Psychological explanations of gender development: Cognitive development theory, inc. Kohlberg and Gender schema theory. Biological influences on gender, including hormones, evolutionary, and biosocial approach to gender dysphoria Social influences on gender, including parents, peers, and cultural influences on gender role

1. PSYA3 - Gender

2. Introduction…

3. Sex or gender?
• Sex – your physical anatomy
• Gender – your emotions
and beliefs e.g.
feminine/masculine

4. Brief history of gender…
1959 – Barbie introduced
1961 – Oral contraception introduced for married women
in UK
1967 – Abortion legalised up to 28 weeks, homosexuality
is decriminalised, gay pride movement
1973 – Homosexuality removed from DSM
1978 – Louise Brown, first IVF baby born
1990 – Abortion limited up to 24 weeks
2003 – Paternity leave introduced (2 weeks)
2005 – Same sex marriages legal in UK

5. Division 1 – Psychological
explanations of gender development
-Cognitive developmental
theory, including Kohlberg
- Gender schema theory

6. Kohlberg’s theory:
1. Gender Identity (2-3 years)
- able to label their own sex
- judge other’s sex on external feats.
- don’t understand gender is fixed
2. Gender Stability (3-7 years)
- realise gender is a fixed trait
- ‘Will you be a mummy or daddy
when you’re older?’
3. Gender Consistency (7-12 years)
- external feats. Such as a bloke in a
dress may confused the child
Kohlberg (1966) proposed that a child’s development of gender develops over
time through exploration of the world, in three stages:

7. Critique of Kohlberg:
- Gender typing is well under way before
the child acquires a mature gender
identity (Martin & Halverson, 1981)
- E.g. 2-3 year old boys prefer playing
with masculine toys, and other boys
rather than girly things
- Bem (1989) also states that 3-4 year
olds who have seen members of the
opposite sex naked may display gender-
consistency
- Only a rudimentary understanding of
gender permits gender stereotypes

8. Support for Kohlberg:
Slaby and Frey (1975)
- 55 children between 2 and 5 ½ years
- Interviewed to test 3 stages of gender
identity
- From the interview, they found that:
97% had achieved gender identity
75% had achieved gender stability
50% had achieved gender consistency
- Study shows that stages are sequential like
Kohlberg said
- HOWEVER, findings also show gender
consistency may be acquired earlier than
Kohlberg thought

9. Schema theory - Martin and
Halverson (1981):
2 key factors that differ from Kohlberg
1. They believe that the process of
understanding gender occurs before gender
consistency is achieved.
2. Martin and Halverson also suggest that
stereotypes affect later behaviour.

10. Schema Theory (cognitive):
Schema = A hypothetical mental construct that
contains your knowledge about a specific
topic. E.g. gender. <- learn that
So basically… A collection of ideas that helps
you to define specific things? <- that’s there to
help you understand.
Schema’s are resilient and don’t often change.

11. Schema theory – Martin and
Halverson (1981):
Gender schemas – Organised sets of beliefs
and expectations about males and females
that guide information processing
In-group/out-group– One’s general
knowledge of the
mannerisms, roles, activities, and
behaviours that characterise males and
females
Own-sex schema – Detailed knowledge or
plans of action that enable a person to
perform gender-consistent activities and to
enact his/her gender role.

12. More Martin and Halverson (1987):
Argue that self-socialisation begins as soon as
the child acquires a basic gender identity at ages
2 and ½ to 3
And is well under way by ages 6 and 7, when
gender consistency is achieved.

13. Martin and Halverson – Gender
Schema Theory (still):
They believe that individuals focus on
INGROUP SCHEMAS prior to Gender
Consistency.
Ingroup– Groups in which a person
identifies, for example: being a girl, and
being chums because you like the same
boy band.
Outgroup– People outside of the
ingroup, which is negatively evaluated by
the ingroup.
Individuals in the ingroup settle, they then
positively evaluate their group and
negatively evaluate the outgroup.

14. Martin et al(probs Halverson, let’s face it…) (1995)
- 4 to 5 year olds were shown unfamiliar gender
neutral toys
- And were told whether they were ‘for boys’ or
‘for girls’
- Boys preferred boys objects, and girls preferred
girls.
- However, in another experiment, the same toys
were used, but were labelled oppositely, and they
found that the matched-gender toys were
preferred

15. Evaluating Gender Schema Theory:
• Lab studies – improved reliability if
repeated to get consistent results
• Lab studies – objective, and gather
quantitative data, which is also more
reliable, and easily analysed.
• Unfalsifiable (good and bad) – it can’t
be proved or disproved.
• Cultural relativism – Different
cultures have very different attitudes
• Historical validity – Martin &
Halverson was 1981… Views change
over time e.g. homosexuality
• Reductionist – Thought processes
only, doesn’t account for biological or
social factors
• Subjective – Opinion based
• Longitudinal studies (2-6 weeks from
Slaby and Frey) may suffer from
attrition rates.

16. Question time!
Discuss one or more psychological
theory of gender (8+16 marks)

17. Division 2 – Biological influences
on gender
-The role of hormones in gender
development
-Evolutionary explanations of gender
-The biosocial approach to gender
development, inc. gender dysphoria

18. Biological

19. Biological sexual development:
• Sex of a baby is determined at conception, being
either XX (girl) or XY (male)
• At 6 weeks:
- male Wolffiansystem, males develop seminal
ducts
- female Mullerian system, uterus/fallopian tubes
• Swabb and Fliers (1985) identified the sexually
dimorphic nucleus in the hypothalamus, which is
2.5x larger in MALES, than in FEMALES

20. Case study: Colapinto (2000) – The
Case of Bruce and Brian Reimer
- Identical twins born in Canada, 1965
- At 6 months, they had a circumcision. Bruce’s went
horribly wrong, ending with his penis being burnt off
- The parents sought advice from Money and
Erhardt, who suggested his penis & testes were
removed. Bruce was renamed Brenda and raised as a
girl
- Money claimed the surgery was a success
- Brenda reached puberty, and was given female
hormones to encourage breasts but she was depressed
- Her parents told her what had happened
- Brenda reverted back to male and had a penis
constructed and renamed himself David
- He got married, and had 3 step-children. But they
divorced in 2002 and David killed himself

21. Evaluation:
• Argues that sex is more
important than gender
• Case study – therefore
it may not be
generalisable
• It also can never be
repeated due to
EXTREME ethical issues

22. Gorskiet al (1985) influence of
hormones (rats):
• Female rats injected with
testosterone prior to birth
• Rats developed ambiguous
genitals (enlarged clitoris), and
parts of brains looked like
males
• Behaviour was ‘masculinised’
– Female rats tried to mate
other female rats…

23. Young et al (1964) – Influence of
hormones (monkeys)
• Researched female
monkeys, who were exposed to
male hormones during prenatal
period
• Found that these monkeys
were more likely to engage in
‘rough-and-tumble’ than the
female monkeys who had not
been exposed.

24. Evaluation of Young et al and Gorskiet
al:
• Objective – looking at
effects of hormones
• Comparative study –
research on animals
may not be
generalisable to
humans

25. Shaywitz and Shaywitz (1995):
• Conducted an MRI on men and women doing
a language task
• Men only used their left hemisphere
• Women used left and right
May show that women
are better at multitasking?

26. Evaluating Shaywitz and Shaywitz:
• Objective – reliable, as
it’s based on
neuropsychology
• Lab study – more
control over the
variables
• Demand
characteristics? As it’s in
a lab study… May have
felt pressured
• Lowered ecological
validity
• Not considering
individual differences

27. Case study: Imperato-McGinley et al
(1979)
- Batista Family born in Dominican Rep.
- Four children born with external
female genitalia raised as girls
- When they hit puberty, large amounts
of testosterone was released and they
developed male genitalia
- Relabelled as boys, then they were
fine.

28. Evaluation:
• Argues that your gender
is more important than
your sex
• Case study – therefore
it may not be
generalisable
• It also can never be
repeated due to
EXTREME ethical issues

29. Evolutionary

30. ES Theory – Baron-Cohen (2002):
Research has shown that women are
better at EMPATHISING
Whereas men are supposedly better at
SYSTEMATISING
Baron-Cohen (uncle of BORAT
nonetheless!) (2002) calls this the ‘E-S
theory’
Shows woman look after baby, but man have evolutionary
advantage for hunting & stuff. I like to make sexy time.

31. Parental Investment Theory – Trivers
(1972):
Women invest a lot into
children, as they give
birth, and have to
spend months
breastfeeding also.
Men however, have an
abundance of
sperm, which they can
fire willy-nilly, and don’t
have to worry about
potentially carrying
something in their
belly’s for 9 months.
This suggests that males should be more competitive between one another and
females will be more ‘choosy’ because of the amount of investment, searching for the
male with best fitness and good genes to pass onto her offspring (Trivers 1972).

32. Mate Choice Theory – Buss (1989):
Women tend to look for
guys who have
resources:
- Wealth
- Power
- Showy
Guys tend to look for
women with
reproductive traits:
- Big ‘childbearing’ hips
- Big boobs
- Smooth skin
- Healthy
- Youthful

33. Mate Choice research: Waynforth and
Dunbar (1995)
• Researchers used personal
ads to find what men and
women wanted.
• 44% MEN sought physically
attractive females compared
to only 22% of WOMEN
seeking looks.
• 50% women offered
attractiveness as a
quality, whereas only 34% of
males did.

34. Division of labour – Kuhn and Stiner
(2006):
• Men are hunters
• Women are gatherers and
childbearers.
If that wasn’t the way, then there
would be less chance of reproductive
success as the woman carries the
child AND gives birth.
Kuhn and Stiner (2006) suggest this is
why Humans survived and
Neanderthals didn’t.

35. Question time!
Evolutionary theories can explain
gender role differences. Discuss.
(8+16 marks)

36. Biosocial
Looks at how your biology effects
how people in society act towards
you

37. Biosocial – Intro:
Moss (1967) found that at 3
weeks old, boys were more
irritable and harder to pacify
(calm down) than girls.

38. Wood and Eagly (2002):
• Physical differences between men and women
cause psychological differences
• Men are taller, larger, and faster – they are
viewed as more effective hunters
• Women are able to give birth and feed children –
seen as caring for offspring
• Each sex develops characteristics for the tasks
their sex typically performs

39. Support for Wood &Eagly (2002) =
Cross cultural research:
• Biosocial theory shows us that although
gender is constrained by physical
attributes, there is flexibility depending on
cultural influence.
• Clear division between men and women.
• However, women now have more choice, for
example the introduction of contraception has
given them a choice.

40. Money and Erhardt (1972):
• Anatomy at birth determines
how infant is socialised
• Money &Erhardt claim there is a
period where a child’s gender is
still flexible before the age of 3
This is contradictory to the Case
of David Reimer
(Bruce/Brenda/David) (1965)
who was only 6 months when his
gender was reassigned –
who, Money and Erhardt were
involved with… AWKWARD.

41. Support for Money and Erhardt – Case
study of Mr. Blackwell:
• Boy, raised to have a male
gender identity
• At puberty, he became a
hermaphrodite when he
developed female genitalia
and breasts
• His brain was not fully
masculinised, however
elected to remain male.
Supports biosocial approach.

42. Biosocial – evaluation:
• Holistic – although not
entirely. It’s more ‘less
reductionist’ as is looks at
both biological and social
factors
• Nature v.s. Nurture – It
looks at both, less
reductionist.
• Cultural relativism –
Considered in Wood and
Eagly’s research

43. Question!
Discuss biosocial theories of gender
(8+16 marks)

44. Gender Dysphoria
Gender dysphoria is a condition in
which a person feels there is a mis-
match between their biological sex and
their gender identity.

45. Definitions!
Word Definition
Gender Mentality – masculine/feminine
Sex Physical anatomy
Cognitive Development How your personality develops over
time (e.g. Kohlberg)
Gender Roles Stereotypical views of men and
women
Biosocial Combination of biological and
social factors. i.e. How society view
you because of your anatomy

46. More definitions!
Word Definition
Historical validity Whether or not it’s generalisable
throughout history
Androgens Male hormones
Hermaphrodites Born with both female and male
genitalia
Schema An individual’s collection of beliefs
Lateralisation of function Different parts of your brain having
different functions
Neuropsychology Psychologically relating to the brain
Gender dysphoria Feeling a mismatch between
anatomy and gender

48. Gender Dysphoria
• It has a prevalence of 1/4000 people
• Within this topic, we look atboth biological
explanations: Brain-sex
theory, pesticides, prenatal influences
• And Psychological explanations: Psychosexual
approaches, Coates, Stoller, Oedipus and
electra complexes

49. Biological explanations - Brain-sex
theory:
• Male and female brains
are different, transsexuals
may not match genetic
sex
• The BSTc (striaterminalis)
is TWICE as large in
heterosexual men with
TWICE as many neurones
compared with women.

50. Brain sex theory – Zhou et al (1995)
and Kruijveret al (2000):
• Found that the number of neurones in MtF
(male to female) transsexuals was similar to
that of females.
• The same was true of FtM (female to male)
transsexuals.
Based on biology = objective = reliable
May not be generalisable due to individ diff.

51. Biological – Pesticides & environment:
• DDT (pesticide) contains oestrogen (female
hormone)
• If males are exposed, they could develop GID
(Gender identity disorder)

52. Biological – Prenatal influences:
• Affected by genetic
conditions
• Mis-match between
hormones and genetic sex
for example…
AIS (androgen insensitive
syndrome) and
CAH (congenital adrenal
hyperplasmia) where external
genitalia does not match
genetic sex
Ambiguous genitalia or
complete androgen
insensitive syndrome (CAIS)
means testes instead of
ovaries
Congenital adrenal
hyperplasia – Males can have
large penises, whereas
females could have
ambiguous genitalia due to
extra androgens in utero

53. Evaluation – Biological:
• Objective, when looking
at hormone levels. Such
as oestrogen present in
DDT
• Reductionist

54. Psychological – psychosexual
approaches:
• From a Freudian point of
view, gender dysphoria would
stem from some sort of
unresolved childhood issue
For example, being stuck in a
psychosexual stage
(oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital)
Or the Oedipus/Electra complex
Oedipus = boys fear castration.
Electra = girls want to have sex
with their dad.

55. Psychological – Coates et al (1991):
• Boy developed GID
• His mother had an
abortion when he was 3 (a
sensitive age for gender
issues – as said by Money
&Erhardt also!)
• Boy may have developed
GID to cope with anxiety
from his mother’s abortion

56. Evaluation for Coates et al (1991):
• Case study provides us
with details of
individuals which may
not be recreated.
• Case study’s not
generalisable
• May not be reliable
• Unable to replicate
• Androcentric

57. Psychological – Stoller (1995):
• Proposed that GID
stemmed from distorted
parental attitudes
• In clinical
interviews, Stoller found
GID boys to have close
mother-son relationships
• Which may have confused
Gender Identity

58. Evaluation for Stoller(1995):
• Lab study –
replicable, would increase
reliability if retested and
similar results were
obtained
• Interviews are subjective
• Would be conducted in a
lab, may lack ecological
validity and be subject to
social desirability bias
• Focuses on boys –
Androcentric
• Only looks at
psychology, not individual
differences = reductionist

59. Question!
Compare and contrast explanations
for gender dysphoria (8+16 marks)

60. Division 3 – Social influences on
gender
- Social influences on gender (for example,
parents, peers, media – in this powerpoint, I
only included peers and parents)
- Cultural influences on gender role

61. Social:
Primary socialisers (also
known as Informal
socialising agents) include
people such as family, and
siblings.
Secondary socialisers (also
known as formal socialising
agents) include the
media, law enforcers, and
teachers.

62. Influence of parents/peers on gender
identity (SLT):
• SLT (Bandura and Walters 1963) came up with
social learning theory, which was a precursor
to Social cognitive theory
BOTH emphasise the importance of our social
environment on our development.

63. Social learning theory:
Children learn gender roles through
both positive and negative
reinforcements for gender-
appropriate behaviour
Positive behaviour leads to
praise, and an increase of that
behaviour
Negative behaviour leads to
punishment/negative
reception, which means that
behaviour is often extinguished
fairly rapidly.

64. Social Learning Theory:
Observational learning is
learning through what
you see. This is also
known as vicarious
reinforcement.
A lot of what you learn for
gender-identity is gained
by watching your primary
and secondary socialisers.

65. SLT – Bandura and Bussey (1992):
• Tested the importance of self-
evaluation
• Asked 3-4 year old boys and girls
whether they would ‘feel great’ or
‘feel awful’ about playing with
same-sex, and cross-sex toys.
• They found their choices were
consistent with their gender. (So
girls felt better about playing with
stereotypically feminine toys etc…)

66. Inf. of parents – Rubin et al (1974):
• Investigate parents perceptions of
new borns
• Newborns matched on
size, weight and muscle tone
• Sons described as
‘strong, active, coordinated’
• Daughters described as
‘beautiful, little, delicate’
• Shows that from birth, parents
have different expectations of
children based on their sex

67. Inf. of parents – Langlois and Downs
(1980):
• Analyse parents response to sex-appropriate
and sex-inappropriate play
• 96 children (aged 3 or 5), boys and girls
tested
• Their parents tested individually
• Both mothers and fathers rewarded same-
sex toys for both boys and girls through
attention
• Punished play from cross-sex toys through
behaviours like teasing
• Fathers more likely to punish older boys
rather than girls or younger children
• Reinforcement and punishment in response
to children’s choice of toys

68. Parental influence - Fagot et al (1992):
- found that children acquired strong gender
preferences more quickly when their parents
showed clear differential reinforcement.
This highlights the importance of parents on
gender identity.

69. Parental influence - Smith and Lloyd
(1978) – Baby X studies:
• ‘Baby-X’ studies are where the true
gender of the child is unknown, or
externally changed through name-change
and clothing-change
• Adults played with the children, who were
either dressed as boys or girls.
• ‘Boys’ were bounced/jiggled, more
physical movement. Whereas play with
‘girls’ was more gentle.
• The same was true with gender-typed
toys. So ‘boys’ were given squeaky
hammers, whereas ‘girls’ got dolls.

70. Support for Smith & Lloyd (1978) –
Culp et al (1983):
• Also found that adults played more active games
with ‘boys’ and verbal/gentle games ‘girls’

71. Peer influence – Bandura (1999):
• Peer influences set examples of gender-linked
behaviours. They provide an example for what
is ‘appropriate’.
This is how to be
a girl
Ooh…
oops

72. Peer influence – Lamb et al (1980):
• Children prefer to associate with same-gender
peers, pursuing same-gender activities. If
not, there’s often social punishment.

73. Peer influence – Fagot (1985):
• Boys are more likely to be ridiculed for
showing feminine traits.

74. Peer influence – additional studies:
Maccoby (1998) – ‘Peers are primary socialising
agents of gender development’ though, not so
much as infancy.
Lamb and Roopharine (1979) – Observed pre-
school children at play. They found that when
male-typed behaviour was enforced in boys, it
lasted longer than it did in girls. This
reinforcement only acts as a reminder of what’s
already known.

75. Cultural influence – Margaret Mead
(1935):
• Studied three cultures in Papua New Guinea:
The Arapesh Mundugamor Tchambuli
- Cooperative, gentle
people
- Little distinction between
males & females
- Shared domestic
responsibilities (raising
kids)
- Shared physical
responsibilities (heavy
lifting)
- Aggressive hostile people
- Little distinction between
males and females
- Children largely
disregarded by both sexes
- Women were aggressive,
and main supporters of
families
- Men dressed up, gossiped
and shopped
People in all three cultures believed that their cultures were
naturally structured that way. More variety than can be accounted
for from evolutionary perspective.

76. Cultural – Tager and Good (2005):
• To compare gender roles of American and Italian
males. AND, compare north/central and southern
Italians.
• Italian, and American MALE students took
‘Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory’ test
• Test includes 11 scales to assess traditional
masculine norms, such as dominance, primacy of
work, pursuit of status
• Italians scored significantly lower on 9/11 studies
(conforming less to masculine norms)
• Northern scored significantly lower than lose in
the south, but southerners were significantly less
than Americans
• There are significant differences in gender roles
both BETWEEN and WITHIN cultures

77. Evaluation – Tager and Good (2005):
• Calculating a significance
suggests that a statistical
test was used, turning
qualitative data into
quantitative
data, therefore
replicability and maybe
even reliability
increased.
• Androcentric
• Cultural bias? May be
different in other
countries (outside of
Italy/America)
• Social desirability bias
may have affected
outcome

78. Media influence – Hoffner (1996):
• Identify children’s favourite TV
characters and ‘wishful
identification’
• 155 children aged 7-12 including
both guys and girls were interviewed
• Both sexes preferred same-sex
characters
• Boys = Looked for strength in males
• Girls = Looked for attractiveness in
girls
• Children identify with them along
gender-stereotypical lines

79. Media – Aubrey and Harrison (2004):
• Found that although some
characters were gender-
neutral
• Males were significantly
more likely than females to
answer questions, give
orders, problem solve and
achieve a goal

80. Media – Kim and Lowry (2005):
• Adverts on TV
• Women were much
more likely to be shown
as dependent on
others, nurturing
children and to be at
home than men

81. Question!
Discuss one or more social
explanation for gender identity (8+16
marks)