreted

–Dynamic

Abstract (general characteristic of theory)

One or more hypotheses that are interconnected. One or more guesses that are connected

Go beyond evidence (general characteristic of theory)

• Children going beyond the sample that they have met in their life?

Allows predictions (general characteristic of theory)

Theories allow predictions. Do children have predictions about race and groups of people?

Provide an explanation (general characteristic of theory)

Why are people different? How are people different? Theory gives people the answer

Allow evidence to be interpreted (general characteristic of theory)

Look for evidence to confirm your theory or stereotype

Dynamic (general characteristic of theory)

• Theories can always be changed. This provides hope!

• Children may start off with wrong, Naive theory of race and it can be changed

If we never talk about race…

children will come up with the explanation that people are treated differently based on race because they deserve it

Children’s theory of race

• Children do not begin with the essence view, that you have an essence deep down inside that makes you what you are

  • They believe that you can grow up and be a different race

• Children MAY form a naive theory of race that has an essence view

  • Adults have essence view

• To see IF they have a Naive theory, we can ask the child is their view of race coherent? Complex? Then = theory

• Role of experience is important in children’s theory of race. Kinds of people vs. kin

• If children are not in a diverse environment, they slip into thinking that there are different KINDS of people like species 

• A more healthy way of thinking about it is kin, your family make you your race to make you uniquely. Helps children be less racist

What type of forces are at work when forming racial concepts or prejudice?

internal cognitive factors are at work that contribute to stereotyping and prejudice

What specific internal cognitive forces are at work when forming racial concepts or prejudice?

• Hirschfield’s theory of race: naive theory

• In-group/out group processing 

• Cognitive flexibility

  • Multiple Classification

• Conservation/constancy

• Perspective taking