Instructor name Class Title, Term/Semester, Year Institution © 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Introductory Psychology Concepts Gender

© 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 2 Gender: Perception of Being Male or Female Although there is a good deal of overlap between the concepts of sex and gender, they are not the same. Sex typically refers to sexual anatomy and sexual behavior Gender refers to the sense of maleness or femaleness related to our membership in a given society. Introductory Psychology Concepts: Gender

© 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 3 Gender: Psychological Aspect of Being Male or Female Men and women differ in how positively they view their own abilities and how they estimate the probability of their future success. In general, women evaluate themselves more harshly than men. Content of men’s and women’s speech differs, with women’s speech being more precise. Speech patterns lead others to view them as more tentative, less assertive. Women’s and men’s nonverbal behavior differs in several significant respects. In conversation with opposite sex, women look at their partner significantly more while listening than while speaking. Introductory Psychology Concepts: Gender

© 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 4 Gender Typing: Process in Which People Learn their Cultural Appropriate Gender Role Starting from the moment of birth, with blue blankets for boys and pink ones for girls, most parents and other adults provide environments that differ in important respects according to gender. Differences in environment and activity based on gender are described as socialization, the process by which an individual learns the rules and norms of appropriate behavior. According to Sandra Bem (1998), socialization produces a gender schema, a mental framework that organizes and guides a child’s understanding of information relevant to gender. Introductory Psychology Concepts: Gender

© 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 5 Gender Identity Gender identity is the sense of “femaleness” or “maleness” that becomes a central aspect of one’s personal identity. Most children develop a basic gender identity between the ages of 2 and 3 and can label themselves and others as being either a boy or a girl. Gender constancy is the understanding that being male or female is a permanent part of person, developing at age 6 or 7. Introductory Psychology Concepts: Gender

© 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 6 Gender Stereotyping As gender identity develops, children acquire sex-role stereotypes; beliefs about the characteristics and behaviors that are appropriate for boys and girls to possess. Every group, including family and cultural groups, has norms for expected and accepted gender behavior. Parents, siblings, friends, the mass media, and other socializing agents convey these norms as we grow up. As we internalize these norms, they become part of our identity (Martin & Ruble, 2004). Introductory Psychology Concepts: Gender

© 2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 7 Gender Stereotyping: Positive and Negative Aspects Stereotyping can be either negative or positive, but in either case stereotyping is inherently harmful for three reasons: 1) Stereotypes reduce our ability to treat members of a gender as an individual. 2) Stereotypes lead to narrow expectations for gender behavior. 3) Stereotypes lead to faulty attributions, the theory that people tend to look for explanations for specific behavior based on gender stereotypes. Introductory Psychology Concepts: Gender