Psychology Week 10 Discussion Board 1 (parts 1-3)

Written by P. A. Owens on October 24, 2018

Week 10 DB 1 (parts 1-3)

DB1:  Please clearly identify and discuss, the following:

1)  Differentiate sex and gender.*

According to our text, our sex is determined by the physical characteristics that we are born with and gender is what each individual person identifies themselves as. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

2)   Analyze gender role differences.

Male gender roles tend to be more masculine and “strong” or muscular and show less emotion than female gender roles. Whereas female gender roles tend to lean toward the “damsel in destress” or weaker link and more emotional of the two gender roles. These are more commonly known as gender role stereotypes. A gender stereotype is a concept about males or females that assigns various characteristics to them on the basis of nothing more than being male or female. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017) All throughout history, we have seen countless examples of this but of course it’s not always the case especially in our modern society of the current year, 2018.

3)   Know gender role development theories.  (Describe and develop them here)

Social Learning Theory: emphasizes learning through observation and imitation of models, attributes gender-role development to those processes. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

Gender Schema Theory: this theory combines social learning theory and cognitive development. It is based on the Piagetian concept of schemes, children develop a schema, or mental pattern, for being male or female in much the same way that they develop schemas for other concepts such as “dog,” “bird,” and “big.” (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

Gender Stereotyping: as I explained above, gender stereotyping is a concept about males or females that assigns various characteristics to them on the basis of nothing more than being male or female. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

Androgyny: psychologist Sandra Bem has developed the concept of androgyny to describe a characteristic of people whose personalities reflect the characteristics of both males and females, regardless of gender. (Ciccarelli and White, 2017)

References:

Ciccarelli, Saundra K., & J. Noland White.  Psychology (REVEL with e-text/access code), 5th  Edition.  Person 2017.  ISBN:  978-0134715305