unit 5: language, emotion & aggression

women tend to use more…

question marks and emotionally intensive adjects (very, really)

men more frequently use…

words to express independence such as 1st person singular pronouns (i, my)

studies suggest what about spoke and written language?

suggest that they do not differ by sex in ways that humans can readily detect

political correctness:

the social norm - often viewed as taken to an extreme - that people should avoid language or acts that might offend, marginalize or exclude members of socially disadvantaged groups

whorfian (linguistic relativity) hypothesis:

hypothesis stating that the structure of language determines the nature of the speaker’s thoughts and worldviews

generic masculine:

the use of male-gendered terms to refer not only to men but to mixed sex groups, to human beings in general or to individuals whose sex is unknown or unspecified - tends to be ambiguous and selectively applied

gender inclusive language:

a way of speaking and writing that avoids discrimination based on gender identity, social gender or sex, it also avoids perpetuating gender stereotypes

grammatical gender:

a type of classification system in certain languages such as french and hindi, in which most nouns are assigned a gender (masculine, feminine, sometimes neutral)

diminutive:

a form of a word used to indicate a smaller, less powerful or more familiar version (ex: booklet, duckling, mommy, daddy)

• male nurse and female scientist (reinforcing gender roles and implying that men typically arent nurses and female scientists are different from male scientists)

research has shown people report more sexist attitudes when…

using gendered versus nongendered language

using passive voice (rather than active voice) in accounts of rape…

is associated with attributing more responsibility to victims and less responsibility to perpetrators;

• describing male to female violence (passive): she was beaten

• describing female to male violence (active): she beat him

different cultures approach:

the belief that boys and girls are socialized to use language so differently that they may as well come from different cultures which leads to miscommunication

evidence generally shows ________ in emotional and assertive language;

small sex differences; some authors profit greatly from portraying sex differences in communication styles as large

language spoken sex difference:

evidence has shown there is no significant sex difference; both men and women spoke about 16,000 words a day on average - stereotype that women talk more is untrue

relational aggression:

subtle aggression, usually committed when the target is not physically present (gossip), that is intended to harm the target’s social relationships or status

effect sizes for assertive and affiliative speech:

close to zero effect size for assertive speech that slightly favoured men and a small tendency for women to use more affiliative speech than men (and women use more tentative speech and self-disclose more)

code switching:

the process by which bilingual and multilingual individuals switch back and forth between languages and their different cultural meaning systems

fakaleiti:

transgender individuals from tongo an archipelago nation in the south pacific who are assigned male at birth but assume a relatively feminine manner

smile sex difference?

girls/women tend to smile more than boys/men (medium effect size)

visual dominance:

a pattern of eye contact in which a person looks at others when speaking and looks away when listening

oxytocin:

a neurotransmitter that facilitates bonding, connectedness and coordination

manspreading:

the tendency for men to spread out and adopt an expansive posture while sitting, thus taking up more space

point-light display:

a minimal animated figure represented by points of light, which is created by a computed that reads sensors attached to the joints of a moving person - used to measure gait (walking) differences, similarities or patterns

emotion:

a complex, internal, subjective reaction that includes physiological, psychological, and behavioural components - basic emotions such as joy, anger and fear are thought to be innate and universally expressed and recognized

display rules:

culture specific norms that regulate how, when and whether individuals should express particular emotions

teddy bear effect:

the tendency for baby-faced (physically nonthreatening) black men to have an advantage in seeking high-status positions because they do not activate stereotypes about black men as aggressive

encoding accuracy:

the ability to communicate nonverbally in a clear manner that others can interpret correctly

decoding accuracy:

the ability to read the nonverbal communications of others correctly

both encoding and decoding accuracy is best in…

women on average (better at interpreting)

empathy:

the tendency to feel the emotional state of another person and to see the world from another person’s vantage point - empathy has both affective and cognitive components

emotional contagion:

the tendency for people to synchronize their emotions automatically with the emotions of others, without necessarily being aware of it happening

mirror neurons:

neurons that fire both when performing an action and when observing another individual perform the action

electroencephalogram (EEG):

a brain imaging technique that reads electrical activity in the brain with the use of sensors on the scalp

emotional intelligence:

the ability to identify and manage one’s own emotions and the emotions of others and to use emotions to solve problems

aggression:

behaviour intended to cause psychological or physical harm to a person or nonhuman animal

physical aggression:

physical acts intended to injure or harm others

verbal aggression:

communications intended to harm others

direct aggression:

overt verbal or physical behaviour aimed directly at another person with the intention to harm

indirect (relational) aggression:

behaviour intended to harm another person’s relationships or status, often performed when the target is not physically present (ex: gossiping, spreading rumours, excluding someone)

bullying:

aggression (direct or indirect) that is repeated over time and in which the perpetrator holds more power than the victim

cyberbullying:

aggression committed via the internet, mobile phones or other types or electronic or digital technologies

violence:

severe forms of physical aggression that have extreme harm as their goal

who commits the majority if violent crime?

men - this pattern holds true across the globe (men accounting for 91-95% of homicide convictions from 2010-2017 in 74 countries)

young male syndrome:

young adult men between 18-24 committing a disproportionate share of violent crimes - men are much more likely to kill (and be killed) in their late teens and early 20s than at any other time in their lives

study revealed that ___ were 2.02 times more likely than ___ to bully in 38 countries:

boys - more likely than girls

many forms of aggression…

except for sexual aggression and intimate partner violence - tend to target boys/men more than girls/women especially if they are young and low income

sex-based harassment (sexual harassment):

behaviour that derogates or humiliates an individual based on the individual’s sex, sexual orientation or gender identity

gender harassment:

making sexual or sexist remarks or gestures; displaying sexual or sexist materials

unwanted sexual attention:

initiating unwanted sexual discussions or touching

sexual coercion:

compelling sexual contact through job threats or rewards

racialized sex-based harassment:

incidents where race based and sex based harassment are simultaneously present

street harassment:

uninvited sexual attention or harassment from a stranger in a public space

power distance:

the extent to which a culture has and accepts unequally distributed levels of status and power among its members

intimate partner violence:

any behaviour intended to cause physical harm to a romantic partner

gender symmetry:

perspective which holds that women and men physically assault their partners in roughly equal numbers with largely parallel risk factors and motivations

gender asymmetry:

perspective which often frames intimate partner violence in terms of men’s domination and control of women = from this perspective intimate partner violence is a gendered act that reinforces men’s power over women

situational couple violence:

intimate partner violence that results when heated conflicts escalate; committed by men and women equally

intimate terrorism:

intimate partner violence in which one partner (usually a man) repeatedly uses violence and fear to dominate and control the other

sexual assault:

unwanted sexual contact without the explicit consent of the victim

rape:

nonconsensual penetration of the mouth, vagina, anus by the penis, fingers or object

consent:

means that all parties have a clear and mutually understandable agreement, expressed outwardly in words or actions, to engage in sexual activity (its about communication)

polyvictimization:

experiencing more than one type of aggressive victimization (ex: sexual assault, physical abuse and bullying)

unacknowledged rape:

an experience that meets the legal definition of rape but is not labeled as rape by the victim

rape myths:

widely held false beliefs about rape, rape victims and rapists

people who strongly endorse rape myths are…

less likely to label acts as rape even when they meet the legal definitions of rape and they are also more likely to blame rape victims for their own assault

examples of rape myths:

• women often make false reports

• only bad women get raped (so they deserve it if it happened)

• men cant be raped

• rape usually occurs between strangers

• if a woman doesnt resist it isnt rape

• only certain kinds of people get raped

• lots of women lead men on then cry rape

• many women secretly desire to be raped

• women are almost never raped by their boyfriends

• rapists are usually sexually frustrated individuals

most rapists are…

men; US survey men committed 98.1% of rapes of girls/women and 93.3% of rapes of boys/men

rape victims typically know…

their offenders - only 22% of sexual assaults are committed by strangers

false rape allegations:

accusations of rape that the accuser knows to be false; therefore do not include cases involving mistaken identity; meta-analysis indicate 5.2% of allegations are false

honour culture:

a culture in which individual and family honour is at the centre of all social life and men are expected to defend their own and their family’s honour with violence if necessary (ex: pakistan, india, southern states of america)

honour killing:

the murder of a (typically female) family member who is perceived to have brought shame or dishonour to the family

male discrepancy stress:

anxiety that boys/men feel about not living up to masculine expectations set by society

socioeconomic dependence perspective:

the hypothesis that men use violence as a means of maintaining control over partners who are economically dependent on them and thus unlikely to leave

status inconsistency perspective:

the hypothesis that men engage in partner violence more often when they feel threatened by partners who have greater economic status and power than they do

female genital mutilation:

removing or injuring the external genitalia of girls/young women for nonmedical reasons; aka female genital cutting or female circumcision

child marriage:

arranged marriages of girls to much older men

sex trafficking:

forced, nonconsensual recruitment and retention of persons for sexual use and exploitation

I³ theory:

the theory that partner violence depends on the interplay of 3 factors; provocation by a partner (instigation), forces that create a strong urge to aggress (impellance), and forces that decrease the likelihood of aggression (inhibition)

aggressive pornography:

sexually explicit material that is meant to arouse and that contains acts of physical or verbal aggression, degradation or humiliation

erotica:

sexually explicit nonaggressive material that is meant to arouse

sexual callousness model:

a model proposing that repeated exposure to pornography desensitized and habituates viewers, leading to callous sexual attitudes towards women

sexist language:

language that excludes, trivializes or diminishes either gender; includes the use of masculine generic terms to describe people such as he and mankind, hierarchic expressions such as man and wife and belittling references to women as girls

social dominance orientation (SDO):

comprises a general preference for hierarchical, as opposed to equal, relations between groups

system justification:

core idea of system justification theory is that people’s dependence on social systems for wealth and security motivates them to justify those social systems and to see them as essentially fair and functional

evolutionary mate guarding view:

this holds that men always run the risk of devoting time and resources to rearing offspring that may not be their own

testing predictions from the male control theory of men’s partner violence:

found that women reported being more physically/verbally aggressive to their partners than men were; men reported more physical aggression to same-sex non-intimates than women did; more controlling behaviour by women than by men

• trend of men to be more inhibited in their physical aggression to a female partner and women to be more disinhibited in their physical aggression to a male partner

loaded (1st lad mag):

promoted hard images of masculinity characterized by laddish behaviour such as drinking to excess

hostile sexism along with benevolent sexism make up…

a widespread ideology of ambivalent sexism towards women

benevolent sexism is…

positive in tone and often escapes detection as prejudice altogether

hostile sexism consists of…

blatantly negative and hostile beliefs about women - is related to sexual violence

there is an overlap between things said in lad mags and things said by…

convicted rapists as justification

when sexism is presented in a lad mag it becomes…

much easier to identify with (normalizing sexism) - men thinking quotes of rapists would be more extreme sexism and those from lad mags would be less extreme (when no theyre the exact same quotes)

its been shown that the content of language can directly influence…

how people perceive the world (whorfian hypothesis) as such its important to recognize that inherent gender biases in spoken and written language can directly or indirectly reinforce gender stereotypes that lead to discrimination (masculine generic, androcentric bias, etc)

small gender differences in content spoken?

women more likely to talk about their family and men being more likely to discuss objects or events

who is less likely to interrupt and more likely to use polite forms of address?

women

who has wider ways in which they express themselves emotionally?

women - difference largely due to social pressures that punish men/boys for emotional expression or discussing emotional responses other than anger

men and women and emotion?

men and women experience the same amount of emotions but express emotions differentially

precarious manhood:

when men feel that their social status is threatened, because they have more to lose tend to react by using acts of physical violence - according to the idea of precarious manhood