Psychology of Gender

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Psychology of Gender
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You Just Dont Understandby Deborah Tannen
Males
Females
Guise of Opposition one-upsmanship
Guise of Connection one-down
Focus on Status avoid failure
Focus on Involvement avoid isolation
Focus on Independence
Focus on Intimacy
Logical - thinkers
Emotional-feelers
Gift of understanding
Problem-Solvers
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Differences in Personal Relationships

• Grays motivation is
• 18 million from book sales
• 35,000 per seminar
• Claims are grossly exaggerated
• use of anecdotal information
• Polarizing men and women offensive
• creates greater distance

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Whats the difference anyway?

• Meta-Analytic Reviews
• Cognitive Abilities
• Sexual Behavior and Attitudes
• Conformity and Social Influence
• Emotional Experience
• Risk Taking
• Aggression

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Preliminary Remarks

• Introduction to Meta-analysis
• Sex/Gender Terminology
• Methodological Considerations

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Introduction to Meta-Analysis

• Meta-analysis Numerically averaging results
  across many studies
• A standard way to compute difference between
  groups Cohens d statistic
• Small .20
• Medium .50
• Large .80

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Defining Terms

• Sex - biological (anatomy, physiology,
  chromosomal characteristics)
• Gender - psych, social, cultural
• Gender role identity - degree to which ones self
  concept connects to psych, social, cultural
  understanding for males and females

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Methodological Considerations

• Gender Differences or Sex Differences?
• Sex/Gender Differences Strict dichotomies or
  continuous variables?
• Magnitude of Difference versus Within Group
  Variability
• File Drawer Problem
• Translating significant difference into
  practical significance

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Gender and Cognition

• The Missing 5
• Selection pressures enable man to achieve higher
  eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can
  woman--whether requiring deep thought, reason,
  invention, or imagination, or merely the uses of
  the senses and hands. --Darwin

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Gender and Cognition Verbal Tests
Source Hyde Linn, 1988 Notes n 165 studies
Negative d values mean women score higher
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Gender and Cognition Math Tests
Source Hyde et al. 1990 Notes n 100 studies,
Positive d values indicate men score higher
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Gender and Cognition Math Tests

• Study of the Mathematically Precocious (Benbow,
  1988)
• SAT-M
• Males M 436 Females M 404, d .39
• MaleFemale 600 21
• MaleFemale 700 41
• Predictive Validity?
• Media accounts lead to a self-fulfilling
  prophecy?

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Gender and Cognition Spatial Tests
Spatial Test d Mental
Rotation 0.56 Spatial
Perception 0.44 Spatial
Visualization 0.19
Source Linn Peterson, 1995 Notes Positive d
values indicate men score higher than women
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Gender and Cognition

• Cognitive Crowding Hypothesis
• Females more likely to have verbal ability
  represented in both hemispheres.
• Male brains more likely to have the left
  hemisphere devoted exclusively to verbal
  abilities and right hemisphere devoted to spatial
  abilities.
• Sex Differences in Lateralization
• Female brains are more symmetrically organized
  for cognitive functions (more bilateral in
  organization)
• Male brains are more asymmetrically organized
  (more lateralized in organization)

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Gender and Cognition

• Critique of Biological Theories
• Gender disparities on standardized tests
  declining in more recent years.
• Training eliminates disparity on spatial skills
  tests.
• Socialization mediating biology?
• Early reliance on verbal skills impacting womens
  performance on spatial and mathematical tests?

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Sexual Behavior and Attitudes
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Sexual Behavior and Attitudes
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Conformity and Social Influence

• Asch-type Conformity Experiments
• Women conform more than men
• d.32 (Becker, 1986)
• d.28 (Eagly Carli, 1981)
• Persuasion
• Women report more attitude change
• d.16 (Becker, 1986)
• d.11 (Eagly Carli, 1981)
• Negotiation (Stuhlmacher and Walters, 1999)
• Men more effective in Zero Sum Games (d.20)

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Conformity and Social Influence

• Leadership Styles (Eagly et al., 2003)
• Transformational
• Inspirational leadership that gains the trust
  confidence and admiration of group members
• Women more likely than men (d.10)
• Transactional
• Managing group members through punishment and
  rewards
• Women more likely to use rewards (d.13), men
  punishment (d.12)
• Laissez-faire
• Do not manage group members much
• Men more likely than women (d.16)

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Emotional Experience

• Self Disclosure (Dindia and Allen, 1992)
• Women self disclose more than men (d.18)
• Compared to their counterparts, women express
  sadness and depression more often, men express
  anger more often
• Emotional Expression
• Women externalize, men internalize (Brody Hall,
  2002)
• Response to Stress (Taylor, 2002)
• Men show a fight-or-flight response, women more
  likely to show a tend-and-befriend response

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Risk Taking
Source Miller and Schafer, 1999. Note Positive
d values occur when men score higher than women.
denotes a statistically significant difference
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Aggression
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Aggression

• Pattern of findings constant across cultures and
  nations, though degree is variable (Archer and
  Mehdikhani, 2004)
• Difference is largest between 18-22 years of age
  (d.66, Archer and Mehdikhani, 2004)
• Indirect or relational aggression higher in women
  compared to men (Crick Nelson, 2002 Simmons,
  2002)

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Introduction to Social Factors

• Parental Treatment and the Learning of Gender
  Roles
• Baby X Studies (Stern and Karraker, 1989)
• Knowledge of infants gender affects childrens
  interactions more than adults interactions with
  the infant
• Parent reactions to gender-typed play
• Fathers police more than mothers, everyone
  polices boys more than girls (e.g., Raag
  Rackliff, 1998)
• Big Boys Dont Cry (Brock, 1978 Weinberg et al.,
  1998)
• Parents assign gender-typed chores
• Daughters assigned household chores, sons outside
  work (e.g., Antill et al., 1996)

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Introduction to Social Factors

• Enacting Stereotypes
• Mass Media
• Commercials and TV Shows (Furnham Mak, 1999)
• Cartoons (Thompson and Zerbinos, 1995)
• When gender is salient, men and women act in
  stereotypic ways (Deaux Major, 1987)
• Men more likely to help in public and wnen women
  in need (Eagly Crowley, 1981)
• Stereo-type threat (Steele, 1997)
• When stereotypes queston the abilities of one sex
  they may undermine the performance of individual
  men and women
• Self-fulfilling prophecies and Behavioral
  Confirmation
• Feminists judged unlikable and unattractive
  (Haddock Zanna, 1994)
• Women (but not men) not liked if brash and
  self-promoting (Rudman, 1998)
• Women evincing direct and masculine style of
  leadership judged less likable than men similarly
  described (Eagly, et al., 1992)