Gender – is “the state of being male or female”
Gender stereotypes – “are widely shared beliefs about males’ and females’ abilities, personality traits, and social behavior”
Instrumentality – “an orientation toward action and accomplishment,” refers to masculine traits.
Expressiveness – “an orientation toward emotion and relationships,” refers to feminine traits.
With regard to gender stereotypes, it is important to remember that:
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There is much variability within gender stereotypes, and they interact with race and socioeconomic status.
Boundaries between male and female stereotypes have become less rigid since the 1980s.
The traditional male stereotype is seen as more complimentary. This is called androcentrism, or “the belief that the male
is the norm."
Meta-analysis – “combines the statistical results of many studies of the same questions, yielding an estimate of the size and
consistency of the variable’s effects"
• The gender similarities hypothesis states:
• Men and women are similar on most psychological variables.
• When there are differences, they are small.
• Exaggerated differences create costs in the workplace and in relationships.
Cognitive abilities
• Although there are no gender differences in overall intelligence, there are subtle differences
in specific cognitive abilities.
• Verbal abilities
• Girls start speaking sooner, have larger vocabularies and better reading scores.
• Boys fare better on verbal analogies but are three to four times more likely to stutter and five to ten times more likely to suffer
from dyslexia.
Mathematical abilities
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ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
Recent large meta-analyses show there are no longer gender differences in general mathematical performance or
achievement.
Exceptions to the findings:
Males have a more positive attitude toward math.
In high school, boys start to outperform girls in complex math problem solving.
Males outperform females at the high end of the distribution.
Mathematical abilities
 Since the pattern emerges late, researchers suggest it is due to differences in socialization.
 Boys take more math courses, which stress problem solving.
Spatial abilities
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The largest gender difference in cognitive abilities is in spatial abilities, or the ability to perceive and mentally
manipulate shapes and figures.
Males consistently outperform females in the ability to perform mental rotation of a figure in three dimensions.
Personality traits and social behavior
Self-esteem
Meta-analyses show that females score somewhat lower than males on measures of global self-esteem.
However: There is no support for a dramatic drop for girls during adolescence. Differences in self-esteem may not apply to all
ethnic groups.
Aggression – “involves behavior that is intended to hurt someone, either physically or verbally."
• Gender differences depend upon the form that aggression takes.
• Males are consistently more likely to engage in physical and verbal aggression.
• Males’ aggression is associated with crime.
Females are more likely to use:
•Relational aggression-behaviors that hurt another’s feelings (e.g., using the “silent treatment”), or
•Indirect aggression –behaviors that do not involve confronting the target directly (e.g., spreading rumors).
•Sexual attitudes and behavior:
•A meta-analysis by Peterson & Hyde (2010) found that men are slightly more likely to:
•engage in sexual activity.
•have more sexual partners.
•have more permissive attitudes about sex.
•Men are more likely to engage in casual sex, use more pornography, and masturbate more often.
•Women are socialized to feel more guilt and shame in response to sex.
Emotional expression
•Women are more likely to express emotion, but women and men experience emotions equally.
•Women are better able to recognize emotions in others’ facial expressions and nonverbal cues.
Communication
•Contrary to stereotype, men talk and interrupt more than do women.
•However, when women have more power at work or in relationships, they interrupt more.
•Who interrupts whom may depend upon status and males often have more status.
Psychological disorders
•Alcoholism and substance abuse disorders are more common in men.
•Women are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety.
•Females show higher rates of eating disorders.
•These are linked to distorted body image, which “consists of one’s attitudes, beliefs, and feelings about one’s body."
•Traditionally, pressure to be ultra-thin has affected white and Asian-American females.
•Recently, this trend is spreading to other ethnic groups and body insecurities are affecting males as well.
Putting gender differences in perspective
•Gender differences are quite small and similarities typically outweigh the differences.
•Gender accounts for a small proportion of the differences between individuals.
•When gender differences are found, they do not mean that one gender is better than another.
•Differences seem larger, according to social role theory, because they are exaggerated in our culture.
•Differences also seem larger, according to social constructionism theory, because we construct our own realities in accordance
with societal expectations.
Evolutionary explanations
•Gender differences are found in many cultures.
•Evolutionary psychologists argue these differences come from a time in which different demands were placed on males and
females for survival.
•e.g., aggression favored in males to compete for mates
•e.g., males’ spatial skills favored for demands of hunting
Brain organization
•The cerebral hemispheres are “the right and left halves of the cerebrum, which is the convoluted outer layer of the brain."
•The left hemisphere is more active in verbal and mathematical processes, whereas the right hemisphere specializes in visualspatial skills and other nonverbal processes.
•Males have more cerebral specialization than females. Thus, they depend more heavily on the right hemisphere for visual-spatial
tasks, and on the left hemisphere for verbal tasks.
•Females have a larger corpus callosum, which allows greater communication between hemispheres when completing similar
tasks.
•Limitations of brain organization explanations of gender differences:
•The findings are inconsistent.
•Differences in socialization occur as developmental changes in the brain are emerging and environmental experiences shape the
brain.
•Type of task matters.
•Overall, male and female brains are more similar than they are different
Hormonal influences
•Hormones–“chemical substances released into the bloodstream by the endocrine glands”
•Prenatal gender differentiation
•Hormones can exert powerful influences on the brain before birth.
•For example, female fetuses exposed to androgens (male hormones) in utero are born with masculine traits, including mental
abilities and choice of toys and play behavior.
Sexual and aggressive behavior
•Testosterone plays an important role in sexual desire for both men and women.
•Researchers have attempted to link testosterone to aggressive behavior, but the results are inconclusive because aggressive
behavior can also cause increases in testosterone.
•Overall, it is unclear how large a role biology plays in gender differences in behavior.
Environmental Origins
Socialization–“is the acquisition of the norms and roles expected of people in a particular society."
•Gender roles–“are cultural expectations about what is appropriate behavior for each gender."
•How are gender roles acquired in our culture?
Processes in gender-role socialization
•Reinforcement and punishment
•Gender roles are shaped by consequences.
•Parents, teachers, peers, and others reinforce “gender-appropriate” behavior.
•Parents, and fathers in particular, are much less tolerant of gender-inappropriate behavior, especially in their sons.
Observational learning
•Observational learning “occurs when a child’s behavior is influenced by observing others, who are called models."
•According to social cognitive theory, young children are especially likely to imitate same-gender adults.
Self-socialization
•Around 2 to 3 years of age, children identify themselves as “male” or “female” and begin to organize their world along gender
lines.
•They develop gender schemas, or “cognitive structures that guide the processing of gender-relevant information.”
Parents
•A meta-analysis of 172 studies shows that parents encourage play activities that are “gender-appropriate."
•Boys have less leeway to play with “feminine” toys than girls do with “masculine” toys.
•The picture books parents buy tend to depict gender-stereotypic activities.
Peers
•Between ages 4 and 6, children tend to separate into same-gender groups.
•Play takes different forms for boys and girls.
•Boys and girls are critical of peers who violate traditional gender norms.
Schools
•Gender bias in teachers’ treatment of boys and girls in class
•Boys are given more attention, given more help, praised more often, and scolded more often.
•Gender bias in academic and career counseling
•Males are advised to go into math and science fields, or to pursue higher status careers, even when girls’ grades are higher in
these areas.
•Suppressed emotions also can create problems in relationships.
Sexual Problems With Male Roles
•Obsession with sexual performance can create anxiety that interferes with sexual responsiveness.
•Men may confuse feelings of intimacy and sex.
•Sexualization of intimacy can cause inappropriate anxiety when men feel affection for another man, promoting homophobia
−“intense fear and intolerance of homosexuality"
Role expectations for females:
•The marriage mandate
•The motherhood mandate
•The above two expectations focus on heterosexual success–“learning how to attract and interest males as prospective mates”
•Work outside the home(in addition to having a satisfying family life).
•Diminished career aspirations
•Young women continue to have lower career aspirations than young men with comparable backgrounds.
•This phenomenon has been named the ability-achievement gap.
•Many women worry that they will be seen as less feminine and will not be able to attract a mate if they are too successful.
Juggling multiple roles
•Women who “want it all” experience more conflicts than do men who work and have families.
•Most men have one major responsibility: work. In contrast, working women have major responsibilities in three roles: work,
spouse, and mother.
Ambivalence about sexuality
•Many women have problems enjoying sex. This occurs for many reasons:
•Girls are taught to deny or suppress sexual feelings.
•Girls are taught to emphasize pursuing romance over sexual experience.
•Sex is associated with fear of pregnancy and, sometimes, pain.
The Past and the Future: Gender-Roles
Why are gender roles changing?
•Historically, gender roles have resulted from divisions of labor –aggression in men to allow for hunting and nurturing in women
to allow for childrearing.
•However, traditional roles no longer make economic sense. Machinery has replaced much manual labor, and both parents can rear
children.
Alternatives To Traditional Gender Roles
•Gender-role identity “is a person’s identification with the qualities regarded as masculine or feminine."
•However, many do not want to conform to traditional gender roles and experience strain when pressured to do so.
•In addition, relationship satisfaction is lower in heterosexual couples with traditional gender-role identities.
Androgyny–“refers to the coexistence of both masculine and feminine personality traits in a single person”
•According to: Bem (1975), androgynous individuals experience less restrictive constraints on their behavior and can function
more flexibly.• In addition, individuals whose partners are either androgynous or feminine are happier.
Gender-role transcendence
•The concept of androgyny does have limits.
•The gender-role transcendence perspective embraces “moving beyond gender roles” as a way of perceiving themselves and
others. •Instead of dividing human characteristics into masculine and feminine categories, we should use gender-neutral terms such
as “instrumental” and “expressive."
Gender variance
•Researchers are now more interested in gender variance, or gender nonconformity, rather than gender labels.
•Transgender individuals are “those whose sense of gender identity differs from their biological sex at birth; they often reject
gender labels.”
•New notion of gender fluidity is “the notion that gender is an unstable continuum and can vary over time”.
Gender in the Workplace
Sexism
•Sexism “is discrimination against people on the basis of their gender.”
•Benevolent sexism is to have positive feelings toward an individual but still treat the person in restricting ways based on his or
her gender.
Economic Discrimination
•There are two forms of economic discrimination:
1) Differential access to jobs
•Women are less likely to hold positions with decision-making authority.
2) Differential treatment on the job
•Women still earn lower salaries for the same jobs.
•The Glass Ceiling, “an unseen barrier that prevents most women and ethnic minorities from advancing to top-level professions”
•Glass elevator –“phenomena where men employed in traditionally female fields are promoted more quickly than female
counterparts”.
•Glass ceiling may stem from the tendency for women to risk negative evaluation when she acts in ways that counter gender
stereotypes.
•Queen Bees can distance themselves from their gender identity by acting more masculine, but this perpetuates idea that only
masculinity can lead to success.
Sexual harassment
•Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct on the basis of gender.
•Two categories of sexual harassment in the workplace:
•Quid pro quo harassment –expectation to give in to sexual demands in exchange for employment, raises, promotions, etc.
•Hostile environment harassment –exposure to sexist or sexually oriented comments, cartoons, posters, etc.
Targets of harassment
•Both women who are seen as more vulnerable and women who are seen as stronger are more often targets of harassment.
•Women who have experienced interpersonal violence or gone against gender-role expectations are more likely to be harassed.
•Minority women are more likely to be harassed than white women or men.
Effects of sexism and sexual harassment
•Perceived discrimination is related to increased depression, distress, and stress response.
•Sexual harassment is related to lower job satisfaction, less engagement at work, poorer physical and mental health, and
posttraumatic stress disorder.
Effects of sexism and sexual harassment
•Perceived discrimination is related to increased depression, distress, and stress response.
•Sexual harassment is related to lower job satisfaction, less engagement at work, poorer physical and mental health, and
posttraumatic stress disorder.
TABLE I- GENDER-RELATED CONCEPTS CHAPTER 11
Gender Stereotypes- Table CH. 11
Androgynous Table (male/female traits)