Developmental Psychology 1

Gender Roles
PSY235
Developmental Psychology 2
1. Male and Female
2. Gender Norms and Stereotypes
expressive role
instrumental role
3. Actual Gender Differences
Re conclusions from Maccoby and Jacklin
(1974)
a) Verbal Abilities
b) Spatial Ability
c) Mathematical Ability
d) Aggression
Eagly (1987): social-role hypothesis
Developmental Psychology 3
4. Gender Development
a) The Infant: gender identity
b) The Child: Acquiring stereotypes; gender-typed
behaviour (gender segregation)
5. The Adolescent: gender intensification
6. Theories of Gender-Role Development
a) Biosocial Theory
b) Psychoanalytic Theory
c) Social Learning/ Social Cognitive Theory
d) Cognitive Theories
Cognitive Development Theory: Gender
Constancy (gender identity, gender stability,
gender consistency)
Gender Schema Theory:gender schemata
Developmental Psychology 4
7. Adults
Androgyny
Money and Ehrhardts biosocial theory of
gender typing (table)
Developmental Psychology 5
Kohlberg (1966, 1969) used the term gender
constancy to refer to the concept that a
persons sex is a permanent attribute that is
tied to underlying biological properties (i.e.,
the persons genitals and genetic
constitution) and does not depend on
surface characteristics such as the persons
hair length, style of clothing, choice of play
activities, and so on.
Developmental Psychology 6
Kohlbergs Classic Approach
I am a girl, therefore I want to do girl
things, therefore the opportunity to do girl
things (and to gain approval for doing them)
is rewarding.
Developmental Psychology 7
Kohlberg (1966)
Gender constancy
1. Gender identity
2. Gender stability
3. Gender consistency
Developmental Psychology 8
Gender constancy is comprised of three
components:
1. Gender identity
2. are you a boy of a girl?
2. Gender stability
when you grow up, will you be a mummy or a
daddy?
3. Gender consistency
if you played with dolls, what would you be?
Developmental Psychology 9
Girls Gender Constancy Interview
Developmental Psychology 10
Sociocognitive Influences
Outcome expectations
1. Social sanctions
2. Self sanctions
Self-efficacy expectations
Developmental Psychology 11
Gender Schema theory in action (table)
The schematic-processing model of sex
role stereotyping (table)
Social Cognitive
Freud Learning Development
Theory Theory
Sex drive
Cultural forces Cognitive development
Directed toward
father, blocked by
mother
Identification with
mother so as to
gain father
(or father substitute)
Make girl fit
gender role
Emerging self-
concept, which
includes a gender
identity as a she
Gender role
Gender
identity
Acceptance of gender
role in an attempt to
live up to self-concept
Figure 14.13 (14.10) Three theories of sex typing
Femininity
High Low
High
Masculinity
Low
Feminine
sex-typed
Androgynous
Masculine
sex-typed
Undifferentiated
Figure 11.7 Categories of gender-role orientation based on viewing
masculinity and femininity as separate dimensions of personality
Developmental Psychology 14
Serbin, Poulin-Dubois, Colburne, Sen, &
Eichstedt (2001)
Although children display toy preferences consistent
with gender stereotypes as early as 14 to 20 months,
the use of gender labels does not occur until about 2
1/2 years of age.
Although gender-stereotype knowledge, preferences,
and behavior all emerge during the first 3 years, the
developmental sequence for their emergence has not
been established.
Two studies investigated the development of
preferences for stereotyped toys and knowledge of the
association of toys with gender categories between 12
and 24 months, using the preferential looking
paradigm.
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STUDY 1
Participants: 12, 18, and 23 months
Procedure: in a series of trials, infants were
shown stereotyped male and female toys (vehicles
and dolls). Each pair of toys was preceded by
either a male or female face and voice to
determine whether the infant could visually match
the toy with the face by looking differentially at
the toy that corresponded to the preceding face. In
the interspersed control trials only the male- and
female-stereotyped toys were shown (see Figure 1
for the stimuli used)
Results:
1. 12 months: children of both sexes showed a
visual preference for dolls over trucks - no
evidence of any awareness of gender
stereotyping of the toys.
2. 18 months: boys showed more visual interest in
the male sex-typed vehicles than girls did, and
girls looked longer at the dolls than boys did
3. 23 months - as for the 18 month old infants,
these infants also displayed gender-linked
preferences, i.e. boys looked longer at the
vehicles than did the girls and girls looked longer
at the dolls than did the boys - as for the younger
two age groups there was no evidence of
"matching" either dolls or vehicles with their
respective gender category.
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STUDY 2
Concern that in Study 1 children may have been
so drawn to the toy because it was familiar to
them (My truck!) that they did not match objects
to people. Therefore, in this study children saw
two photos of the same toy followed by a girl and
boy face.
Participants: 18- and 24-months.
Procedure: During the trials a neutral voice said,
"See my car (doll)?" - two identical photos of the
toys were followed by the boy and girl faces and a
neutral voice saying "Look at me" and "Look at
the people" for the control trials (no voice prompt
was used in the first study for the control trial - it
was used here to equate attention to the photos)
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Results
1. girls looked significantly more at the faces that
"matched" the preceding toy standard than at the
"mismatching" faces or control faces - no
differences in boys looking times across the
conditions
2. no preferences for either same- or other-sex
children's faces
Conclusion
- gender-linked preferences are evident at 18
months - knowledge of gender-linked
preferences is more tentative - it occurs for girls
and not boys and is dependent on the
methodology used
Developmental Psychology 19
Poulin-Dubois, Serbin, &
Derbyshire (1998)
the hypothesis that understanding gender as a social
category is an important influence on children's
gender-role learning during the preschool years has
received mixed support
contrary to Kohlberg's view many aspects of gender
stereotyping appear before the acquisition of gender
constancy - some argue that children may have an
earlier understanding of gender than is assumed from
methods that rely verbal assessment methods
to date no study has shown any relationship between
the stereotyped behavior and gender labels
two studies aimed to evaluate intermodal gender
knowledge and gender labeling in children 18 to 24
months
Developmental Psychology 20
STUDY 1
18 month old infants
4 pairs of black and white photos of men's and
women's faces
PROCEDURE: voice-matching trials: a male or
female voice said "Hi baby! Look at me!" and a
pair (male and female) pictures appeared on the
screen
- label-matching trials: a gender neutral voice said,
"Where is the lady/man"? and followed by "Look
at the lady/man"
- control trials: no voice was presented
Developmental Psychology 21
RESULTS:
1. voice-matching task: the mean looking
time was higher on the male matching
faces than on the male mismatching or
neutral faces; the mean looking time at the
female matching faces was higher than the
mean looking time on the female
mismatching faces and control faces;
matching of male and female faces was
significantly greater than chance
Developmental Psychology 22
2. label-matching task: only girls looked
more at faces that matched the label than
at mismatching faces; the mean
percentage of time that girls spent looking
at the faces was significantly above
chance
3. - the voice matching task was easier
than the label-matching task
4. - 65% were able to categorize faces and
voices as a function of gender but only 32%
succeeded on the labeling task
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STUDY 2
included both 18 and 24 month old infants
and substituted pictures and voices of
children for those of adults
same procedure as for Study 1 - "Where is
the girl (boy)? Find the girl/boy."
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RESULTS:
1. voice-matching task: no significant effects
2. label-matching task: children looked longer at
the matching than the nonmatching faces,
however, this percentage was only above chance
for boy label (52.3%) and not for the girl label
(51.1%)
- therefore children can match adult faces and
voices before they can match those of boys and
girls
- further, children understood the label boy
before man, woman, girl and this is consistent
with a large scale normative study on the order of
acquisition of labels for adults and children
(Fenson et al., 1994)