PSYC336 Exam 1: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on Gender

Psychoanalytic Theory - Freud’s Beliefs

Stage theory of psychosexual development

• Development similar for boys and girls until the phallic stage

Stage 3: Phallic Stage

• Ages 3-6; pleasure through genitals

  • Oedipus Complex (boys): unconscious desire to kill father and marry mother, worry father will castrate him (castration anxiety), fear motivates boys to over-identify with father, internalizes values, beliefs, and ethics of society through father

    • Masculinity = power, strength, sexual prowess; in-tact superego/conscience

  • Electra Complex (girls): unconscious attraction to father, desire to be impregnated, realize do not have penis, assume mom cut it off and develop penis envy, as jealousy/resentment can never be resolved, girls never internalize values from mothers

    • Femininity = passive, jealous, masochistic, maternal; weak superego

Criticisms of Psychoanalytic Theory

• No empirical support, cannot be tested

• Ideas derived from a non-diverse, small, clinical sample

• Overemphasized anatomy/biology

• Assumed heterosexuality, homogenous family structure

• Did not consider other identities as they relate to personality development

• Views are androcentric - (Karen Horney proposed womb envy as an alternative)

Sociobiological Theory

Key Concept: Parental Investment (i.e. behaviors of parent that increase their offspring’s chances of survival)

Sociobiology: Application of evolutionary theory to explain the social behavior of animals, including people.

• Sociobiological Theory states that the parent with greater parental investment should be the one to care for the young

• Creates the idea that there is an evolutionary basis for

  • The Patriarchy

  • Gender norms/roles

  • The Sexual Double Standard

Critiques of Sociobiology

• Selective attention to scientific evidence (Slater reading)

• Assumes heterosexuality

• Over reliant on biology without attention to context or other social identities

• Ignores wide variability in genetics AND gendered behaviors

• Rationalizes the subordination of women

• Lack of genetic evidence

Walter Block Talk

He argues that…

• Women are more rational, calls them “precious commodities” (reduces women down), we need them to continue society (since they can bear children)

• Uses extreme situations to get his point across

• Inconsistencies in his own argument

• Doesn’t consider sexism, reasons why women can’t bear children, etc.

Social Learning Theory

• Proposed by Albert Bandura

• Most famously known for his Bobo dolls experiment

  • Tested to see which children played gently with it, and which children played aggressively with it — corresponds with what kind of environment they live with)

• Provided evidence that people learn behavior from one another

• Key Principle: Reciprocal Determinism

  • The world and a person’s behavior influence each other

  • In other words, our behavior impacts our environment and environment impacts our behaviorApp

Applying Social Learning Learning Theory to Gender

• Operant Conditioning:

  • As we develop, we are rewarded for displaying gender-appropriate behaviors and punished/not rewarded for displaying gender-inappropriate behaviors

• Imitation:

  • Immediately copying we see a model do

• Observational Learning:

  • Watching a model perform a behavior and storing that information for later use

Cognitive Components of Social Learning Theory

• Attention:

  • Focusing on relevant models and behaviors

• Self-regulation:

  • Monitoring own behavior and changing it to align with expectations

• Self-efficacy:

  • Believing in our ability to accomplish a particular task (i.e. women can be in STEM, seeing women in those fields makes us feel like we can do it too)

Cognitive Developmental Theory

• Proposed by Lawrence Kohlberg (tied to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development)

• Argued that condition comes before action and behavior

• We must understand gender before behaving in a gendered way

3 Stages of Gender Development

Stage 1: Gender Identity

• Gender Identity (Gender Labeling):

  • About 18-24 months – 3 years

  • Knowledge of girl/boy label

  • Can label themselves and others

  • Do not understand gender as a constant attribute

Stage 2: Gender Stability

• Gender Stability:

  • about 3 – 5 years

  • Begin to understand that gender is constant attribute (e.g. a girl will grow up to be a woman)

  • Believe in strict rules for who fall into certain gender categories

Stage 3: Gender Constancy

• Gender Constancy

  • About 5 - 7 years

  • Solidified knowledge that gender is a constant attribute

  • Understand that changes in appearance do not change gender

  • Children self-socialize based on gender constancy

Schemas and Gender Schemas

• Schemas:

  • Theoretical cognitive frameworks that help us organize information and guides perception

• Gender Schemas:

  • Gender-linked associations. How we process, filter, and interpret information in a dichotomous, gendered way (i.e., male vs. female, masculine vs. feminine)

The Issue: Our schemas are rigid, difficult to change, and prone to errors

Society’s beliefs about what is masculine vs. feminine —> Gender schemas, which lead to…

• Influences on self esteem

• Influences on processing of social information

Gender Schemas CAN be Adjusted

• It takes an active effort to alter existing schemata and create new schemata

• Evidence-based Strategies:

  • Stereotype replacement: acknowledging your assumption and being intentional about unlearning the stereotypical thinking 

  • Counter-stereotyping imaging: you acknowledge someone who doesn’t embody the stereotype you are thinking of 

  • Individuation: when you meet someone new, you perceive them as individuals rather than stereotypical, generalizing assumptions you may have 

  • *Perspective-taking: putting yourself in the person you’re stereotyping’s shoes 

  • *Increasing opportunities for contact: making the effort to meet people who are different from ourselves in order to stray away from stereotypical thinking and become more open-minded 

Feminist Theories

Feminism: Movement or ideology aimed at achieving social, political, and economic equality for women

“Waves” of Feminism

• First Wave 

  • 1848: Seneca Falls Convention met to create a list of priorities for advancing women’s (just white women’s) rights 

• Second Wave 

  • 1960s: Creating more equitable access to paid labor and re-defining roles (again, only for white women) 

• Third Wave 

  • 1990s: Change mainstream ideas of feminism (i.e. who feminism is for, including WOC, queer women, etc.) 

• Fourth Wave 

  • Scholars believe that we are currently in the fourth wave of feminism because of social media and how we use it as a tool to call out oppression and injustice (i.e. #metoo movement and men thinking feminism is a threat to humanity and/or is breeding “man-haters”, etc.) 

Feminism is for everyone, not just women

Common Themes of Feminism

• Sexism is pervasive (sexism systemic, not just catcalling, isolated incidents, etc.) 

• Gender is socially constructed (i.e. the color pink was originally targeted towards boys in the early 20th century and high heels as well) 

• Women’s experiences should be understood through sociocultural context (biology is not the only factor for understanding what women go through) 

• Historically, centering the experiences of able-bodied, cis-gendered, heterosexual, middle class white women. 

Sexism

Sexism: Gender-based discrimination (prejudice + power)

• Individual

• Institutional

• Ideological

• Internalized

Sexism and Bias in the Field of Psychology

Sexism in the Field of Psychology

• End of 19th century, most female applicants denied entrance into graduate school

• Before 1960s-1970s most psychological research didn’t include women and girls

• Most research interpreted women as inferior to men

• Male therapists discussed “merits” of having sex with female clients

How Bias Continues to Enter the Field of Psychology 

• Biased theories 

• Types of questions asked 

• Biased measures 

• Biased sample/recruitment 

• Design problems (e.g. gender cannot be manipulated) 

• Experimenter & observer effects 

• Interpretation bias (e.g., the Female Deficit Model) 

Gender Fair & Feminist Research

• Always examine questions, assumptions, and models for gender fairness

• Research teams should be diverse in identities/roles

• Offer several interpretations of findings

• Offer several interpretations of findings

• Devote specific attention to special concerns of women and members of marginalized groups

• Conduct research aimed at empowering people

• Emphasize complexity

• Continuously evaluate methods