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GCSE PSYCHOLOGY
UNIT 2
SEX AND GENDER
REVISION
GCSE PSYCHOLOGY
UNIT 2
SEX AND GENDER IDENTITY
SEX IDENTITY AND GENDER IDENTITY
• SEX IDENTITY = a biological term. A child’s sex can
be identified by their hormones (testosterone for
males and oestrogen for females) and
chromosomes (XY for males and XX for females).
This determines whether the child’s sex identity is
male or female
• GENDER IDENTITY = a psychological term. A child’s
gender can be identified by their attitudes and
behaviour (the way they act, dress and speak). This
determines whether the child’s gender identity is
masculine or feminine
SEX IDENTITY AND GENDER IDENTITY
• Most people have a match between their sex and
gender identities (i.e. a boy thinks and behaves in
a masculine way)
• However, some boys think and behave in a
feminine way
• Sex identity can be is defined in the same way in
all cultures
• However, gender identity can be different in
different cultures
SEX IDENTITY AND GENDER IDENTITY
• How do different cultures distinguish between the two
gender identities?
– British culture – MASCULINE AND FEMANINE
– Mohave Indians (Native Americans) – FOUR DIFFERENT
GENDER IDENTITIES: TRADITIONAL MALES, TRADITIONAL
FEMALES, MALES WHO CHOOSE TO LIVE AS WOMEN AND
WOMEN WHO CHOOSE TO LIVE AS MEN
• How do children express feminine gender behaviour?
– E.g. wearing pink clothes and playing with dolls
• How do children express masculine gender behaviour?
– E.g. playing Football and being aggressive
GCSE PSYCHOLOGY
UNIT 2
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY OF GENDER
DEVELOPMENT
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
• This was first described by Sigmund Freud
• He believed we have thoughts and feelings
that we are not aware of as they are
unconscious
• He believed that development happened in 5
stages and the third stage is known as the
PHALLIC STAGE which happens between 3 and
5 years old
PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
• In the phallic stage the child
unconsciously sexually desires the
opposite-sex parent and become jealous
of the same-sex parent
• To deal with this anxiety the child
behaves like the same-sex parent (this is
identification)
OEDIPUS COMPLEX
• This is the conflict experienced by a boy in the
phallic stage because he is unconsciously
attracted to his mother and is jealous of his
father and wants to take his place
• He becomes anxious that his father will
discover this and castrate him
• In order to resolve this anxiety he gives up the
feelings for his mother and identifies with his
father and adopts a masculine gender role
ELECTRA COMPLEX
• This is the conflict experienced by a girl in the
phallic stage because she is unconsciously
attracted to her father and is jealous and
resentful of her mother
• Freud suggests that the girl believes she has
already been castrated so is not as fearful as a
boy
• She feels conflict between the feelings she has
for her father and the fear of losing her
mother’s love
• In order to resolve this she identifies with her
mother and behaves in a similar way to her
LITTLE HANS EXPERIMENR BY FREUD
(1909)
• Freud carried out a case study to investigate
the gender development of a boy known as
“Little Hans”
• AIM: To investigate Little Hans’ phobia
• METHOD: Han’s father wrote to Freud to tell
him about Hans development. At the age of
four Hans developed a phobia of horses. He
was frightened that a horse might bite him
or fall down. He was particularly afraid of
large white horses with black around the
mouth
LITTLE HANS EXPERIMENR BY FREUD
(1909)
• RESULTS: Freud claimed that Hans was
experiencing the Oedipus complex. He
unconsciously sexually desired his mother and saw
his father as a rival and feared castration. He
displaced the fear of his father on to horses. The
white horse with black around the mouth
represented his father who had a dark beard. His
fear of being bitten by a horse represented his fear
of castration and his fear of horses falling down
was his unconscious desire to see his father dead
• CONCLUSION: This supports Freud’s ideas about
the Oedipus Complex
CASE STUDY - CARL
• Rekers (1974) described the case of Carl who
was 8 years old and had a gender identity
problem
• He had a feminine voice and liked to talk about
dresses, cosmetics and delivering babies
• He preferred to play with girls and played house
with his sister
• He also pretended to be ill or injured rather
than playing with boys
• Carl lived with his mother and did not have a
stable father figure in his life
GENDER DEVELOPMENT IN A LONEPARENT HOUSEHOLD
• Freud suggested that if a child is brought up in
a single-parent household they would have a
poorly developed gender identity
• This is because the child does not experience
and resolve the Oedipus/Electra Complex
GENDER DEVELOPMENT IN A LONEPARENT HOUSEHOLD
• If a boy is raised without a father, he will not
develop a masculine gender identity as he did
not have a father to identify with during the
phallic stage of development
• Freud suggested that a boy in this position
would become homosexual
REKERS AND MORAY (1990)
• AIM: To investigate whether there is a
relationship between gender
disturbance and family background
• METHOD: Researchers rated 46 boys
with gender disturbance for gender
behaviour and gender identity. The
family background was also investigated
REKERS AND MORAY (1990)
• RESULTS: 75% of the most severely
gender-disturbed boys had neither their
biological father nor a father substitute
living with them
• CONCLUSION: Boys who do not have a
father figure present during their
childhood are more likely to develop a
problem with their gender identity
EVALUATION
• Testing = it is difficult to test Freud’s ideas as they are
based on unconscious thoughts and feelings
• Has there been an increase in homosexuality = this has
not increased despite the rise in the number of children
raised in lone-parent families (something Freud
suggested would happen)
• Is it just parents that influence gender development =
there is a wide range of people influencing gender
development, not just parents (e.g. siblings, peers, etc)
• Evidence for Oedipus/Electra Complex = there is
actually little evidence to support these ideas
• Can results from Little Hans be generalised – just one
child investigated = results from the Little Hans case
study cannot be generalised due this being on only one
child
EVALUATION OF THE PSYCHODYNAMIC THEORY
OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT
Based on thoughts and
feelings
This has not happened
Freud said more lone-parent
households would lead to an
increase in homosexuality
Difficult to test
Freud’s theories
Influence of
gender
development
comes from a
variety of people
Parents, peers,
siblings, etc
EVALUATION
Little Hans
Only one child in study so
results cannot be
generalised
Oedipus Complex
and Electra
Complex
No evidence
for either
complex
GCSE PSYCHOLOGY
UNIT 2
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY OF GENDER
DEVELOPMENT
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
• Social learning theorists believe that gender is
learnt from watching and copying the behaviour
of others
• There are three processes involve in this theory:
– MODELLING – where an adult or other child acts as a
role model or an example to follow
– IMITATION – where the child copies the behaviour
shown by the model
– VICARIOUS REINFORCEMENT – where the child learns
from what happens to the model when the model
carries out a certain behaviour
• Model being rewarded = child more likely to copy this
• Model being punished = child less likely to copy this
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
• Who can act as a model to a child? Why?
• Models:
– People similar to the child (friends, samesex parent)
– People with power (teachers, older siblings)
– People loving and caring towards the child
(parents, teachers)
PERRY AND BUSSEY (1979)
• AIM: To show that children imitate behaviour carried
out by same-sex role models
• METHOD: Children were shown films of role models
carrying out activities that were unfamiliar to the
children. In one condition, all of the male role
models played with one activity while all the female
role models played with the other activity. In the
second condition some of the male role models and
some of the female role models played with one
activity while the other male and female role models
played with the other activity
PERRY AND BUSSEY (1979)
• RESULTS: In the first condition, the children imitated
what they had seen the same-sex role models doing.
The boys chose the activity the male role model had
played with. While the girls chose the activity the
female role models had played with. In the second
condition, there was no difference in the activities the
boys and girls chose
• CONCLUSION: When children are in an unfamiliar
situation they will observe the behaviour of same-sex
role models. This gives them information about
whether the activity is appropriate for their sex. If it is,
the child will imitate that behaviour
EXPLANATION
• Why did the boys and girls in the first
condition choose different activities?
• This was because they imitated the men
by choosing the activity the men chose
and the girls imitated the women by
choosing the same activity as them
EXPLANATION
• Why was there no difference in the
activities chosen by the boys and girls in
the second condition?
• This was because the boys and girls
copied the behaviour of the same-sex
models again
• However, as men and women chose both
activities so did the boys and girls
MEDIA AND GENDER DEVELOPMENT
• The media provides us with models for gender
behaviour
• Macklin and Kolbe (1984) claimed than children
want to imitate characters on the TV as they are
physically attracted to them
• TV demonstrates how males and females are
stereotyped in a number of ways
WILLIAMS (1986)
• AIM: To investigate the effects of television on the
gender development of children
• METHOD: In 1975, Williams studied the effects of
television on children living in Canada. At the
beginning of the study one of the towns was being
provided with television for the first time while the
other towns already had television. He measured the
attitudes of children living in these towns at the
beginning of the study and again two years later
WILLIAMS (1986)
• RESULTS: The children who now had television
were more sex stereotyped in their attitudes
and behaviours than they had been two years
previously
• CONCLUSION: Gender is learnt by imitating
attitudes and behaviours seen on television
EVALUATION OF SLT OF GENDER
DEVELOPMENT
 The SLT is well supported by research (i.e. children
learn their gender through observations and
imitations of models)
 It does not explain why children brought up in oneparent families, without strong same-sex role
model, do not have any difficulty developing their
gender
 It does not explain why two children of the same
sex, brought up in the same home with the same
role models can behave differently
 SLT believes that gender is learnt and so ignores
biological differences between males and females
GCSE PSYCHOLOGY
UNIT 2
SCHEMA THEORY OF GENDER
DEVELOPMENT
GENDER SCHEMA
• GENDER STEREOTYPES: believing that all
males are similar and all females are similar
• GENDER SCHEMA: a mental building block of
knowledge that contains information about
each gender
GENDER SCHEMA
• Gender Schemas are made up of the
knowledge we have about each gender, some
of these are made up from gender stereotypes
• Martin and Halverson (1981) believed that
these develop with age
GENDER SCHEMA – MARTIN AND
HALVERSON (1981)
AGE
At 2yrs old
children
know if
they are a
boy or girl
Ability to
identify
others
belonging to
same or
different sex
to them
Ideas
Children
are rigid
then learn and
about
stereoty
gender
ped
Knowledge
gained about
the world
leading to
gender
schemas
becoming
more flexible
Understand
what
By 6
objects/behav
understand iours are
their own
associated
gender better with each sex
but not the
opposite
gender
Concent
rate on
appropr
iate
things
for their
own sex
MARTIN (1989)
• AIM: To show that children’s understanding of
gender becomes less stereotyped and therefore
more flexible as they get older
• METHOD: Children heard stories about the toys
that male and female characters enjoyed playing
with. Some of the characters were described as
liking gender-stereotyped activities, while other
characters were described as liking non-genderstereotyped activities. The children were then
asked to predict what other toys each character
would or would not like to play with
MARTIN (1989)
• RESULTS: The younger children used only the sex
of the character to describe what other toys he or
she would or would not like. E.g. they would say
that a boy character would like to play with trucks
even if they had been told that the boy liked
playing with dolls. The older children, however,
considered both the sex of the character and the
other toys that the character enjoyed playing
with. E.g. they would say that a girl who liked
playing with trucks would be less likely to want to
play with a doll
• CONCLUSION: Older children have a more flexible
view of gender than younger children do
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN GENDER
DEVELOPMENT
• Not all children develop gender schemas in
the same way
• Even when children get older, some are still
stereotyped in their ideas; some are less
stereotyped
• Children who are stereotyped look for
information to support their ideas and ignore
or remember wrongly information that does
not fit their schema
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN GENDER
DEVELOPMENT
• Therefore, a child who was stereotyped and
watching a television programme that showed a
conversation between a male and female nurse,
the child would recall both characters as being
female. If they saw a scene between two male
doctors they would concentrate on this scene and
recall it in detail because it supports their
stereotyped idea of gender roles. A less
stereotyped child would accurately recall the
gender roles shown in both scenes
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN GENDER
DEVELOPMENT DEFINITIONS
• GENDER ROLES – Behaviour seen as masculine
or feminine by a particular culture
• HIGHLY GENDER SCHEMATISED – Where
gender is an important way of thinking about
the world so information is organised
according to what is gender appropriate and
what is gender inappropriate
LEVY AND CARTER (1989)
• AIM: To show that there are individual
differences in the way children think about
gender
• METHOD: Children were shown pictures of two
toys and asked to choose the one they would like
to play with. Sometimes, the toys in the pictures
were both stereotypically masculine, sometimes
there was one masculine toy and one feminine
toy. These pictures were shown to high and low
schematised children
LEVY AND CARTER (1989)
• RESULTS: The highly gender schematised children chose quickly
between the pictures when they were shown one masculine
and one feminine toy. If, however, they were shown two
masculine or two feminine toys they took longer to choose
because they either wanted both toys or neither of them. The
less gender schematised children chose on the basis of personal
preference. It therefore took them the same time to choose
between the toys of each set of pictures
• CONCLUSION: Highly gender schematised children choose toys
on the basis of whether or not they are appropriate for their
sex. Less gender schematised children choose on the basis of
their personal preference
EVALUATION OF GENDER SCHEMA
THEORY OF GENDER DEVELOPMENT
 Gender schema theory is  It does not explain why some
children are more highly
quite a detailed
schematised than others
explanation of gender
 Or why gender begins to
development
develop at the age of two
 It is well supported by
 Or why children choose sameevidence
sex friends and gender It fits with our experience
appropriate toys before they
(“intuitive appeal”)
can correctly identify
themselves as being male or
female