Psychology of Gender

“Aik Insaan ki Tasveer Banayen”

Is Gender Important?

Gender Development

PRIMO
Diamond (2006) proposed
• gender pattern --- how a person behaves in comparison to
others in society and culture;
• reproductive considerations --- what are the reproductive
capabilities, aspirations, and actualities;
• identity --- how a person views himself in regard to gender and
sex;
• mechanisms --- abilities to experience and perform typical
features of sex; and
• sexual orientation --- type of sexual and romantic partner
toward whom one is attracted.

“One is sex and one does
gender” (Diamond, 2002, p. 323)

GENDERSEX SEXUALITY
Gender Development

GENDERSEX SEXUALITY
Sexual Development
• BIOLOGICAL
• BINARY
•GENITALS
• BRAIN
• HORMONAL
• CHROMOSOMAL
• REPRODUCTIVE
SYSTEM

GENDERSEX SEXUALITY
Sexual Deviance
HERMAPHRODITE
INTERSEXED

GENDERSEX SEXUALITY
HERMAPHRODITE
INTERSEXED
Gender Development
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SEX
• GENDER IDENTITY
• GENDER ROLE
(intra-role and inter-role conflict)
• GENDER TYPING
• GENDER ROLE ATTITUDES
(Sexism, gender stereotypes, gender
discrimination)

GENDERSEX
HERMAPHRODITE
INTERSEXED
Gender Deviance
SEXUALITY
GID
TGTS

GENDERSEX SEXUALITY
HERMAPHRODITE
INTERSEXED
GID
MtF-TGMtF-TS
Sexuality Development
• SEXUAL ORIENTATION
• SEXUAL AROUSAL

GENDERSEX SEXUALITY
HERMAPHRODITE
INTERSEXED
GID
MtF-TGMtF-TS
Sexual Orientation
BISEX
HOMO
TRANSVESTITE

GENDERSEX SEXUALITY
HERMAPHRODITE
PSEUDO-HERM
GID
MtF-TGMtF-TS
Culture Based Deviance (Hijra)
BISEX
HOMO
TRANSVESTITE

How You Became Aware of Your
Gender and Gender Differences?
(any incident)

How Gender Develops?

Socializing Agents
• Parental Role
• Peers
• School
• Media
• Religion
• Culture
• Neighbourhood (geographical location)
• Sexual Experiences

Developmental Trajectory
• 2-3 years (objective)
• 3-4 (gender identity, general outlook,
similarities/differences)
• 5-7 (gender constancy, gender invariance)
• By 7-8 years (sexual preferences)
• Adolescence (puberty, sexual orientation, abstract
concept)

Theoretical Perspectives
(Gender Differences
And
Gender Development)

Biological Perspective
Genes
• 20-48% role
• Environment ---52-80%
• Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome in
Women (CAIS) --- XY chromosome but female
genitals because of insensitivity to androgen
• no effect of chromosome --- person can still
develop female gender role because of sex
assigned on the basis of genitals

Cont…
Sexual Deviance (hermaphrodite/intersexed)
• Dany-dash syndrome --- XY
• Duplication of short arm of X chromosome in XY
genotype
• Testicular Feminization Syndrome --- high level
testosterone
• 5 alpha-reductase Deficiency Syndrome --- deficiency
of hormone (dihydrotestesterone)
• Klinefelter’s Sydrome –- XXY
• Turners’ Syndrome --- XO
• exposure to high androgen level to the female foetus
• Cloacal extrophy

Cont…
Hormones
• Androgens and estrogens
• Less level of androgen in men effect sexual behaviour
• High testosterone in women --- more spatial skills (but not in
men)
Does hormones effect cognitive abilities?
• Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) in female child ---
exposure to androgen in prenatal stage
• More spatial ability in girls
• Playing with male toys
• More active
• Career oriented
• Less interest infants and having children
• Homosexuality
• Can have male genitals

Brain areas (dimorphic)
•Men --- right hemisphere (men’s cognitive
abilities are more strongly localised)
– more lateralization in men
– Brain damage in specific areas effect men more
(right --- spatial abilities; left – verbal abilities)
•Women --- both (more bilateral)
– Corpus callosum in women is larger
– Emotions are right hemisphere controlled and
cognitive abilities in left
– Women use left hemisphere more in processing
emotions

Psychodynamic
• Phallic stage --- 3-6 years
• By age 5 --- develop gender identity
• Fantasize about genitals and parents ---- resolution of
feelings ---- start identifying with one of the parent --- internalize
values of that parent ---- exhibit same behaviour
• Gender identity is genital identity (dichotomous)
• If the child fails to accept his/ her genitals ---- will fail to
accept being male or female
Criticism ---- blind child cannot see genitals and see social
aspects of gender
• Unconscious and semiconscious fantasies is the process of
linking gender identity with gender role

• Castration anxiety--- identify with fathers
• Object choice (wanting someone, mother) changes to object
identity (wanting to be like someone, father)
• Becoming like father is like achieving mothers
• Earlier identify both --- more with mothers
• Gender identity depends upon with whom he identify more
• Girls --- Earlier they have for both parents
• Gender construction is difficult for boys
• Society plays a role ---- valuing male for power and choice

• Identify-disidentify
• A ‘watchful, protective’ father, typically in conjunction
with a sufficiently ‘attuned’ mother able to recognize
her son’s masculinity.
• Fear of heteronormativity (not castration anxiety) leads
to Separation-individuation process

Social learning theory
Observation
Differential reinforcement (Bailey & Zucker, 1995; Mischel, 1978)
– Teaching by parents
– Pressure by people
– Institutions to behave in certain way
Identification ---- Through observation start associating
with parents considering them as powerful, effective and
having control over rewards (mother dressing up ---
father appreciating)

• Begin to value gender appropriate behaviours --- learn
to apply label for themselves
• Gender identity --- self- label
• Acquisition of gender appropriate behaviours ----
regulated by cognitive process i.e., actual
performance of behaviour depends upon
reinforcement histories
• Modeling of a behaviour depends upon
– Positive relationship with model
– Positive consequences of model’s behaviour
– Model is powerful
– Same sex model and have gender role congruence
• Models change with change in norms

Gender Deviance
Father absent (physically, emotionally, or socially)
– Father feels that child is rejecting him and become
psychologically absent from the child’s life
• Encouragement and appreciation for showing cross- gendered
behaviour; lack of discouragement; appearance may be a
triggering factor
• Parents’ desire of daughter
• No male peers --- In school teased (less gender based
experiences)
• Have female friends (learning cross-gendered behaviour)
• Child believes he likes girl things so he is a girl
Remedy
• Parents’ role is important ---- making gender typed activities

Gender Role Socialization Theory
• Based on social learning perspective
• Different people and objects (act as role models)
reward child to fit in gender-role norms
• Emphasize sex differences
• Actual sex differences may not present but appear to
be
• Response bias higher in self-report measures
• Learn gender roles based on social expectations e.g.
differences in spatial abilities in instructed and non-
instructed situation
• Differences in emotional display (low-power vs. high
power emotions) --- motives ere important

Cont….
Agents of socialization
• Parents
– Differential treatment --- more by fathers
– Emotion
– Gender-role beliefs
• Other people
– Peers (Harris’s theory on group socialization)
---Generalization from home to outside (size of peer group
differ)
– Siblings --- sex typing
– Neighborhood
– Teachers
• Toys
• Books
• Television

Social Role Theory
• Difference in gender roles leads to gender differences
in behaviour
• Societal role structures influence behaviour ---
abstract conditions of society than concrete way of
environment effecting behaviour
• Division of labour
– Men --- agentic; Women --- Communal
– Men --- more powerful; women --- relationship oriented
– Men --- millitary role; women --- nursing role
– Differential status
• Biosocial theory (Wood and Eagly, 2002) --- hunting in
women is hindered by reproductive qualities

Cognitive developmental theory
• Child’s active role in structuring the world
• Child view of reality is different from adult (Piaget) ---
qualitative difference
• Gender is physical category based on anatomy (Kohlberg)
• Children do not have permanent gender identities until the
concept of conservation emerge (5-7 years) i.e., gender
does not change if someone plays with trucks or dolls
• By 3 years develop gender identity --- by hearing label from
others, but don’t know
– gender never change
– every one has gender
– gender differences are physical/ anatomical

• Till develops conservation concept
• Once develop stable gender identities ---- prefer
gender typed activities (I am a boy, therefore I like
boy things, behaving like boy is rewarding)
• Start identifying with father because he is like him
and like other men
• Same for girls but they are not as typed as boys ----
can identify with both --- men are more powerful
According to Kohlberg (1968)
1. Gender Constancy may not emerge still child
develops gender typing

Cont…
• Social cognitive perspective (Bandura,
1986 )
– Interaction of cognition and environment
– Early role of environment in rewarding and
punishing that helps in developing gender identity
(gender label)
– Gradually children shift from external to internal
standards

Gender Schema Theory
Schemas
• Gender Schematic --- apply gender category in
everything to make decisions
– Divide world in masculine and feminine categories
• Gender aschematic --- Androgyny
• Gender is pervasive dichotomy that guides our
behaviour (Bem, 1981)
• Helps in processing information
• Social learning helps in developing schemas and
cognitive processing (encoding) helps in maintaining
these

Cont…
• Cross-gendered individuals can also be gender
schematic
• People prefer to act as per their gender that
depends upon how much they are gender
typed

Biased-interaction Theory
• A person may be predisposed biologically (biased-
predisposition) to develop gendered behaviours
• Role models are very important to influence
development
• goodness of fit
• Child explores similarities and differences with other
(same-different theory)

Attachment Theories
Depends upon quality of mother child relationship
(not separation)
Baby boy’s ‘internal working models’ are gendered
from the beginning of life that are constructed
through interactions with parents who treat him as
‘male’ in relation to their own gendered selves
Gender development is facilitated by same sex
parent.

Cognitive theories of Sex Typing
Labeling
After labeling themselves as masculine or
feminine, individuals may then try to act in
accordance with these identities and behave in
other masculine or feminine ways as well
(Lippa, 2002).

Gender Analysis