How does behavioral theory explain gender differences? This theory suggests that sexual attitudes and behaviors are learned through observation of role models such as parents and media figures, as well as through positive or negative reinforcements for behaviors that match or defy established gender roles .
What are the origins of gender differences in behavior?
There are two prominent views about the origins of gender differences in human behavior. Some theorists see gender differences as a reflection of naturally evolved tendencies and society must reinforce those tendencies if it is to function smoothly.
What does the biological approach say about gender differences?
What does the Biological Approach say about Gender Differences? As is obvious from the name, the biological approach focuses its efforts on explaining what biological differences between men and women result in their differing behaviours.
How do Sociologists view gender differences?
Some theorists see gender differences as a reflection of naturally evolved tendencies and society must reinforce those tendencies if it is to function smoothly. Sociobiologists call this perspective as essentialism. That is because it views gender as part of the nature or essence of one's biological and social make-up.
How do gender roles influence behavior?
Gender roles then influence behavior through social and biological processes. In social interaction, people respond more favorably to others who conform to gender role expectations (Wood & Karten, 1986).
What are the theories of gender differences?
These theories can be generally divided into three families: biological, socialization, and cognitive. According to biological theories, psychological and behavioral gender differences are due to the biological differences between males and females.
How does gender affect behavior?
Gender norms influence women to perform behaviors in stereotypically less masculine ways, and men to perform them in stereotypically more masculine ways. Accordingly, if masculine performance increases testosterone, men's stereotypically more masculine performance of behavior may lead to more increases in testosterone.
How social learning theory influences gender roles and behaviors?
Social learning theory regards gender identity and role as a set of behaviors that are learned from the environment. The main way that gender behaviors are learned is through the process of observational learning>/a> . Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways, some of which relate to gender.
What factors influence gender differences?
According to biological theories, gender differences in psychology and behavior are caused by congenital factors, such as sex hormones, chromosomes, genes, and heredity (Feingold, 1994; Chaplin and Aldao, 2013).
What is an example of gender differences?
For example, girls and women are generally expected to dress in typically feminine ways and be polite, accommodating, and nurturing. Men are generally expected to be strong, aggressive, and bold. Every society, ethnic group, and culture has gender role expectations, but they can be very different from group to group.
Why are there gender differences?
Although the general consistency of gender differences across cultures may suggest evolutionary reasons for the existence of gender differences in personality traits, cross-cultural variation in gender differences for some trait may suggest that culture of origin or social roles and norms influence gender differences.
How do social learning theory cognitive development theory and gender schema theory explain gender development?
Social Learning Theory and Gender-Schema are two major theories of gender role development. The theories provide children with the understanding of gender and the roles each gender must play thus allowing children to become better at coping with ambiguity and their ideas about what is acceptable or appropriate.
What are the two theories of gender development?
Theories of gender role development fall into two major categories, namely, biological and social-cognitive.
What does psychology say about gender?
To summarize, psychologists have found “gender” to be a powerful conceptual tool in at least three ways: (a) in sorting individuals into male and female and exploring the ways in which differences in behavior, performance, and characteristics are associated with that individual difference (whether the hypothesized ...
How does the biological theory of gender development explain the differences in gender?
So men are free to show their “feminine side” and women are free to show their “masculine traits”. The biological approach suggests there is no distinction between sex & gender, thus biological sex creates gendered behavior. Gender is determined by two biological factors: hormones and chromosomes.
What are the three factors that influence gender identity?
It begins by arguing for a more consistent use of 'sex' and 'gender'. It considers in turn three influential theoretical frameworks that lend themselves to empirical research. These are: 1) the role of the brain; 2) the role of socialisation; and 3) multi-dimensional gender development.
What is gender identity development theory?
Gender identity in this theory refers to children labeling themselves and others as a boy or a girl. This approach posits that gender labeling enables children to develop schemas that are then used to motivate them to engage in similar activities and pursuits to those of their gender (Martin, Ruble, & Szkrybalo, 2002).
What are the theories of gender differences in behavior?
Several theories have been proposed to explain the emergence of gender differences in behavior, in general, in childhood. Three of the main theoret...
What is behaviorism in psychology?
By Dr. Saul McLeod, updated 2020 Behaviorism, also known as behavioral psychology, is a theory of learning which states all behaviors are learned t...
What is gender-in-Context Theory in psychology?
One social constructionist-influenced theory that is particularly relevant for emotion expression is Deaux and Major’s (1987) gender-in-context the...
How do children learn gender-role consistent behaviors?
Psychosocial developmental theorists propose that children learn gender-role-consistent behaviors over time through cognitive learning, socializati...
How does gender influence behavior?
Gender roles then influence behavior through social and biological processes. In social interaction, people respond more favorably to others who conform to gender role expectations (Wood & Karten, 1986).
What are some examples of gender roles?
For example, given that women perform more childcare than men in most industrialized societies, women are believed to be especially nurturant and caring.
What are gender differences in behavior based on?
Thus, from the point of view of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, gender differences in behavior are based in biological differences between women and men.
What is gender in psychology?
Gender involves masculine and feminine feelings, attitudes and behaviors identification with a particular sex-biologically, psychologically, and socially. When we behave according to widely shared expectations about how males or females are supposed to act, we adopt a gender role.
What is masculinity in the labor force?
For boys, the masculinity is defined by the traits such as rationality, self-assuredness, and competitiveness. For girls, the femininity is nurturance and sensitivity to others.
How do boys and girls learn gender?
Boys and girls first learn their respective gender traits in the family as they see their parents going about their daily routines. The larger society also promotes gender role conformity. In the functionalist view, learning the essential features of femininity and masculinity integrates society and allows it to function properly.
Is male domination rooted in industrial capitalism?
These observations lead many feminists to conclude that male domination is rooted less in industrial capitalism than in the patriarchal authority relations, family structures, and patterns of socialization and culture that exist in almost all societies. Symbolic interactionism is a type of social constructionism too.
Do girls have more problems after puberty?
After puberty, girls are also more likely to be unhappy with their bodies than boys. There is considerable variability between individual males and females. Also, even when there are average group differences, the actual size of most of these differences is quite small.
Do gender roles reflect gender differences?
Sometimes gender stereotypes and gender roles reflect actual gender differences, but sometimes they do not . In terms of language and language skills, girls develop language skills earlier and know more words than boys; however this does not translate into long-term differences.
Do boys play rough and tumble?
Boys frequently play organized rough-and-tumble games in large groups, while girls often play fewer physical activities in much smaller groups (Maccoby, 1998). There are also differences in the rates of depression, with girls much more likely than boys to be depressed after puberty.
Do boys have more aggression than girls?
With respect to aggression, boys exhibit higher rates of unprovoked physical aggression than girls, but no difference in provoked aggression (Hyde, 2005). Some of the biggest differences involve the play styles of children. Boys frequently play organized rough-and-tumble games in large groups, while girls often play fewer physical activities in ...
Why do gender traits change?
Well most of the gender traits often attributed to Nature, that can be demonstrated by observing some of the evolutionary changes, commonly changes emerging due to the process of "sexual selection" like mate choice and male-male competition.
What does it mean when gender differences are small?
Moreover, when gender differences do emerge, they tend to be small to moderate in size. This means that there is overlap between males and females. As an example, women are more likely than men to be depressed, but some men are more depressed than most women.
Why is knowledge and comprehensive understanding about sex differences important in management of diseases?
Humans as evolved complex organisms with self awareness, indicates sexual reproduction plays a very vital role in the progress, evolution and successful survival of complex lifeforms.
How is society determined?
Society is determined by extremes. Sport is dominated by those with extreme physiques, academia is by those with extreme intellects, the media by extreme personalities. Politics by those with extreme egos. Prisons are full of another extreme.
Why are men preferred?
Men often will be preferred even when their work is inferior to a woman's, because men are assumed to be superior whether through conscious or unconscious bias. They get better job ads. Uber actively prohibited women from seeing their job ads and that happens all the time.
Is it better to think of gender traits from nature or as "nature VIA nurture"?
Thus, it is better to think gender traits from nature or as "nature VIA nurture" as there are constant genetic interaction with the environment instead nature Vs nurture, because rarely gender traits form solely from social factors, ultimately the cause is usually nature. Reply to Lucifer A.
Can interpretations be influenced by scholarly orientation?
Similarly, interpretations can be influenced by scholarly orientation. For example, whereas some researchers (for example, feminist scholars) may focus on particular similarities between the genders, others (such as evolutionary psychologists) may emphasize particular gender differences.
What are the causes of gender differences?
Hormones - The Biological Cause of Gender Differences. Hormones are chemicals in the body that regulate changes in our cells. This includes growth and is as a result very important in explaining our gender differences. You may have heard of the largely male hormone: testosterone and the largely female hormone: oestrogen - and know ...
What are the differences between men and women?
Scientists suggest that these differences cause the difference in the abilities of men and women: Women excel in: Language skills. Fine motor skills (using smaller muscles) Emotional control. Men excel in: Spatial skills. Logical reasoning.
What are the two hormones that lead to men and women?
You may have heard of the largely male hormone: testosterone and the largely female hormone: oestrogen - and know that they have effects in our bodies that lead men and women to act more like, well, men and women. It is well documented that there are differences between the brain structures of men and women.
How do hormones affect gender?
Hormones play a huge role in gender differences and it is our DNA that dictates our behaviour as men and women. Men and women have different brain structures. Women have evolved to be the carers of children whilst men have evolved to be the providers for their families.
How long did transsexuals take hormone therapy?
Found that transsexuals who underwent 3 months of hormone therapy adopted increased intelligence in the areas that the sex hormones were associated with: female hormone takers gained skills in verbal fluency and became worse at visual-spatial skills and less aggressive.
Why do men and women have physical differences?
The above statements are empirical facts and so we know that at its very core the cause of most physical differences in men and women is due to biological differences in DNA. At first, the embryo (the name given to a zygote that has started to develop) has the same sex organs whether or not it has XY or XX chromosomes.
What is biological approach?
As is obvious from the name, the biological approach focuses its efforts on explaining what biological differences between men and women result in their differing behaviours. Of course, the biological approach is not necessarily the only approach to wield a convincing argument for how gender differences arise. The following: Cognitive Psychology.
