chapter 16

The Science and Politics of Studying Sex and Gender

  • The study of sex differences is a controversial area.
  • Concerns exist that findings might be used to support specific political agendas or maintain the status quo.
  • Arguments against studying sex differences:
    • Findings may simply reflect gender stereotypes rather than real differences.
    • Discoveries may reflect scientists' biases rather than objective reality.
    • Some advocate stopping research to avoid conflicts with egalitarianism.
    • Others argue that understanding real sex differences is crucial for scientific psychology and social change.

History of the Study of Sex Differences

  • Before 1973, sex differences received little attention.
  • In 1974, Maccoby and Jacklyn's book, The Psychology of Sex Differences, sparked significant research in the field.
  • Meta-analysis was developed as a precise quantitative method for examining conclusions across studies and determining sex differences.

Calculation of Effect Size: How Large are the Sex Differences?

  • Effect size (d statistic) is used to express differences in standard deviation units.
  • Effect size is calculated for each study and averaged across studies for an objective assessment.

Interpretation of Effect Sizes

  • 0.20 = small difference
  • 0.50 = medium difference
  • 0.80 = large difference
  • Positive $d$ indicates men score higher than women.
  • Negative $d$ indicates women score higher than men.
  • Even a large effect size for the average sex difference does not necessarily have implications for any particular individual.

Minimalists and Maximalists

  • Minimalists view sex differences as small and inconsequential.
  • Maximalists argue that the size of sex differences should not be trivialized, as even small effects can have practical importance.

Sex Differences in Personality

Temperament in Children

  • Meta-analysis suggests a few small to moderate gender differences in children aged 3-13.
    • Girls show more inhibitory control and higher fearfulness.
    • Boys show higher levels of surgency, activity, impulsivity, and anger in emotional expression.

Extraversion

  • Women score slightly higher on gregariousness.
  • Men score slightly higher on activity level and moderately higher on assertiveness.

Agreeableness

  • Women are more trusting and tender-minded.
  • Women smile more, potentially indicating submissiveness and low status rather than agreeableness.

Aggressiveness

  • Men are more physically aggressive.
    • Evident in personality tests, fantasies, and behavior measures.
    • Effect sizes are largest in the TAT and smallest for self-report measures.
    • Men commit 90% of homicides worldwide and more violent crimes overall.
    • Sex differences in violent crimes peak in adolescence and early 20s.

Conscientiousness

  • Women score slightly higher on order.

Emotional Stability

  • Women score moderately lower than men.

Openness to Experience

  • No significant sex differences.

Self-Esteem

  • Males score slightly higher across ages, with a widening gap between 11 and 18, closing between 19 and 59.

Basic Emotions: Frequency and Intensity

  • Women experience both positive (affection, joy, contentment, pride) and negative (fear, anger, sadness, guilt) emotions more frequently and intensely.

Sexuality, Emotional Investment, and Mating

  • Large differences exist in interest in casual sex and desired number of lifetime sex partners.
    • Men score higher in desire for sexual variety.
    • Women score higher in emotional investment.

People-Things Dimension: Vocational Interests

  • Men tend to score more toward the 'things' end, while women tend toward the 'people' end.

Sex Differences in Depression: A Closer Look

  • No sex differences in childhood.
  • After puberty, women show depression at twice the rate of men, especially between 18 and 44.
  • Rumination (repeatedly focusing on symptoms or distress) is more common in women, contributing to persistent depressive symptoms.
  • Sexes converge again after age 44.

Masculinity, Femininity, Androgyny, and Sex Roles

  • In the 1930s, sex differences were attributed to a single masculinity-femininity dimension.
  • The concept of androgyny emerged, suggesting individuals could score high on both masculinity and femininity.

The Search for Androgyny

  • In the early 1970s, researchers proposed that masculinity and femininity were independent dimensions.
  • Instruments were developed to assess these dimensions.
  • Androgynous individuals were initially viewed as the most highly developed.
  • Later, researchers revised their views:
    • Spence: Measures assess instrumentality and expressiveness, not sex roles.
    • Bem: Measures assess gender schemata, cognitive orientations that process social information based on sex-linked associations.

Gender Stereotypes

Components

  • Cognitive (beliefs)
  • Affective (feelings)
  • Behavioral (actions)

Content

  • Attributes believed to be possessed by men and women.
  • Similar across cultures.
  • Women perceived as more communal (oriented toward the group).
  • Men perceived as more instrumental (asserting independence from the group).

Stereotypic Subtypes of Men and Women

  • People hold differentiated subtypes of gender stereotypes.

Prejudice and Gender Stereotypes

  • Gender stereotypes have real-life consequences, affecting health, jobs, advancement, and social reputations.

Theories of Sex Differences

  • Socialization and Social Roles
  • Hormonal Theories
  • Evolutionary Psychology Theory
  • An Integrated Theoretical Perspective

Socialization and Social Roles

Socialization Theory
  • Boys and girls become different due to reinforcement of 'masculine' and 'feminine' behaviors by parents, teachers, and media.
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
  • Learning occurs through observation of same-sex behaviors.
Support
  • Cross-cultural evidence exists for differential treatment of boys and girls.
Problems
  • Oversimplified one-way causal arrow (parents to children).
  • No account of the origins of sex-differentiated socialization practices.

Social Role Theory

  • Sex differences arise from different occupational and family roles.
Support
  • Some research supports this theory.
Problem
  • No account of the origin of sex-linked roles.

Hormonal Theories

  • Hormonal, physiological differences cause divergence during development.
  • Men's testosterone levels are about 10 times higher than women's after puberty.
  • Sex differences in testosterone are linked to aggression, dominance, career choice, and sexual desire.
Problems
  • The relationship between hormones and behavior is bidirectional.
  • No account of origins of hormonal differences.

Evolutionary Psychology Theory

  • Sexes differ in domains where they faced different adaptive problems for survival and reproduction.
  • Research supports predicted sex differences, especially in sexuality.
Problem
  • No clear accounting of individual differences and differences within each sex.

An Integrated Theoretical Perspective

  • Combines socialization, hormonal, and evolutionary levels of analysis.

Summary and Evaluation

  • Some sex differences are real and consistent across generations and cultures.
  • The magnitude of sex differences varies.
  • Questions must specify the domain of interest, as differences vary greatly by domain.
  • Larger sex differences observed in assertiveness, aggressiveness, and interest in casual sex.
  • The 1970s saw the rise and fall of androgyny; masculinity and femininity are now termed instrumentality and expressiveness.
  • Cross-cultural work shows universal gender stereotypes corresponding to actual sex differences.
  • Traditional theories emphasized social factors, while recent hormonal theories suggest these factors are not comprehensive.
  • Evolutionary psychology argues that men and women differ in domains related to different adaptive problems faced over human evolutionary history.
  • An integrative theory encompassing social, physiological, and evolutionary levels of analysis is necessary.