8.9-8.11 Gender Roles

• Gender: the psychological aspects of being masculine or feminine

• Gender roles: the culture's expectations for male or female behavior, including attitudes, actions, and personality traits associated with being male or female in that culture

• Gender typing: the process of acquiring gender-role characteristics

  

Social Learning Theory

• Emphasized learning through observation and imitation of models, attributed gender role development to those processes

  • "good behavior" is met with reward, and viceversa

Gender-Schema Theory

• Gender schema theory: theory of gender-role development in which a child develops a mental pattern framework, or schema, for being male or female and then organizes observed and learned behavior around that schema

  • Children develop a concept of "boy" and "girl" and identify themselves based on such classifications

• Androgyny: characteristic of possessing the most positive personality characteristics of males and females regardless of actual sex

8.11 Sexual Orientation

• Sexual orientation: a person's sexual attraction to and affection for members of either the opposite or same sex

• Heterosexual: sexual attraction toward, or sexual activity with, members of the exposure sex

• Homosexual: sexual attraction toward or sexual activity with members of the same sex

• Bisexual: sexual attraction toward, or sexual activity with both men and women

• Asexual: is the lack of sexual attraction to anyone, or a lack interest in sexual activity