ABSTRACT
<target id="page_204" target-type="page">204</target>Chapter summary
The notion of a gender binary system (gender differences are biologically determined and immutable) has been replaced by a more realistic viewpoint emphasising gender diversity. As a result, gender incongruence is totally accepted and so no longer categorised as a mental disorder.
Gender stereotypes are increasingly regarded as very oversimplified. For example, most students exhibit a mixture of “masculine” and “feminine” forms of behaviour.
According to the gender similarities hypothesis, males and females differ only slightly with respect to the great majority of psychological variables. Most of the evidence is consistent with this hypothesis.
There is also evidence less consistent with the gender similarities hypothesis: females have superior reading ability to males in nearly all cultures; and females are clearly higher than males in neuroticism and agreeableness.
According to social cognitive theory, gender development depends on observational learning, direct tuition and enactive experience (positive or negative outcomes).
Social cognitive theory exaggerates the extent to which children are passive and engage in very specific forms of learning about gender.
According to self-socialisation theory, children are “gender detectives” who play an active role in learning about gender and acquire fairly general knowledge and understanding. The theory assumes that gender identity influences children’s behaviour in most situations; however, such influences are weaker and less general across situations than implied by the theory.
Evidence from twin studies indicates that “masculinity”, “femininity” and gender incongruence depend, to some extent, on genetic factors.
Girls with congenital adrenal hyperphasia show some evidence of male gender role behaviour and gender identity.
Biological theories fail to account for the impact of social and cultural factors on gender development.
