Sex and Gender Unit 2

Created by: nacholuckyday
Created on: 26-03-17 21:05

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Sex and Gender
- Sex and gender identity
  - Male hormone: testosterone
  - Female hormone: oestrogen
  - Male chromosome: XY
  - Female Chromosome: **
- Psychodynamic theory (Freud)
  - The 5 psychosexual stages
    - The phallic stage (6 yrs old)
      - Oedipus complex
        A boy generates a desire for the mother and fears his father will castrate him. To resolve this, the boy identifies with his father and internalises male characteristics; acquiring a male indentity
        
        Little Hans (phobia of horses)
      - Electra complex
        A girl generates a desire for the father and experiences penis envy. She fears losing her mother's love. To resolve this, she identifies with her mother and internalises female characteristics; acquiring a female identity
  - Gender disturbance (lone-parent household)
    - According to Freud, a child will experience a poorly developed gender identity
      - Because they do not resolve the Oedipus/Electra complex
    - Carl (boy with feminine identity)
    - Rekers and Moray (boys without a father)
  - Evalutation
    - Difficult to test because it's based on unconscious thoughts and feelings
    - Little evidence to support
    - Psychologists have shown that a wide range of people influence a child's gender development
    - As the number of children raised by lone-parent increases, the number of homosexuals is not affected
- Social learning theory
  - Gender is learnt from watching and learning the behaviour of others
    - Example: Amir watches his father painting the fence. Amir's mother tells his father that he is doing a good job. Amir then starts imitating his father and painting the fence. He has learnt through vicarious reinforcement
  - Examples of models: friends, same-sex parent, teachers, older siblings
  - Perry and Bussey (role models)
- Media
  - Provides models for gender behaviour
  - Television shows men and women stereotyped
    - Example: Women are shown as housewives, secretaries and nurses
    - Example: Men are shown as doctors, police officers and business managers
  - Williams (television gender roles)
  - Evaluation
    - Theory is well supported by research. Large number of studies.
    - Does not explain why children brought up in lone-parent households do not have any difficulty developing their gender
    - Does not explain why same sex siblings can behave differently
    - This theory believes that gender is learnt. It ignores biological differences between males and females
- Gender schema theory
  - mental building block of knowledge that contains information about each gender
    - contains information such as behaviours, clothes, activities, personality traits and roles
  - Martin (flexible views in older children)
  - At a young age, children have rigid and stereotyped ideas of gender. But as they get older, their gender schemas become more flexible
  - At age 6, children know a lot about their own gender but not much about the opposite sex.
    - They concentrate more on the things that are appropriate for their own gender.
  - Children who are stereotyped look for information to support their ideas and ignore or remember wrongly information that does not fit with their schema
  - Levy and Carter (highly gender schematised)
  - Evaluation
    - Detailed and supported by evidence
    - Has intuitive appeal (fits in with our experiences)
    - Does not explain why some children are more highly gender schematised than others
    - Does not explain why gender begins to develop at age 2
    - Does not explain why children choose same-sex friends and gender-appropriate toys before they are able to correctly identify themselves

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Sex and Gender Unit 2

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