David Myers
11e
Chapter 5: Social Influence
Genes, Culture, and Gender
-How we influence one another
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How Are We Influenced by Human
Nature and Cultural Diversity?
What is your belief/affect response to Jan and Tomoko?
 Genes, Evolution, and Behavior
 Natural selection
Heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce are
passed to ensuing generations
 Social animals Join, conform, recognize social status
 Social as well as biological evolution occurs (still does)
 Such as trust, disapproval, punishment, altruism, morality
 Social behavior genetics are harder to see because they interact
(happens along with) cultural changes
 Evolutionary psychology
 Study of the evolution of cognition and behavior based on principles of
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natural selection
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There has been enough time for variance in genes
 Variation has been recent , copious, and regional (N.Wade)
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How Are We Influenced by Human
Nature and Cultural Diversity?
 Culture and Behavior
 Culture
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Enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by
a large group of people and transmitted from one generation
to the next
 Cultural diversity
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Our behavior is socially programmed
 Could it also be influenced by genes?
One in eight Americans is an immigrant
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How Are We Influenced by Human
Nature and Cultural Diversity?
 Culture and Behavior
 Norms: Expected behavior by the group
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Norms (implicit rules for getting along)
 Standards for accepted and expected behavior
 Expressiveness - German v. Greeks?
 Punctuality - U.S. v. Caribbean ? Jamaica?
 Rule Breaking – a social norm for rule breaking?
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what’s the benefit of that?
 Personal Space – prison inmates v. us
• Buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies
Eye contact –when is it appropriate? How long?
a “stare (creepy)” v. “he’s looking at me”
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How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural
Diversity?
 Culture and Behavior
 Cultural similarity
What is a ‘theory of mind’?
Universal friendship norms
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Universal trait dimensions CANOE
Universal social belief dimensions
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Cynicism, social complexity, reward for hard work, spirituality, fate control
Universal status norms (R. Brown)
 Intimacy (you must call me “professor”!!)
Incest taboo –why is this universal?
Norms of war –except for Iraq and a few others
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How Are Males and Females Alike and Different?
 Gender
 Characteristics, whether biological or socially
influenced, by which people define male and female
 Females:
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70% more fat, shorter, weigh less
More sensitive to smells and sounds
More vulnerable to anxiety disorders, depression
 Males:
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Slower to reach puberty, die younger
ADHD!!!!
Commit suicide (more women try but don’t succeed)
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How Are Males and Females Alike and Different?
Women
Men
 Describe themselves in more
 Focus on tasks and on
relational terms
 Experience more
relationship-linked emotions
 More empathetic
 Gravitate toward jobs that
reduce inequalities
connections with large
groups
 Respond to stress with “fight
or flight” response
 Gravitate toward jobs that
enhance inequalities
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How Are Males and Females Alike and
Different?
 Social Dominance
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(when is it better to be socially dominant?)
 Men are socially dominant
 Women’s wages in industrial countries average 77
percent of men’s
 Men tend to be more autocratic; women more
democratic
 Men take more risks
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How Are Males and Females Alike
and Different?
 Aggression
 Physical or verbal behavior intended to hurt someone
 In the U.S., the arrest ratio of male to female is 9 to 1
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When provocation occurs the gender gap shrinks
 Women are slightly more likely to commit indirect
aggressive acts
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Spreading malicious gossip
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How Are Males and Females Alike
and Different?
 Sexuality
 Men:
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More often think about and initiate sex
 Women:
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Are more inspired by emotional passion
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Evolution and Gender: Doing What
Comes Naturally?
 Gender and Mating Preferences
 Men seek out quantity (reproduce widely)
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Spreading genes widely
 Women seek out quality (wisely choose)
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Protecting and nurturing of offspring
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Evolution and Gender: Doing What
Comes Naturally?
 Reflections on Evolutionary Psychology
 Evolutionary psychologists sometimes start with an
effect and work backward to construct an explanation

Way to overcome the “hindsight bias” is to imagine things
turning out otherwise. (find the function it provides)
 Evolutionary psychologists disagree with this theory
 Same criticism for “cultural theories”
 Their opponents worry that accepting genetically driven
differences reinforces gender stereotypes.
 Is evolution genetic determinism? Or can we adapt to different
environments?
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Sample Predictions Derived from
Evolutionary Psychology
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Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes Naturally?
 Gender and Hormones
 Gender gap in aggression seems influenced by
testosterone
 As humans age they become more androgynous
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Mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics
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Culture and Gender: Doing as the
Culture Says?
 Gender Role
 Set of behavior expectations (norms) for males and
females
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Confess: did culture form you develop “roots” or “wings”?
Discuss: Is gender role “inequality” good or bad?
 Gender roles vary over culture
 Should both spouses work and share child care?
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41 of 44 countries prefer sharing
What are the implications for each option?
 Gender roles vary over time
 Evolution and biology do not fix them.
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Culture and Gender: Doing as the Culture Says?
 Peer-Transmitted Culture
 50% of personality (and predisposition to respond)
is inherited
 0 -10% percent of individual variations in personality traits is by
 parental nurturing
 The other 40 -50 % is peer influence! On values/ preferences
 What are some that you learned /adopted?
 What are the implications for values and behaviors having the
 boy/girl scout v. gang group influence?
 Extremism Islamist v. other religious influence?
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Change comes from the youth. Some examples?
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What Can We Conclude about Genes, Culture, and Gender?
 Biology and Culture
 Biology and experience interact when biological traits influence how
the environment reacts
 Epigenetics – environment triggers biological gene expression
 E.g. diet, drugs stress
 But some stress is good for us
 (at cellular level and for physical development)
 E.g. Hostility of cop killers in Bronx and Jihad John
 Great truths: B = f (p * e) –
 Power of the situation
 Power of the person
 interaction (*) plays a big role
 A social situation affects different people differently
 People often choose their situation
 People often create their situations
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