Biological Influences on Gender Typing Hormonal Influences Experimental
Biological Influences on Gender Typing (Hormonal Influences) • Experimental animal studies indicate that exposure to androgens (male sex hormones): – Increases active play in male and female mammals – Promotes male-typical sexual behavior and aggression and suppresses maternal caregiving behavior in a wide variety of species
Humans: • Cannot do experimental research for ethical reasons – Correlational research
• In boys, naturally occurring variations in androgen levels are positively correlated with – Amount of rough-and-tumble play – Levels of physical aggression
• Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) – Disorder in which child is exposed to high levels of androgens from the prenatal period onward – Compared to girls without CAH, girls with CAH show • Higher activity levels • Greater interest in “male-typical” toys, activities, and occupations • Better spatial/mathematical abilities
Environmental Influences on Gender Typing • Social Learning Theory – Gender typing results from • imitation of same-sex models and reinforcement for this behavior
Parental Beliefs • Describe achievement, competition, and control of emotion as important for sons • Describe warmth, “ladylike” behavior, and closely supervised activities as important for daughters
Parental Behavior • On average, differences in parental treatment of boys and girls are not large • Does not mean that parental behavior is unimportant because: – Younger children receive more direct training in gender roles than older children – Some parents probably practice differential treatment more intensely than others
• Parents create different environments for boys and girls beginning in infancy (e. g. , bedrooms, toys)
• Parents give toys that stress action and competition to boys (e. g. , guns, cars, tools, footballs) • Give toys that emphasize nurturance, cooperation, and physical attractiveness to girls (e. g. , dolls, tea sets, jewelry, jump ropes)
• Parents reinforce independence in boys – React more positively when boys demand attention, run and climb, or try to take toys from others • Parents reinforce closeness/dependency in girls – More likely to direct play activities, provide help, encourage participation in household tasks, and refer to emotions
• Fathers tend to treat boys and girls more differently than do mothers – Engage in more physically stimulating play with infant sons than daughters – Less likely to give “girl toys” (e. g. , dolls) to sons
Pasterski et al. (2005) • Comparison of toy choices in girls and boys with CAH and their siblings (without CAH) – Girls with CAH played with “boys’ toys” more and “girls’ toys” less than their unaffected sisters – No differences between boys with CAH and their unaffected brothers
• Parental Behavior – Parents gave more negative responses to their unaffected sons than to their unaffected daughters for play with “girls’ toys” – Parents gave more positive responses to daughters with CAH than to unaffected daughters for play with “girls’ toys”
• Parental Behavior and Children’s Toy Choices – For unaffected children, parents’ positive and negative responses to children’s toy choices were related to children’s play behavior • Positive responses to children’s play with certain toys related to more play with those toys (and vice versa for negative responses) – For children with CAH, parental behavior was not related to children’s toy choices
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