by John W. Santrock

1. Thirteenth Edition Adolescence by John W. Santrock University of Texas at Dallas PowerPoint slides prepared by Leonard R. Mendola, PhD Touro College

2. Chapter 5: Gender Outline • Biological, Social, and Cognitive Influences on Gender • Biological Influences on Gender • Social Influences on Gender • Cognitive Influences on Gender • Gender Stereotypes, Similarities, and Differences • Gender Stereotyping • Gender Similarities and Differences • Gender Controversy • Gender in Context

3. Chapter 5: GenderOutline (Continued from previous slide) • Gender-Role Classification • Masculinity, Femininity, and Androgyny • Context, Culture, and Gender Roles • Androgyny and Education • Traditional Masculinity and Problem Behaviors in Adolescent Males • Gender-Role Transcendence • Developmental Changes and Junctures • Early Adolescence and Gender Intensification • Is Early Adolescence a Critical Juncture for Females?

4. Biological Influences on Gender • Gender development is influenced by biological, social, and cognitive factors. • Pubertal change is a biological influence on gendered behavior in adolescence. • Freud and Erikson argued that the physical characteristics of males and females influence their behavior. • Evolutionary psychologists emphasize the role of gender in the survival of the fittest.

5. Pubertal Change and Sexuality • Puberty intensifies the sexual aspects of adolescents’ gender attitudes and behavior (Basow, 2006, Galambos, Berenbaum, & McHale, 2009). • Pubertal changes may result in masculinity and femininity being renegotiated during adolescence.

6. Freud and Erikson—Anatomy Is Destiny • Both Freud and Erikson argued that an individual’s genitals influence his or her gender behavior. • One of Freud’s basic assumptions was that human behavior is directly related to reproductive processes. • Erikson (1968) extended Freud’s argument. • Critics stress that experience is not given enough credit. • Erikson modified his view.

7. Evolutionary Psychology and Gender • Evolutionary psychology emphasizes that adaption during the evolution of humans produced psychological differences between males and females (Buss, 2001, 2004, 2008). • Evolutionary psychologists argue that males and females faced different pressures in primeval environments (Freeman & Herron, 2007). • Males evolved dispositions that favor violence, competition, and risk taking. • Females developed preferences for successful, ambitious men who could provide resources (Geher & Miller, 2007).

8. Evolutionary Psychology and Gender (Continued from previous slide) • Critics of evolutionary psychology argue that its hypotheses are backed by speculations about prehistory, not evidence, and that in any event people are not locked into behavior that was adaptive in the evolutionary past. • Critics also claim that the evolutionary view pays little attention to cultural and individual variations in gender differences (Matlin, 2008; Smith, 2007).

9. Social Influences on Gender • Many social scientists do not locate the cause of psychological gender differences in biological dispositions. • Social scientists argue that gender differences are due mainly to social experiences. • Alice Eagly (2009) proposed Social role theory • which states that gender differences mainly result from the contrasting roles of females and males.

10. Parental Influences Parents influence their children’s and adolescents’ gender development (Leaper & Friedman, 2007; Maccoby, 2007). • Parents allow boys more independence than girls. • Parents may also have different achievement expectations for their adolescent sons and daughters (Leaper & Friedman, 2007). • Mothers and fathers often interact differently with sons and daughters, and these gendered interactions begin in infancy and continue through childhood and adolescence.

11. Social Cognitive Theory of Gender • The social cognitive theory of gender • Gender development is influenced by observation and imitation of others’ gender behavior, as well as by the rewards and punishments they experience for gender-appropriate and inappropriate behavior • Siblings • Play a role in gender socialization (Galambos, Berenbaum & McHale, 2009).

12. Social Cognitive Theory of Gender (Continued from previous slide) • Peers • Model masculine and feminine behavior (Leaper & Friedman, 2007). • Adolescents spend increasing amounts of time with peers (Brown & others, 2008). • Peer approval or disapproval is a powerful influence on gender attitudes and behavior. • Peer groups in adolescence are more likely to be a mix of boys and girls than in childhood. • Peers can socialize gender behavior partly by accepting or rejecting others on the basis of their gender-related attributes.

13. Social Influences on Gender (Continued from previous slide) • Schools and Teachers • Compliance, following rules, and being neat and orderly are valued and reinforced in many classrooms. • A large majority of teachers are females • Boys are more likely than girls to have learning problems. • Boys are more likely than girls to be criticized. • School personnel tend to stereotype boys’ behavior as problematic.

14. Social Influences on Gender (Continued from previous slide) • Schools and Teacher (Continued) • In a typical classroom, girls are more compliant, boys more rambunctious. • Boys get more instruction than girls and more help when they have trouble with a question. • Boys are more likely than girls to get lower grades and to be grade repeaters. • When elementary school children are asked to list what they want to do when they grow up, boys describe more career options than girls do.

15. Social Influences on Gender (Continued from previous slide) • Mass Media Influences • Television shows directed at adolescents are extremely stereotyped in their portrayal of the sexes, especially teenage girls (Comstock & Scharrer, 2006). • Another highly stereotyped form of programming that specifically targets teenage viewers is music videos (Roberts & Foehr, 2008). • The world of television is highly gender-stereotyped and conveys clear messages about the relative power and importance of women and men (Calvert, 2008). • The media influence adolescents’ body images, and some studies reveal gender differences in this area (Grabe & Hyde, 2008; Grabe, Monique, & Hyde, 2008).

16. Cognitive Influences on Gender • Cognitive Developmental Theory of Gender • Children’s gender-typing occurs after they have developed a concept of gender. • Once children think of themselves as male or female, they organize their world on the basis of gender. • Gender Schema Theory • Gender-typing emerges as individuals gradually develop gender schemas of what is gender-appropriate and gender-inappropriate in their culture (Blakemore, Berenbaum, & Liben, 2009; Zozuls, Lurye, Ruble, 2008).

17. Cognitive Influences on Gender • Gender Schema Theory • A schema is a cognitive structure, a network of associations that guide an individual’s perceptions. • A gender schema organizes the world in terms of female and male. • Children and adolescents are internally motivated to perceive the world and to act in accordance with their developing schemas. • Cognitive factors contribute to the way adolescents think and act as males and females (Blakemore, Berenbaum, & Liben, 2009).

18. Gender Stereotypes, Similarities, and Differences • Gender stereotypes • Are general impressions and beliefs about females and males. • Sexism • Is prejudice and discrimination against an individual because of his or her sex.

19. Gender Stereotyping Types of Items Developed to Measure Old-Fashion and Modern Sexism Fig. 5.1

20. Gender Similarities & Differences • Physical Similarities and Differences • Cognitive Similarities and Differences • Socioemotional Similarities and Differences • “There is more difference within the sexes than between them.” • - Ivy Compton-Burnett

21. Gender Similarities & Differences Visiospatial Skills of Males and Females Fig. 5.2

22. Gender Similarities & Differences Gender Differences in U.S. 8th Grade Students’ Writing Skills Fig. 5.3

23. Socioemotional Similarities and Differences • Aggression • One of the most consistent gender differences is that boys are more physically aggressive than girls. • The difference occurs in all cultures and appears very early in children’s development (Baillargeon & others, 2007). • Relational aggression • Involves harming someone by manipulating a relationship (Keenan, Coyne, & Lahey, 2008).

24. Communication in Relationships • Rapport talk • Is the language of conversation and a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships. • Females enjoy rapport talk and conversation that is relationship-oriented more than boys do. • Report talk • Talk that gives information. • Males tend to hold center stage through such verbal performances as storytelling, joking, and lecturing with information.

25. Communication in Relationships • Prosocial Behavior • Females view themselves as more prosocial and empathic (Eisenberg & others, 2009). • Across childhood and adolescence, females engage in more prosocial behavior than do males (Hastings, Utendale, & Sullivan, 2007). • Emotion and Its Regulation • Beginning in the elementary school years, boys are more likely to hide their negative emotions. • Girls are less likely to express emotions such as disappointment that might hurt others’ feelings (Eisenberg, Martin, & Fabes, 1996).

26. Communication in Relationships • Emotion and Its Regulation (Continued) • Beginning in early adolescence, girls say they experience more sadness, shame, and guilt, and report more intense emotions. • Boys are more likely to deny that they experience sadness, shame, and guilt (Ruble, Martin, & Berenbaum, 2006). • An important skill is to be able to regulate and control one’s emotions and behavior (Thompson, 2009; Thompson & Goodman, 2009). • Boys usually show less self-regulation than girls (Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Smith, 2004).

27. Gender Controversy • David Buss (2008) argues that gender differences are extensive and caused by the adaptive problems they have faced across their evolutionary history. • Alice Eagly (2008, 2009) emphasizes that gender differences are due to social conditions that have resulted in women having less power and controlling fewer resources than men. • Janet Shibley Hyde (2005, 2007; Hyde & others, 2008) concludes that gender differences have been greatly exaggerated.

28. Gender in Context • Gender behavior often varies across contexts (Eagly, 2009; Leszcynski & Strough, 2008; Watt & Eccles, 2008). • Context is also relevant to gender differences in the display of emotions (Shields, 1991). • Contextual variations regarding gender in specific situations have not only been found within a particular culture but also across cultures (Matsumoto & Juang, 2008).

29. Masculinity, Femininity, and Androgyny • In the past, • A well-adjusted boy was supposed to be independent, aggressive, and powerful. • A well-adjusted girl was supposed to be dependent, a nurturant, and uninterested in power. • The masculine characteristics were considered to be healthy and good by society; the feminine characteristics were considered undesirable. • In the 1970s • Both males and females became dissatisfied with the burdens imposed by their stereotyped roles, alternatives to “masculinity” and “femininity” were explored. • This thinking led to the development of the concept of androgyny.

30. Gender-Role Classification The Bem Sex-Role Inventory Fig. 5.4

31. Gender-Role Classification Gender-Role Classification Fig. 5.5

32. Context, Culture, and Gender Roles • The importance of considering gender in context is nowhere more apparent than when examining what is culturally prescribed behavior for females and males in different countries around the world (Gibbons, 2000). • Increasing numbers of children and adolescents in the United States and other modernized countries, such as Sweden, are being raised to behave in androgynous ways.

33. Context, Culture, and Gender Roles • Traditional gender roles continue to dominate the cultures of many countries around the world today. • In such cultures: • The man’s duty is to provide for his family, • The woman’s duty to care for her family and household.

34. Gender-Role Classification Changing Attitudes about Gender Roles Fig. 5.6

35. Androgyny and Education • Advocates of androgyny programs argue that traditional sex-typing is harmful for all students and especially has prevented many girls from experiencing equal opportunity.

36. Traditional Masculinity and Problem Behaviors in Adolescent Males • Boy code • Boys are socialized to not show feelings and to act tough. • Boys learn the boy code in many different contexts – sandbox, playground, school, camps, hangouts – and are taught the code by parents, peers, coaches, teachers, and other adults. • Boys could benefit from being socialized to express anxieties and concerns.

37. Traditional Masculinity and Problem Behaviors in Adolescent Males (Continued from previous slide) • Joseph Pleck (1995) concludes that what defines traditional masculinity in many Western cultures includes behaviors that do not have social approval but nonetheless validate the adolescent boy’s masculinity: • Premarital sex • Alcohol and drugs • Delinquent activities

38. Gender Role Transcendence • The view that when an individual’s competence is at issue, it should be conceptualized on a person basis rather than on the basis of masculinity, femininity, or androgyny (Pleck, 1983).

39. Developmental Changes and Junctures • Gender intensification hypothesis: • Psychological and behavioral differences between boys and girls become greater during early adolescence. • This is due to increased socialization pressures to conform to traditional masculine and feminine gender roles (Hill & Lynch, 1983; Lynch, 1991).

40. Developmental Changes and Junctures • Is Early Adolescence a Critical Juncture for Females? • Gilligan (1996) argues that girls experience life differently from boys; in her words, girls have a “different voice.” • Gilligan also stresses that adolescence is a critical juncture in girls’ development. • Some researchers note that the self-doubt and ambivalence girls experience in early adolescence translate into depression and eating disorders.

41. Developmental Changes and Junctures • Is Early Adolescence a Critical Juncture for Females? (Continued) • Some critics argue that Gilligan and her colleagues overemphasize differences in gender (Dindia, 2006; Hyde, 2007). • There is increasing evidence that adolescence is a critical juncture in the psychological development of females (Basow, 2006).

42. RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ADOLESCENTS • “Gender Development in Adolescence” by Nancy Galambos, Sheri Berenbaum, and Susan McHale. (2004).In R. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of Adolescence. (2009, 3rd Ed.).New York: Wiley. An expert on gender development in adolescence, Nancy Galambos, evaluates many different research areas. • The Inside Story on Teen Girlsby Karen Zager and Alice Rubenstein. (2002). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Provides insight into the lives of adolescent girls with many excellent recommendations about such topics as identity, puberty, sex, dating, school, peers, and relationships with parents.

43. RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ADOLESCENTS • Real Boysby William Pollack. (1999). New York: Owl Books. Pollack examines the ways boys have been reared and concludes that there needs to be a major change in this rearing. • YMCA http://www.ymca.net The YMCA provides a number of programs for teenage boys. A number of personal health and sports programs are available. The website provides information about the YMCA closest to your location.

44. RESOURCES FOR IMPROVING THE LIVES OF ADOLESCENTS • YWCA http://www.ywca.org The YWCA promotes health, sports participation, and fitness for women and girls. Its programs include instruction in health, teen-pregnancy prevention, family-life education, self-esteem enhancement, parenting, and nutrition. The website provides information about the YWCA location closest to you.

45. E-LEARNING TOOLS To help you master the material in this chapter, visit the Online Learning Center for Adolescence, 13th edition at: http://www.mhhe.com/santrocka13e