1. Chapter 4
Gender Self-Concept: Developmental Processes and Individual Differences
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2. Gender Self-Concept
Gender identity: One’s self-definition as female or male
Most people establish a gender identity consistent with their external reproductive organs
Across gender identity, people vary in their gender attitudes: beliefs about the appropriate traits, interests, behaviors, and roles of females and males
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3. Theories of Gender Typing
Gender typing: the acquisition of the traits, behaviors, and roles that are generally associated with one’s gender
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4. Theories of Gender Typing
Psychoanalytic theory (Sigmund Freud): gender typing stems from children’s awareness of anatomical differences between females and males combined with their strong inborn sexual urges
Oedipus complex
Castration anxiety
Identification
Penis envy
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5. Theories of Gender Typing
Social learning theory (BF Skinner , Walter Mischel, Albert Bandura): children acquire behaviors associated with their gender because associated with positive reinforcement or punishment OR those behaviors are more likely to be imitated.
Reinforcement and punishment
Observational learning (Social cognitive theory)
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6. Theories of Gender Typing
Cognitive developmental theory (Lawrence Kohlberg): Children are active learners, attempting to make sense of the social environment
Gender constancy: the belief that gender is permanent regardless of changes in age, behavior, or appearance
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7. Theories of Gender Typing
Gender schema theory (Sandra Bem)
Children develop an interrelated set of ideas (schema) about gender that guides their social perceptions and actions
Gender schema development stems from learning the gender norms and practices of society
Individuals vary in the extent to which they use gender schemas to understand and evaluate others and to guide their own behavior
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8. Prenatal Development
Prenatal sex differentiation: The biological processes that influence the making of our physical sex
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9. Prenatal Development Stages of prenatal sex differentiation
Chromosomes
Gonadal development
Androgens
Estrogens
Development of internal reproductive organs
External genitalia
Brain differentiation
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10. Prenatal Development

11. Prenatal Development

12. Prenatal Development
Intersexuality: The intermingling of female and male sexual characteristics
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH)
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13. Prenatal Development 1/3000 females
Turner syndrome
1/3000 females
Single X chromosome (XO) : small, unable to reproduce, stubby fingers, webbed neck

14. Prenatal Development XXY: Sterility, feminine traits 1/200 males
Klinefelter’s syndrome
1/200 males
XXY: Sterility, feminine traits

15. Prenatal Development Androgen- insensitivity syndrome Born XY
Inability of receptors to receive testosterone

16. Prenatal Development
5 alpha-reductase and 17- beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase deficiency
“guevedoces”

17. Prenatal Development Development of intersexuality
Effects of prenatal hormones on gender-related interests and activities
Prenatal experiences and gender of rearing
Sexual orientation
Research challenges
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18. Prenatal development The John/Joan Case
David Reimer “As Nature Made Him”
Transgender (Gender Identity Disorder)

19. Gender-Related Traits
Individuals vary in the extent to which they conform to stereotyped expectations about their gender
Femininity
Masculinity
Androgyny
Undifferentiation
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20. Gender-Related Traits
Changes in gender-related traits over time
Women’s scores on masculinity have increased since the 1970s.
Young women today are more likely than their counterparts in the 1970s to have experienced and been encouraged toward roles that involve male-stereotyped characteristics
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21. Gender-Related Traits
Gender-related traits and psychological adjustment
Research demonstrates that positive aspects of masculinity (e.g., independence, mastery) are associated with positive psychological well-being
Male-related traits are more highly valued in North American society
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22. Gender Attitudes
People differ in the extent to which they believe that gender should dictate females’ and males’ roles
Traditional gender attitude: the belief that females should engage in communal behaviors and roles and males should engage in agentic behaviors and roles
Nontraditional or egalitarian gender attitude: the belief that behaviors and roles should not be gender specific
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23. What do you think?
Should gender dictate roles?
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24. What are your gender attitudes?
On a scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree), indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with the following statements:
The husband should be the head of the family
Keeping track of a child’s out-of-school activities should be mostly the mother’s responsibility
Home economics courses should be as acceptable for male students as for female students
A person should generally be more polite to a woman than to a man
It is more appropriate for a mother rather than a father to change their baby’s diaper
It is wrong for a man to enter a traditionally female career
Things work out best in a marriage if a husband leaves his hands off domestic tasks
Women can handle pressures from their jobs as well as men can
Choice of college is not as important for women as for men
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25. Gender Attitudes
Perceived value of female versus male gender- related attributes
College students associate more advantages with being male than being female
Advantages and disadvantages associated with each gender
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26. Gender Attitudes
Males who violate gender expectations are evaluated more negatively than females
Social status hypothesis: because the male gender role is more highly valued than the female role is, a male is seen as lowering his social status by engaging in female-stereotypic behaviors, whereas a female performing male-stereotypic behaviors is perceived as raising hers
Sexual orientation hypothesis: cross-gender behavior in boys but not girls is considered a sign of actual or potential same-sex sexual orientation
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