Section 6.3
 When does Identity begin?
 In vitro?
 Label of sex in hospital?
 Gender identity – When children correctly label their
own or another person’s gender (about 2 years old.)
 Based on child-rearing practices
 Gender role (based on society/biological factors)
 Gender constancy (7 years old)
 Whiting and Edwards (1973)
 Studied children in Kenya, Japan, India, Philippines,
Mexico and the US.
 Girls were more nurturing and made more physical
contact.
 Boys were more aggressive, dominant, and engaged in
more rough-and-tumble play.
 Nature vs. Nurture in developing gender roles.
 Nature view claims that a child’s gender identity is
programmed by genes and hormones.
 Nurture view claims that the way a child is dressed and
treated is the most important factor in determining gender.
 Biological explanations:
 Natural selection according to evolutionary
psychologists.
 Men are competitive and aggressive to attract a partner and
being able to provide resources.
 Women nurture because they need to raise the children in
order to increases the chance of attracting a partner that
provides for them.
 Critics argue that roles are a consequence of cultural
assignment of duties.
 Androgens (male hormones) make the difference in the
fetus between a male and a female.
 Karen Horney
 Trained as psychoanalyst (Freud)
 Forced to resign from the New York Psychoanalytic
Institute because of differing views from Freud.
 Against the idea of “anatomy is destiny.”
 One of the first feminist psychologist and argued that
masculine cultures do not provide equal opportunities.
 Claimed that if women wanted to appear like men, it
was because they were regarded as inferior.
 Horomones
 Estrogen
 Hormone replacement therapy
 Testosterone
 Exposure before birth leads to masculine features.
 Theory of psychosexual differentiation
 People born with innate predispositions of females or males.
 Prenatal exposure creates brain circuitry.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXI9w0PbBXY&safety_mode=true
&persist_safety_mode=1
 Biosocial theory of gender development
 Money and Ehrhardt (1972)
 Biosocial theory of gender development: Interaction between biological and
social factors have the effect on gender.
 Money: children are gender neutral at birth and it is later determined by nurture.
 Theory based on intersex children: ambiguous genitals.
 Children are not born with gender identity, therefore, it is possible to reassign sex
within the first two years of life.
 David Reimer
 Penis accidentally burned off while undergoing circumcision.
 David’s family (then Bruce) saw Dr. Money on tv and deemed it
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possible to change gender successfully through surgery, hormone
replacement, and socialization.
At 22 months, Bruce became Brenda and was then on raised as a girl.
Brenda was very lonely and felt different from other girls and felt
intimidated by Money.
In adolescence, he refused further surgery or to take oestregen.
At 15, his parents revealed the truth.
Brenda decided to take on the name David and underwent
reconstruction surgery to have a penis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GhbVFjIaN0&playnext=1&list=PL85187148EC93E475&safety_mode=true&pe
rsist_safety_mode=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noqRhuE8_XA&feature=related&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ctg3poxT9g&feature=related&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnb3EwJtsDs&feature=related&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OeITsQgKns&feature=related&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1
 Social Learning Theory:
 Direct tuition: children behave in ways where they are rewarded by
others and avoid behaviors that are punished or frowned on.
 The two factors of social learning theory on gender:
 Presence or absence of reward for gender-appropriate behavior, and
punishment for gender-inappropriate behavior.
 Modeling of behavior demonstrated by same-sex models.
 Fagot (1985)
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Observed children between 21 and 25 months.
Boys made fun of other boys who played with dolls or girls.
Girls did not like it when other girls played with boys.
Children too young for gender identity?
In-group/out-group identification?
 Sroufe et al (1993)
 Observed children between 10 and 11 years.
 Those who did not behave in gender-stereotyped ways were least
popular.
 Gender Schema Theory
 Gender schema’s – mental representations of the
genders.
 Martin and Halvorson (1978)
 Children actively construct gender identity based on their
experience.
 Children have mental representations of what is suitable for
boys and girls.
 There is a schema developed for each sex.
 The tendency to categorize on the basis of gender leads
boys and girls to be seen as different.
 Can gender schemas become self-fulfilling prophecy or
stereotypes? How?
Gender Schema Model
 Martin and Halvorson (1983)
 Information may be distorted to fit existing schemas.
 Research on boys and girls aged 5 to 6.
 Showed pictures of males and females in activities that were in line with their
role schemas or inconsistent with their gender role schemas. (ex: a girl with a toy
gun, a boy with a doll, or a boy with a ball.)
 A week later the children were asked what the pictures showed and distorted
memories that favored gender role schemas (a girl playing with a gun became a
boy.)
 Strength of gender schema theory:
 Gender schemas are maintained due to paying attention and
remembering consistencies with the schemas.
 Depicts children as actively trying to make sense of the world using
current knowledge.
 Limitation of gender schema theory:
 Too focused on individual child gender development.
 Social and cultural factors are not taken into account.
 Not possible to explain how and why gender schemas develop or form.
 Social Role Theory:
 Eagly (1987) – gender stereotypes arise from differing roles
men and women typically occupy.
 Women are best suited for the roles they occupy…same for men.
 Williams and Best (1990) – gender stereotypes arise out of
gender roles.
 Parents teach gender role socialization to prepare for adulthood.
 Best et al (1977) – cross-cultural study on gender stereotypes.
(including UK, Ireland, and US.
 Kids 5 and 8 years old.
 Agreed girls were soft-hearted, whereas boys were strong,
aggressive, cruel, and coarse.
 Mead (1935) – compared gender roles in 3 New Guinean
tribes and found that masculine and feminine traits are
a result of culture.
 Arapesh tribe – men and women were cooperative, gentle,
and loving (westernized female behavior.)
 Mundugumor tribe – men and women were arrogant,
competitive, and emotionally unresponsive (self reliance.)
 Tchambuli tribe – men spent most of their time gossiping
and discussing body adornments while women were
responsible for food production, making tools and clothes.
 Mead showed that:
 labour division is not the same in all cultures.
 Human behavior is not determined by genes alone, but
include beliefs and culture.
 Changed roles in the 20th century in western society.
 Scandinavian women
 are 76% employed.
 Still more women than men in nursing and midwives.
 More men than women in plumbing and engineering.
 Children spend days in kindergarten so mothers can work.
 Fathers participate in childcare and have paternal leave.
 “father” clubs in Denmark for social networking (similar to
“mom’s like me” in the US.
 Adolescence – the period of development between
puberty and adulthood.
 The World Health Organization defines it as 10-20 years
of age with cultural variations.
 Hormones – males and females produce the same
amount of testosterone and oestrogen until puberty.
 Revised self-schema based on new body and changes.
 Increase in eating disorders during this age because of ideal
body image.
 Adolescence
 Changes in the body:
 Girls:
 growth spurt between 10 and 13.
 Development of breasts
 Widening of hips.
 Menarche – first menstruation which indicates the end of
puberty (beginning of reprduction ability.
 Armpit, leg, and arm hair develops.
 Adolecence
 Boys:
 2 to 3 years later in growth spurt than girls.
 Broadening of the shoulders.
 Increase in muscle strength.
 Boys become closer to their ideal body image.
 Sexual maturation starts with the enlargement of the testes (11-
12) and growth of the scrotum.
 Sperm production begins at about 15.
 Facial hair and body hair production
 Lowering in the voice.
 Adolescence
 Cultural ideal hypothesis - puberty brings boys closer to
their ideal body whereas girls move further way
(Simmons and Blyth 1972.)
 Earlier maturing boys tend to be satisfied with their bodies.
 Late maturing boys not satisfied until they catch up to their
peers.
 Caufmann and Steinberg (1996) – girls show more concern
about appearance and express worry about how other people
will respond to them.
 Want to be seen as attractive.
 Western cultures ideal of slimness creates negative body images
and low self-esteem.
 Body dissatisfaction is the norm among girls in the West.
 Adolescence
 Cultural differences in puberty
 Ferron (1997)
 Found that Most important cultural differences between US and
French adolescents were based on their beliefs about the possibility
of teaching the ideal body image.
 75% of US adolescents did not accept any biological predisposition
to body shape.
 could only obtain through trying hard and adhering to specific rules.
 80% believed specific diets or exercise programs will help to form an
ideal image while less than half of the French believed so.
 75% of French participants acknowledged that physical appearance
is predetermined and could not possibly be extensively modified.
 75% of US girls believed that personal worth depended on the way
they look.
 Adolescents
 Increasingly aware of ones own sexuality.
 Body image dissatisfaction – discrepancy between the
person’s body image and their ideas of what an ideal
body should look like.
 Stice and Withenton (2002) Strong predictor of teenage
depression, eating disorders, exercise dependence, and
steroid use.
 Boys image is generally more positive than girls.
 Boys more likely to welcome weight gain.
 Erikson
 Believed in lifelong development with specific stages.
 5th stage of development concerned adolescence.
 Identity vs. Role Confusion
 Rapid physical growth and hormonal changes between 12 and 18.
 Adolescence need to develop a strong personal identity at this stage.
 Moratorium – status of a person who is actively involved in exploring
different Identities, but has not made a commitment.
 If successfully resolved, the adolescent will feel confident about their identity
and possible occupation.
 Moratorium specific to western culture.
 Role Confusion – uncertainty about who one is and what one is to
become.
 May develop a negative socially unacceptable identity (better than no identity
to Erikson.)
 Need to develop a commitment to work and social role in order to
pass on to “Intimacy vs. Isolation.”
 Fear of commitment comes from being afraid of losing one’s own identity.
 Support for Erikson
 Espin et al (1990) – longitudinal study on one girl from Latin
America who was arrested for political reasons and showed stronger
identity from 13-18 years followed by decreased identity and
increased intimacy at 19.
 Evidence against developmental crisis
 Rutter et al (1976)
 Cohort Study on Isle of Wight to investigate crisis.
 2030 participants aged 14-15 (entire population this age.)
 Questionnaires from parents, teachers, and interviews (two areas of
interest)
 Conflict between parents and children (generational gap)
 “inner turmoil” in terms of observed behavioral or psychiatric disorders.
 Found that the average adolescent is not in a state of crisis and conflict
with parents.
 Only 1/5th reported feeling miserable or depressed (mostly ones with
psychiatric problems of some sort.)
 Erikson’s theory is western based.
 Condon (1987) reviewed anthropological evidence of the
Unuit people in Canada.
 Young women were regarded as adults at puberty where
they were married off and started having children.
 Young men were adults when they could build an igloo,
hunt large animals, and support themselves and their
families.
 There was no time in this culture to develop individual
identities, questioning Erikson’s theory.
 Identity formation is not a project of adolescence alone.
 O’Connell (1976)
 Conducted retrospective interviews with married women that had
children in school.
 Showed that women had experienced an increasingly strong sense
of identity when moving on from adolescence with marriage and
children.
 The study indicates that identity formation is a lifelong project
related to experience.
 Identity development is not only a phenomenon of
adolescence.
 Gradual rather than sudden changes in identity and selfesteem during normal development.
After ten years in therapy, my psychologist
told me something very touching, he said,
"no hablo ingles.
~ Dennis Wolfberg ~