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AQA A Level Psychology Gender Essay Plans
Concise, detailed essay plans covering the whole AQA A Level Psychology Gender topic, created and used to achieve an A* in the 2024 Psychology A Level exam series.
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Essay: Sex-role stereotypes and androgynyAO1 - Sex role stereotypes: a set of shared expectations
of a social group about how each sex should
behave
- Learned from birth as children are exposed to the
attitudes of peers about gender stereotypes
- Androgyny: a combination of equally male and
female characteristics
- The Bem sex role inventory (BSRI): developed by
asking 100 American undergrads which
personality traits they thought are desirable for
men and women, 20m,f,n traits were proposed
- BSRI procedure: ppts rank themselves on a 7-
point Likert scale about how much they relate to
each characteristic
- High masculinity and high femininity =
androgynous
- Low masculinity and low femininity =
undifferentiated
- Gender: a person’s sense of identity – a
social/psychological construct
- Sex: being genetically male (XY) or female (XX)
AO3 x 1 - Rubin support for sex-role stereotypes
- Parents were asked to describe babies 24 hours
after birth, and parents described girls as “pretty”
“gentle” etc while boys were described as
“strong” “handsome”
- Shows parents enforce stereotypes from birth
AO3 x 2 - Benefits of androgyny (Prakash)
- Found married women in India were happier and
healthier when they obtained a high masculinity
score, as this correlated with lower levels of
depression
- Shows benefit of being both masculine and
feminine
AO3 x 3 - The BSRI is highly reliable
- Test-retest results of the BSRI have high
correlation rates, suggesting it is a very reliable
method of identifying gender identity
- Though it lacks temporal validity, so should be
updated
AO3 x 4 - Real world benefits of sex-role stereotypes and
androgyny
- Understanding the harm of sex-role stereotypes
and the benefit of androgyny means parents can
be encouraged to avoid sex role stereotype
enforcement and instead raise children to be
androgynous
, - Likely to lead to better future mental health
Essay: The role of chromosomes and hormones in sex and gender
AO1 - Chromosomes: the X-shaped bodies that carry all
genetic information (DNA) for an organism
- Typical chromosome patterns: XX or XY, there is
usually a direct link between chromosomal sex
and internal/external genitalia
- In males, androgens regulate the effects of
testosterone and male sex characteristic
development
- Atypical sex chromosome patterns:
- Klinefelter’s syndrome: XXY configuration, 1 in
1000 males, develop as a normal male but tend to
be taller than average, lack muscular
coordination, look less masculine
- Turner’s syndrome: XO configuration, 1 in 2000
females, born with a vagina and womb but are
shorter than average, infertile, webbed neck,
narrow hips etc
- Hormones: chemical messengers which travel
through the bloodstream which can govern
gender development
- Testosterone: produced prenatally, insensitivity
leads to underdevelopment of male sex
characteristics
- Oestrogen: females do not need hormones to
direct prenatal genital development
- Oxytocin: promotes feelings of bonding in both
men and women produced in the pituitary gland,
dampens the female fight or flight response
AO3 x 1 - Proven biological influence
- John Money claimed biological sex was not the
main gender factor, though David Reimer
disproved this as he went back to being male
despite being raised as a girl
- Shows the influence of chromosomes and
hormones
AO3 x 2 - Importance of other factors – nature vs nurture
- Gender development is likely to be a result of
both biology and the environment and
experiences, as parents for example are highly
influential in the expression of a child’s gender
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