PSY210H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Sexual Selection, Biosocial Theory, These Girls
PSY210 Chapter 15: Gender Development
Introduction
● Two main questions: (1) how similar or different are girls and boys in terms of psychological
variables? (2) what might account for these differences?
● Sex: biological origins for any differences between males and females, based on one’s sex
chromosomes
● Gender: more neutral term that refers to people’s categorization of other individuals or one’s self-
categorization as either female or male
● Gender-typed: behaviors stereotyped for a given person’s gender
○ Cross-gender-typed: behaviors contrary to those stereotyped for a given person’s
gender
○ Gender typing: the process of gender socialization during development
Theoretical Approaches to Gender Development
● Biological Influences
○ Evolutionary Approaches
■ Evolutionary psychology theory
● According to this theory, certain behavioral tendencies occur because
they helped humans survive during the course of evolution
● It’s been proposed that boys’ play-fighting may represent an “evolved
tendency to practice the competencies that were associated with male-
male competition during human revolution”
● Girls are more likely than boys on average to devote effort to establishing
and maintaining positive social relations, spend time in smaller groups of
close female friends, and tend to avoid open conflict in their interactions
● Critics
○ Claims about sex differences in personality traits cant be tested
○ Evolutionary psychology theory can be construed as a
rationalization for maintaining the status quo in traditional gender
roles
■ Biosocial theory
● Focuses on evolution of observable physical differences between the
sexes
● Emphasizes the capacity for behavioral flexibility as an adaptation to
environmental variability
● Argue that for much of human history, the most important physical
differences have been (1) men’s greater average size, strength, and foot
speed and (2) women’s childbearing and nursing capacities
● Biology does not necessarily determine destiny
○ In our current technological societies, men’s strength and other
physical qualities are not relevant for most means of subsistence
○ As gender equality has increased, greater numbers of women
have entered these high status occupations
● Both sex differences and social ecology shape the different gender
roles assigned to men and women
● Evolutionary psychologists take issue with this theory, asserting that the
body and the mind evolved together and that biosocial theory addresses
only the body’s impact on gender development
● In sum, evolutionary psychology theory and biosocial theory both
acknowledge the importance of evolution and the physical differences
between men and women but evolutionary psychology theoriests place
relatively more emphasis on sex differences in evolved genetic traits
leading to differences in behavioral dispositions in men and women
○ Neuroscience Approaches
■ Genes
● Biological sex is determined whether a person has XX (famel) or XY
(male) chromosome pairs
● Studies with mice indicate links between genes on the Y chromosome
and later levels of some aspects of aggression and parenting behaviors
● There are no studies documenting direct links between genes and
gender-typed behavior in humans
■ Hormones and Brain functioning
● Androgenes: a class of steroid hormones that includes testosterone
○ During normal prenatal development, the production of
androgens leads to the formation of male genitalia in genetic
males; in the absence of high levels of androgens, female
genitalia are formed in genetic females
● Androgenes can have organising or activating influences on the nervous
system
● Organizing influence: when certain sex-linked hormones affect brain
differentiation and organization durinng prenatal development or at
puberty
○ For example, sex-related differences in prenatal androgens may
influence the organization and functionig of the nervous system;
in turn, this may be related to later average gender differences in
cdertain play preferences
● Although androgen levels are typically higher in genetic males than
genetic females during prenatal development, there are conditions in
which genetic females are exposed to high levels of androgens. These
girls are more likely to prefer certain masculine-stereotyped activities in
childhood
● Activating influence: when fluctuations in sex-linked hormone levels
influence the contemporaneous activation of cerain brain and
behnavioral responses
○ For instance, the boy increases androgen production in response
to perceived threats, with possible implications for gender
differences in aggression
■ Brain structure and functioning
● Adult male and female brains show some small differences in physical
structure however these differences don’t appear to result in any clear
advantage of cognitive performance
● Gender Identity: More Than Socialization?
○ Gender dysphoria: when children do not identify with the gender assigned to them at
birth
○ Transgender: individuals who do not identify with their gender assigned at birth
○ Cisgender: children who identify with their assigned gender at birth
○ High levels of androgens produced during the prenatal development of genetic females
can lead to congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a condition that involves the
formation of male genitalia
■ Girls with CAH are more likely to choose physically active forms of play and
avoid sedentary forms of play
○ Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS): a rare syndrome in genetic males which cause
androgen receptors to malfunction. Genetic males may be born with female external
genitalia
■ Commonly identify as girls and generally show preferences for feminine-
sterotyped interests
○ Cases of children with CAH and AIS offer evidence to support the premise that prenatal
androgens may partly contribute to boys’ and girls’ gender identities and to gender-typed
play preferences
● Cognitive and Motivational Influences
○ Cognitive theorists stress children’s active self-socialization: individuals use their
beliefs, expectations, and preferences to guide how they perceive the world and the
actions they choose
○ Cognitive Developmental Theory
■ Kohlberg proposed that children actively construct knowledge about gender in
the same ways that PIaget theorized children construct knowledge about the
physical world
■ First, he posited that children actively seek to understand the meaning of gender
through observing and interacting with the world around them
■ Second, Kohlberg proposed cognitive developmental changes in children’s
understanding of gender during early childhood
■ Three stage process
● First, by around 30 months of age, young children acquire a gender
identity, categorizing themselves usually as either a girl or boy
○ However, they don’t realize gender is permanent
● Second stage begins at about 3-4 years, which is gender stability,
wherein children come to realize that gender remains the same over time
○ However, they’re still not clear that gender is independent of
superficial appearance and thus believe that a boy who has put
on a dress and now looks like a girl has indeed become a girl
● Third stage, around 6 years of age, children achieve gender constancy,
the understanding that gender is invariant across situations
○ Same stage at which children begin to succeed on Piagetian
conservation problems
○ Gender Schema Theory
■ In contrast to Kohlberg’s view that gender-typed interests emerge after gender
constancy is achieved, gender schema theory holds that the motivation to enact
gender-typed behavior begins as soon as children can label other people’s and
their own gender - usually by about 3 years of age, which is younger than gender
constancy is attained
■ Children’s understanding of gender develops through their construction of
gender schemas, which are mental representations that incorporate everything
the child knows about gender
■ Children use an in-group/out-group gender schema to classify other people as
being either “the same as me” or not
● As a consequence, an own-gender schema is formed, consisting of
detailed knowledge about how to do things that are consistent with one’s
own gender
