Biological Influences on Gender Typing

1

• 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

2

• Humans
• Cannot do experimental research for ethical
  reasons
• Correlational research

3

• In boys, naturally occurring variations in
  androgen levels are positively correlated with
• Amount of rough-and-tumble play
• Levels of physical aggression

4

• 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

5

• Environmental Influences on Gender Typing
• Social Learning Theory
• Gender typing results from
• imitation of same-sex models and reinforcement
  for this behavior

6

• 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

7

• 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

8

• Parents create different environments for boys
  and girls beginning in infancy (e.g., bedrooms,
  toys)

9

• 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)

10

• 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

11

• 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

12

• 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

13

• 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

14

• Parental Behavior and Childrens Toy Choices
• For unaffected children, parents positive and
  negative responses to childrens toy choices were
  related to childrens play behavior
• Positive responses to childrens 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 childrens toy choices