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Summary AQA A-Level Psychology Gender Notes
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AQA A-Level Psychology Gender Notes - summarised using all the relevant information, with key points and names in bold. Evaluations are clearly marked as + / - which allows for these notes too easily be converted into essay plans. Learning these notes achieved me an A*.

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  • June 19, 2022
  • 21
  • 2021/2022
  • Summary

Subjects

  • psychology
  • gender
  • aqa
  • a level
  • gender development
  • brain

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  • A/AS Level
  • AQA
  • Psychology
  • Gender
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CN Psychology - Gender


Sex & Gender
-Sex = a person's biolgical sex determined by chromosomes intially and then influenced by hormonal differences an
differences in anatomy. It is innate and due to nature.
-Gender = a person's psychosocial status as either masculine or feminine. This includes attitudes, roles and
behaviours that we associate with ‘being male’ or ‘being female’. It is environmental and therefore due to nature.

Sex Role Stereotypes
-Also referred to as gender stereotypes. This refers to a set of shared expectations within a social group about what
men and women should do and think.
-When looking at the roles of males and females we often have traditional views of which apply to men and which
apply to women.

+ Supporting research for the existence of sex-role sterotypes
Seavey et al (1975) = told 1 in 3 adult ps that a 3 month old baby dressed in a yellow jumpsuit was a boy,
girl or did not reveal the gender. They were left to play with the baby in a room containing a ball, doll and a
plastic ring (gender neutral).
Both male and female adults gave the baby a doll if they thought it was a female.

Smith & Lloyd (1978) = showed that mothers do treat boys and girls differently. A sample of 32 mothers
were videotaped and played for 10 minutes with a baby (not their own child) with toys such as a squeaky
hammer or a doll. The baby was 6 months old and recessed and named as a girl or boy. If the mother
thought they were boys, she verbally encouraged more motor activity and offered gender-appropriate toys.

+ Supporting research for sex-role sterotypes in children’s books
Urberg (1982) told children aged 3-7 years stories that stressed sex-role stereotypical characteristics, such
as bravery or caring, but without specifying the gender of the child in the story. After each story the children
then had to state whether the characteristic illustrated was typical of girls, boys or neutral. It was found that
responses favoured sex-role stereotypes such as bravery for boys and caring for girls. However, older
children showed an increasing tendency to see characteristics as both male and female. The results imply
that children learn sex-role stereotypes from an early age but that this does alter as they mature.

+ There is truth to most sex-role sterotypes
Although most sex-role stereotypes have little evidence to support the assumptions, some of these are
based on an element of truth. For example, the widely held belief that women are better at multitasking than
men has been supported in a recent study of the differences in neurological (brain) activity between men
and women. Ingalhalikar et al (2014) scanned the brains of 949 young men and women in the biggest
investigation of its kind to date. Using hi-tech diffusion MRI imaging, they mapped the connections between
the different parts of the brain. The research found that women have far better connections between the left
and right sides of the brain while men’s brains show more intense activity within the brain’s different parts,
especially the cerebellum which controls motor skills. This therefore demonstrates that some sex-role
stereotypes are based on evidence and is not always explained in terms of social roles.


Androgyny & The BSRI
-Androgyny refers to individuals who display a balance of both masculine and feminine personality traits in their
personality.
-By the early 1970s the view that individuals were either exclusively masculine or feminine was being challenged.
Sandra Bem developed the androgynous hypothesis, which saw androgyny as a positive and desirable
condition. A different kind of test was needed to incorporate this notion and the Bem Sex Role Inventory, designed
to measure androgyny, was introduced.
-There were 20 masculine traits, 20 feminine traits, and 20 neutral characteristics.

,-High masculine, low feminine = masculine
-High feminine, low masculine = feminine
-High masculine, high feminine = androgynous
-Low feminine, low masculine = undifferentiated




- BSRI lacks validity
The validity of the BSRI can be challenged further. The BSRI was developed over 40 years ago and
behaviours that are regarded as ‘typical’ and ‘acceptable’ – particularly in relation to gender – have changed
significantly since then. Bem’s scale is made up of stereotypical characteristics that may be outdated and
lacking in temporal validity. Furthermore, the scale was devised using a panel of American judges. Western
notions of masculine and feminine characteristics may not be shared across all cultures and societies. It is
also worth noting that gender itself is a hypothetical construct and is therefore subjective as it relies on
individual interpretation of the 7 point scale. Therefore, although at first the BSRI appears to be a valid and
reliable measure, the face value of the scale should be treated with caution within contemporary society.

+ High reliability
Research has demonstrated high test-retest reliability for the BSRI; over a 4 week period correlations
ranged from .76 to .94. Additionally, a short form of the scale has been developed using just 30items with a
correlation of .90 with the original. The internal reliability was improved with the shorter test as the less
socially desirable terms such as ‘gullible’ and ‘childlike’ were removed.

- Low temporal validity
Bem’s scale consists of traits that were stereotypical of the 1970s. These are now outdated and would be
difficult to apply to individuals in contemporary society. Evidence to support this criticism comes from
research by Hoffman and Borders (2001), who discovered that a group of almost 400 undergraduates only
rated 2 of the Bem inventory adjectives as masculine and feminine. This suggests that the inventory is no
longer relevant to current attitudes regarding sex roles. Thus the BSRI could be argued to lack temporal
validity.

- Social desirability bias
Additionally, the link between androgyny and psychological health may be explained in terms of an
intervening variable – self-esteem. Most of the adjectives in the BSRI are socially desirable – therefore
someone who scored high on both masculine and feminine traits would also be higher in self-esteem than

, someone who only chose male or female items. Liberman and Gaa also question the validity of the scale in
terms of response bias. In their study of 113 graduate students they found that those students classed as
androgynous simply has higher overall scores than those classed as masculine or feminine. This happens
because some individuals have a tendency to select answers at the higher end of the likert scale which
results in an androgynous result. Therefore, this suggests that the BSRI doesn’t explain psychological
healthiness at all and may also be measuring socially desirable answers rather than androgyny itself.

- Cultural bias
Adams & Scherer (1985) argue that Bem may not have taken an adequate account of the social and
cultural context in which it was developed as masculine traits are more highly valued in Western society.
Therefore some individuals may adhere to masculine traits merely because of social expectations. This
would therefore reduce the population validity of the BSRI as it may be difficult to generalise the findings to
all cultures.


The Role of Chromosomes: Typical Chromosome Patterns
-We each have 23 pairs of chromosomes which are made from DNA. it is the last pair of chromosomes (position 23)
which determine our sex in typical gender development.
-Female is XX and male is XY.
-A baby’s sex is determined by the sperm that fertalise the egg cell. The baby will be a girl if the fertilizing sperm
carries an X chromosome, and a boy if the sperm carries a Y chromosome.
-The Y chromosome carries a genes called the ‘sex dertermining region y’ or SRY.
-The SRY gene causes testes to develop in an XY embryo. These produce androgens (male sex hormones) which
cause the embryo to become a male, and without them, the embryo develops into a female.

-There is usually a direct link between an individuals chromosomal sex and their external and internal genitalia.
-During prenatal development all individuals start out the same but a few weeks later male and female embryos have
external genitalia that look essentially feminine.
-When the foetus is 3 months old, if it is to develop as a male, the testes normally produce the male hormone
testosterone which causes external male genitals to develop.

The Role of Hormones
-Although chromosomes intiiallity determine a person’s sex, most gender development is actually influenced by
hormones.
-Although males and females produce many of the same hormones but in different concentrations, of primary
importance is in male development are a number of hormones called androgens, the most widely known being
testosterone.

Testosterone
-A male hormone which controls the development of sex organs and band secondary sexual characteristics.
-Much research has focussed on the behavioural effects of testosterone such as aggression. Human and animal
studies have demonstrated the influence of increased testosterone on aggressive behaviour. For instance, Nanne
Van de Poll et al (1988) = showed that female rats who had been injected with testosterone became more physically
and sexually aggressive.

Oestrogen
-A female hormone that determines female sexual characteristics and menstruation.
-Alongside the physical changes, oestrogen also causes some women to experience heightened emotionality and
irritability during their menstrual cycle. This is referred to as PMT or PMS when these effects become a diagnosable
disorder.
-In extreme cases PMS has successfully been used as a defence in cases of shoplifitjng and murder.
-Oestrogen is associated with feminisation of the brain; it promotes neural interconnectedness for equal use of
both hemispheres.

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