Gender differences

• Infants are classified as male or female at birth.
From this moment on, their sexual identity plays
an important role in the way they are treated by
society.
• Difference bt sex and gender:
• Sex refers to sexual behaviour
• Gender refers to the sense of maleness or
femaleness related to our membership in a
given society

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SOCIAL
BEHAVIOUR
• Traits like sensitivity and nurturance are
attributed to females and aggressiveness and
dominance are attributed to males (Eagly,
1987; Friedman & Zebrowitz, 1992).

BEHAVIOUR
• 1. EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION: SENDING AND
RECEIVING NON-VERBAL CUES

• Non-verbal Cues – facial expression, eye
contact, body posture or movements, tone of
speech, dressing style, etc.

BEHAVIOUR
• 1. EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION: SENDING AND
RECEIVING NON-VERBAL CUES
• Females are generally better at both sending
and receiving non-verbal cues than males (Dik
Browne, 1984; DePaulo, 1992; Rosenthal &
DePaulo, 1979).
• In social situations females know what to
expect from others and hence they do not get
surprised by other’s behaviour

BEHAVIOUR
• 2. EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION: THE CRYING
GAME (Hindustan Times Sunday Magazine,
March 6, 2011)
• Gwyneth Paltrow went in for full-on sobbing,
giving effusive thanks to an endless list of
people, hot tears running down.
• Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, etc….

BEHAVIOUR
• 2. EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION: THE CRYING GAME
(Hindustan Times Sunday Magazine, March 6,
2011)
• Reasons…
• Social conditioning – women are brought up to
believe that it is all right to cry to express
emotion, be it joy, sorrow or pain.
• Men, on the other hand, are brought up to
regard crying as a mark of weakness, something
that they must never be seen doing.

BEHAVIOUR
• 3. SOCIAL INFLUENCE: EVALUATION FEEDBACK
• Males tend to view situations in which they
receive feedback on their performance as
competitive ones. As a result, they view such
feedback with skepticism.
• In contrast, females view such situations as
leading opportunities and therefore pay
greater attention to the feedback they receive
(Roberts, 1993).

BEHAVIOUR
• 4. LEADERSHIP: PERFORMANCE AND EVALUATIONS
• Males and females differ but in smaller magnitude
• Research studies suggest that female leaders often
receive lower ratings than male leaders, even when
their performance is the same. This finding is
especially strong in situations where the raters are
males.
• Female leaders face disadvantage in social settings.

BEHAVIOUR
• 5. AGGRESSION: WHAT KIND AND HOW
MUCH
• Gender stereotypes and crime statistics
support the view that males are more
aggressive than females.
• Females use indirect mode of aggression than
males. This difference increases with age and
girl’s growing cognitive skills. The reason can
be they are generally smaller in size and
physical strength (Bjorkqvist, Lagerspetz, &
Kaukiainen, 1992).

BEHAVIOUR
• 6. FRIENDSHIP: ARE FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS
MORE INTENSE AND BENEFICIAL
• Females and males make intense friendships
and females find more satisfaction in
friendships than males.

MATE SELECTION, RELATIONSHIPS,
AND SEXUALITY
• 1. MATE SELECTION:
• Ads by females: young, physically attractive; is
seeking a partner who has wealth and high status
and who is interested in serious relationship.
• Ads by males: has high status (in education,
profession and wealth); is seeking a partner who
is young and attractive.
• Males and females adopt contrasting strategies
because they invest different amounts of
resources in their offspring.

AND SEXUALITY
• 2. RELATIONSHIPS:
• Both the genders show high correlation
towards long-term relationships (e.g.,
marriage).
• With regard to one-night stand, males show
low correlation. It means males seem to
accept wide range of partners in this context
(Kenrick, 1993).

AND SEXUALITY
• 3. SEXUALITY:
• Females and males differ to some extent with
regard to their sexual attitudes and sexual
behaviour.
• Males are more accepting of casual sexual
encounters and express more permissive
attitudes towards extramarital sex.
• Males report a higher incidence of masturbation,
a greater incidence of intercourse, and more
partners (Oliver and Hyde, 1993).

BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF GENDER
DIFFERENCES
• 1. HORMONES:
• During prenatal development – key role
• Biological sex determined by sex
chromosomes – XX or XY.
• Embryos until about 8 to 12 weeks.
• Gonads (sex glands) produce androgens
• John Money and colleagues (1972) exposed
small number of females to high levels of
androgens during their pregnancy.

BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF GENDER
DIFFERENCES
• 1. HORMONES:
• Girls born to these females were with
masculinized genitals, the degree varied.
• These girls showed interest in outdoor
activities, preferred male playmates and male
toys.

SOURCES OF GENDER DIFFERENCES
• Sex is biological variable – BIOLOGICAL
FACTORS
• After birth ppl are treated differently based on
their sex – SOCIETAL FACTORS

• Both these factors should be considered.

• BIOLOGICAL FACTORS:
• Do differences between males and female
brains underlie sex and gender differences? –
some of the neuropsychologists asked.

• Exposure to the male hormones affected the
development of girls’ brains, making them
favour toys that involve certain kinds of skills.

• For eg., girls who were exposed before birth
to unusually high levels of androgen, male
hormones, because their mothers accidentally
took a drug containing the hormone during
pregnant, preferred different toys
stereotypically preferred by boys (such as
cars) and less likely to play with toys
stereotypically associated with girls (such as
dolls).

• Similarly, some evidence suggests that women
perform better on tasks involving verbal skill
and muscular coordination when their
production of female sex hormone, estrogen,
is relatively high, compared with when it is
low.
• In contrast, they perform better on talks
involving spatial relationships when their
estrogen level is relatively low (Kimura &
Hampson, 1988; Kimura, 1999).

• Some psychologists take evolutionary
approach to explain it.
• David Buss and colleagues (1992) point to
differences in nature of jealousy between men
and women.
• They found that men were more jealous in
cases of actual sexual infidelity, as apposed to
emotional infidelity in which there was
emotional attachment to another man but no
actual sexual infidelity.

• They found that men were more jealous in
cases of actual sexual infidelity, as apposed to
emotional infidelity in which there was
emotional attachment to another man but no
actual sexual infidelity.
• In contrast, women were more jealous in
cases of emotional infidelity rather than
sexual infidelity.

• The root cause of this controversial
explanation lies in evolutionary implications of
sexual infidelity for men and women.
• For men – sexual infidelity means their
children are not their own, not inherited their
genes. This makes them more upset
compared to emotional infidelity.

• For women – they know their children are
their own, nurtured in their womb. Their main
concern is involving male in child rearing. So
males emotional attachment is more crucial
for them.

• SOCIAL FACTORS:
• From birth – boys with blue blankets and girls
with pink ones.
• Different kinds of toys are given

• Parents treat children differently according to
their sex.
• Fathers play roughly with boys than with girls.
Mothers talk more to girls than with boys.
(Jacklin & Reynolds, 1993)

• SOCIAL FACTORS:
• Social learning theory – boys and girls are
taught, and rewarded for performing,
behaviours that are perceived by society as
being appropriate for men or for women,
respectively (Philpot, 2000).

• Even the society shows this gender
differences: in novels (girls as nurturing and
boys in physical and action-oriented roles) and
TV

Gender differences

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