Sex-role stereotypes
Sex-role stereotypes a:: set of shared beliefs and preconceived ideas and expectations that people within a society or culture hold about what is acceptable/appropriate/expected behaviour for male and females.
How do these sex-role stereotypes spread?:: transmitted through society and may be reinforced by parents, peers the media as well as institutions such as schools. Therefore, sex roles are learned from birth through socialisation explicitly (modelling via social learning theory) and implicitly as children are exposed to the attitudes of others.
When are sex-role stereotypes taught?:: very early on e.g. boys are treated more physically, given different toys to play with etc. Girls = quiet play, dolls and tea parties. Boys = loud play, cars and weapons. Children actually “police” other children’s roles by teasing those that go against the sex-role stereotypes.
The media plays a large role in maintaining these stereotypical expectations of men and women, but can also be used to help break them. There are also cultural differences in sex-role stereotypes. Sex-role stereotypes may have no truth and may lead to discrimination e.g. that women can’t cope with a position of high responsibility in the workplace because she may become ‘over-emotional.’
Research evidence for sex role stereotypes include: Furnham and Farragher (2000), Seavey et al (1975), Rubin et al. (1977), and Ingalhaliar et al. (2014)
What did Furnham and Farragher (2000) do? :: They carried out a study of sex-role stereotypes in TV adverts to see what men and women were portrayed as doing in adverts. They found that men were more likely to be shown in autonomous roles within professional contexts, whereas women were often seen occupying familial roles within domestic settings. This suggests that the media may play a role in reinforcing widespread sex-role stereotypes concerning male and female behaviour.
What did Seavey et al. (1975) do?:: They dressed a three-month-old in a yellow baby suit. One third of the participants were told that the infant was male, another third were told that the infant was female, and the other third were not given a gender label. Participants were left to interact with the child for three minutes. Also in the room were some toys: a ball, a rag doll and a plastic ring. They found that when the baby was labelled as female, participants were more likely to use the doll when playing with the child. When the baby was labelled as male, the plastic ring was chosen most frequently as the plaything. Where no gender was given, the female participants interacted far more with the baby than the males did. In the no-label condition almost all the participants spontaneously decided on a sex for the baby. Their decision was often justified in terms of how the baby was perceived physically (e.g. ‘it’s a boy because he’s got a good grip, it’s a girl because she’s soft’). This suggests that adults treat boy and girl babies differently in line with sex-role stereotypes and so teach sex-role stereotypes to children.
What did Rubin et al. (1977) do? :: They asked parents to describe their new babies within 24 hours of the baby being born. They found that parents of baby boys described their babies as being alert and strong, whereas parents of baby girls described their babies as soft and delicate. This suggests that parents stereotype their children in line with sex-role stereotypes from a very early stage despite no stereotypical behaviour being shown and so teach sex-role stereotypes to children.
What did Ingalhaliar et al. (2014) do?:: They scanned the brains of 949 young men and women to map the connections of different parts of the brain. They found that women’s brains have far better connections between the left and right sides of the brain, whilst men’s brains display more intense activity within the brain’s individual parts, especially the cerebellum which controls motor skills. This suggests that the female brain is hard-wired to cope better with several tasks at once, whereas the male brain prefers to focus on a single complex task. Therefore, there may be a ‘grain of truth’ in some sex-role stereotypes.