The Case for Nurture:
Empirical Evidence on Social/Environmental Influences on Gender
I.
Three
perspectives on gender socialization [“socialization” = the processes by which
people, particularly children, learn the customs, practices, ideas, and
behavior of their culture and immediate social groups; important kinds of
socialization studied by developmental psychologists include gender
socialization (how people learn the gender roles and gender-related behaviors
of their culture), the socialization of morality (how people learn the moral
rules and moral principles of their culture), and learning rules of conventional
social behavior (e.g., learning not to pick your nose in public; learning to
say, “thank you”).]
A.
Socialization
of children by parents: the direct tuition approach
B.
Self-socialization:
children as active information processors who infer their own rules about
gender
C.
Peer
socialization: the influence of other children and the related process of childhood
gender segregation
II.
Parental
treatment and the social learning of gender
A.
Three
kinds of learning: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and modeling
and observational learning
B.
How
differently do parents treat their sons and daughters? – Lytton
& Romney’s (1991) meta-analysis examined differences in parental warmth,
restrictiveness, encouragement of achievement, and encouragement of sex-typed
play directed at sons and daughters
C.
Other
possible ways in which parents treat boys and girls differently: roughhousing
and physical play, talking and emotional discourse, encouraging children to
express vs. inhibit emotions and their expression, sex segregation in
adult-child relationships; research suggests parents punish boys more than
girls
D.
Leaper’s
(2000) study: observed mother-son, mother-daughter, father-son, and
father-daughter pairs as preschool children played with masculine or feminine
toys; Results: parents treated their sons and daughters with equal warmth and directiveness; however, fathers tended to be more assertive
than mothers with children; mother tended to be warmer than fathers with children;
and children were more assertive with their mothers than with their fathers;
study also found that parents were warmer and more directive during feminine “plate
play” than during masculine “car play”
E.
“Baby
X” experiments: adults and children asked to interact with babies that are
labeled to be either male or female; Results: bigger effects on children’s than
on adults’ interaction with babies
F.
A
number of studies suggest that fathers may “police” gender in children more
than mothers; parents may police boys more than girls; and parents may be more
upset with cross-sex behavior in sons than in daughters; all of this suggests
more “gender policing” by males and toward boys than by females and toward girls
III.
Teacher
and education influences on children’s gender-related behaviors
A.
Are
classrooms “feminine” environments? – i.e., do they encourage and value
feminine behaviors more than masculine behaviors? Are classrooms, particularly
at the lower grade levels, mostly directed by female teachers?
B.
Ways
in which classrooms may be biased against boys: they frown upon male-typical
kinds of interaction; they require boys to behave in “feminine” ways
C.
Ways
in which classroom may be biased against girls: teachers may pay more attention
to boys, call on them more, and encourage greater participation; teachers may
hold stereotypes (e.g., that boys excel in math and science) that encourage
boys but discourage girls; teachers may hold different expectations for boys
and girls (e.g., a boy is encouraged to go to college and become a doctor
because he needs “to support a family”; a girl is discouraged from going to
college because she “will just get married and have children”); boys may “hog”
resources such as lab space and gym equipment and get resources (e.g., funding
for athletics) that girls do not
D.
Do
teachers treat boys and girls differently, and why? Teachers may respond differently to very
young children; however, by the time children are in preschool and in school,
they show substantial sex difference in behaviors such as rough-and-tumble play,
assertiveness, and verbal-dyadic interaction, and thus it’s not clear how much
teachers cause sex difference in children’s behavior vs. how much teachers are
simply responding to boys’ and girls’ different behaviors
E.
Studies
that attempt to influence and alter children’s sex-typed behavior: Bigler’s 1999 review—general conclusion: interventions have
produced only weak and short-term effects, and when interventions end, children
quickly revert back to their typical sex-typed behavior
IV.
Peer
influences on children’s gender-related behaviors
A.
Beverly
Fagot’s (1985) study of preschool children: boys actively encourage masculine
behaviors and discourage feminine behaviors in other boys; girls are not as
concerned with other girls’ sex-typed behaviors; boys didn’t respond much to
influence attempts from teachers or girls
B.
The
role of sex segregation in children’s gender-related behavior: sex segregation
seems largely induced by children themselves; starts in the third year of life;
sex segregation may amplify boy-typical and girl-typical styles of interaction
and behavior, and it may produce childhood cultures of gender; Reasons for sex
segregation: differing play styles of boys and girls; greater
assertiveness/aggressiveness of boys and girls’ frustration in not being able
to influence boys via verbal-social negotiation; boys’ preference for hierarchical
group interaction vs. girls’ preference for more egalitarian dyadic
interaction; different interests of boys vs. girls (e.g., active, aggressive
athletics vs. doll play); greater preference for arousal by boys than by girls;
in-group, out-group feelings and the labeling of one’s own and others’ gender
V.
Social
learning after early childhood
A.
Do
parents restrict girls more than boys?
B.
Are
girls and boys assigned to do different kinds of work and household chores?
C.
Dependence
and independence training
D.
Do
parents hold different expectations for their sons’ and daughters’ academic
achievement and performance? – Jacqueline Eccles research
VI.
Do
children model gender-related behaviors, particularly in their parents?
A.
Research
suggests that children’s personalities tend to resemble the personality of their
most dominant or attractive parent, not necessarily that of their same-sex
parent
B.
Research
on links between parents’ gender-related attitudes (e.g., whether parents
encourage traditional gender roles or hold more liberal, egalitarian views
about gender) and the sex-typed behaviors of their children
C.
Research
on the effects on children of not having a father present
D.
Research
on the children of gay and lesbian parents
E.
Research
on sibling effects: Recent research (Rust, Golombok,
Hines,
VII.
Media
influences on gender
A.
Much
research documents gender-stereotypic content in the mass media
B.
There
is much gender-stereotypic content in children’s cartoons; furthermore,
children seem to be aware of these differences
C.
Heavy
TV viewing in children tends to be associated with stronger gender stereotypes
D.
The “Notel,” “Unitel,” and “Multitel” quasi-experiment: towns in the Canadian Rockies
that received cable TV after having no TV reception; children’s gender
stereotypes grew stronger after the introduction of TV
VIII.
Self-socialization
of gender and gender cognitions
A.
Development
of gender concepts: children can correctly identify their own gender by age 2 ˝
; by age 3 ˝ most children understand that being male or female is stable over
time; between age 4 and 7 most children achieve “gender constancy,” the
understanding that being male or female is a stable trait that does not change
over time, across situations, or with superficial changes of appearance
B.
Development
of gender stereotypes over time: As children move to middle childhood, they can
more strongly agree with common gender stereotypes; at the same time, their
gender stereotypes become more flexible – i.e., not as “black and white” and
not applied to all males and all females
C.
When
does gender labeling of oneself influence children’s gender-related behaviors? Some research suggests that boys with a high
level of gender understanding watch male models and activities more on TV; gender
labeling may tip the balance in toy preferences, for example when an attractive
toy is labeled as a “girl’s toy” to a boy; in young children, self-labeling as
male or female may sometimes increase preferences for same-sex playmates
D.
Bussey
and Bandura (1999) study: showed a big difference
between 3- and 4-year-old children; the older children evaluated cross-sex play
much more negatively than the younger children did; between ages 3 and 4
children seem to acquire internal gender standards and attach emotions such as
pride and shame to meeting or not meeting these standards; the book uses the
metaphor of an internal “gender gyroscope”
IX.
How
gender stereotypes influence gender-related behaviors
A.
Enacting
stereotypes, particularly in situations that make them salient: women sometimes
“dumb down” and primp and act femininely in the presence of attractive men;
women may underestimate their ability and act less aggressively in public
settings; men may help more in emergencies and conform less to group pressure
in group settings
B.
Possible
effects of being a token
C.
Research
on self-fulfilling prophecies and behavior confirmation
1.
The Skrypnek and Snyder (1982) study on how expectations
influence whether college students chose masculine or feminine tasks
D.
Stereotype
threat: research on how making gender stereotypes salient may influence women’s
performance on math tests
X.
Social
role theory: some evidence
A.
Three
central components of gender roles: a) women as homemakers and men as
breadwinners, b) different occupational roles assigned to women and men, c)
lower status of women than men.
B.
Eagly
and Steffen (1984) found that people in high-status roles – regardless of whether they are male or
female – are judged to be more assertive, independent, and dominant (i.e.,
instrumental); Implication: it’s status differences, not innate personality
differences, that lead to common stereotypes about women’s and men’s
personality traits
C.
Research
on eye contact, status, and gender: Men tend to engage in more eye contact
while talking, whereas women tend to engage in more eye contact while
listening; is this a function of gender or of status?
XI.
Why
is gender so overwhelmingly important in so many domains of our lives? For example, gender has a large impact on:
the clothes we wear, the decorations of out rooms, our grooming, the way we
move our bodies, our interests and hobbies, our work and careers, the subjects
we study in school, the way we interact with friends and family members, our
family roles, our sexuality. The learning,
socialization, and social psychological perspective says gender is so important
because it is ceaselessly drilled into us; all the rewards, punishments, and
contingencies of society are structured by gender; men and women are assigned
differing roles in society; institutions are often partriarchal;
from a very early age we internalize gender stereotypes, and we develop
self-concepts that are structured by gender. Most social situations are
structured by gender. An “environmental gender juggernaut”
continually influences our behavior as men and women.