Gender Roles and Differences

1. Chapter 4 Section 4 Notes Gender Roles and Differences

2. Gender Identity- the sex group to which an individual biologically belongs to. • Male or Female • Gender Role- the set of behaviors that society considers appropriate for each sex. • Varies between societies • Change over time • Gender Stereotypes- generalization about the characteristics of man and woman. • Androgynous- combining/blending traditional male and female characteristics.

3. Gender Differences • Personality • Academics • (Mednick & Thomas, 1993) found that males are more confident in academic abilities such as math and science. • Aggression • Females are mover verbally aggressive when males are more physically. • Women get more anxiety after the fact • Communication • Men talk and interrupt more • Nonverbal communication is done by women more

4. Cognitive Abilities • True or false • Females are better on verbal ability , while males excel at spatial and mathematical ability. • There are very few cognitive abilities between males and females overall.

5. How differences develop? • Biological • Anatomy, hormones, and brain organization • Despite parents boys prefer to play with trucks and girls baby dolls • Psychoanalytical • Freud's identification process • Boy finds dad and girl finds mom • Social Learning • Social and cognitive processes on how we perceive, organize, and use information • Children mimic what they observe creating gender roles • Cognitive-Development • Interacting with their environment and thinking about those experiences. • Gender Schema- a set of behaviors organized around how either a male or female should think and act.