Cognitivist Approach on Gender

[Year]

A Group Assignment By:Afzal Hussain

Binish ShamimGhulam Ghaus

Jamshed AlamShahzad Alam

M.Ed. (B) 2015-16

Submitted toMr. Ali Haider

Dept. Educational StudiesJamia Millia Islamia

Cognitivist ApproachOn

Gender Identity & Gender Role Development

21st

Mar 2016

Supervision of Practice Lesson Ghaus, Ghulam

IndexS.No. Content Page No.

1 Preface 2

2 Cognitive Approach 2

3 Introduction 3

4 Key Terms 3

5 Gender 4-5

6 Meaning & Concept 4

7 Gender Identity 4

8 Gender Role Development 5

9 Theories on Gender 7-9

10 COGNITIVE THEORY 7

11 SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY 8

12 GENDER SCHEMA THEORY 9

13 Educational Implication 10

14 Conclusion 11

15 References 12

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COGNITIVIST APPROACHOn

Gender Identity & Gender Role Development

PREFACECognitive Approach

The Cognitive Approach in psychology is a relatively modern approach to human behaviour that focuses on how we think and how we perceive with the belief that such thought processes affect the way in which we behave. It is the scientific study of cognition means it studies all mental activities related to acquiring, storing, and using knowledge. The domain of cognitive psychology spans the entire spectrum of conscious and unconscious mental activities, sensation and perception, learning and memory, thinking and reasoning, attention and consciousness, imagining and dreaming, decision making and problem solving etc. Other topics that fascinate cognitive psychologists include creativity, intelligence, and how people learn, understand, and use language. Over the years, cognitive psychologists have discovered that mental activities that seem simple and natural are, in fact, extraordinarily complex.

When we study about gender, and think that how children gather and make sense of information about gender and how their understanding of gender changes over time, we find different cognitivists such as Kohlberg, Bandura, Piaget, Kelly and Bem etc. have tried to look gender in different ways and they have given different theories on it. Few of them are mentioned in this paper.

INTRODUCTION

Gender is one of the most important categories in human social life. Initially it was in a very simple form; but with the passage of time it became much sophisticated, complex and also imbued with a host of cultural meaning and practices. That's why we find that in all culture, male and female, boys and girls meet with distinct sets of gender-related beliefs, expectations, thoughts and behaviors. Gender identity and gender role is a fundamental issue because some of the most important aspects of people’s lives, such as the talents they

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cultivate, the conceptions they hold of themselves and others, the socio-structural opportunities and constraints they encounter, and the social life and occupational paths they pursue are heavily prescribed by societal gender-typing. In this paper we will analyze gender-identity and gender-role development in the light of various cognitive theories. And try to specify that how gender-conceptions are constructed from the complex of mixed experiences and how they operate in concert with motivational and self-regulatory mechanisms to guide gender-linked conduct throughout the life course.

Key Terms

Sex: The biological status of being male or female.

Gender: The meanings that societies and individuals attach to being male or female.

Gender Role: The societal expectations for appropriate female and male behavior

Gender Identity: How one psychologically perceives oneself as either male or female

Gender schema: a mental framework that organizes and guides, a child’s understanding of information relevant to gender.

Stereotype: cognitive component of one’s attitude towards sex

GENDERMeaning and Concept

Gender refers to the roles and responsibilities of men and women that are created in our families, our societies and our cultures. The concept of gender also includes the expectations held about the characteristics, aptitudes and likely behaviors of both women and men (femininity and masculinity). Gender roles and expectations are learned. They can change over time and they vary within and between cultures. Systems of social differentiation such as political status, class, ethnicity, physical and mental disability, age and more, modify gender roles. The concept of gender is vital because, applied to social analysis; it reveals how women’s subordination (or men’s domination) is socially constructed. As such, the subordination can be changed or ended. It is not biologically predetermined nor is it fixed forever.

Gender IdentityGender identity, that we all know, it is the perception of individual about self as a male or

female. It develops gradually, not at once. The process of socialization (social behaviour) plays a key role in gender identity e.g. from the very beginning, the child starts realizing its gender identity through its parenting style and social influences. Even the colors of cloths, toys, playing objects are attached to their identity. Since then their mind becomes receptive and this lead to the formation of their identity. It means the differences between men and

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women, which are universal and determined at birth. These differences are of two types: biological and environmental/social.

Biological factors are responsible for the differences in physical structure [such as face, hair, chest, voice etc.] and neurological structure. The androgens [male sex hormone] and ovarian [female productive hormone] are important in terms of sexual differentiation, and are related to morphological, anatomical and functional differences between the brains of women and men. This is the reason many researchers and educationalists have found differences between drawings made by boys and girls. Generally girls draw people, flowers, butterflies, the sun, buildings, and trees using warm colors more frequently than do boys. In contrast, boys like to draw mobile objects such as vehicles, trains, aircrafts and rockets, using cold colors. These differences in their drawings are because of biological factors which are responsible for differences in neurological structure.

On the other hand, the environmental factors are responsible for the differences in the behaviour and role that a male or female does or performs in a society in which he/she lives. A person acquire his “gender identity through a process of socialization known as sex typing, that takes account of the separate roles expected of male and female” in his society. Apart from physical differences anyone can find big differences in dress, emotions, and way of talking, behaving and managing task of male and female. In spite of feminism revolution whose leaders deny any type of difference in male and female, we find differences not only in dress but also the things they use, like shoes, socks, cosmetic object etc. These all differences in both the genders are because of environmental factors.

Gender Role DevelopmentWhen explaining how gender identity and roles develop, cognitive psychologists

emphasize the role of thinking processes. They are interested in how children gather and make sense of information about gender and how their understanding of gender changes over time (a developmental perspective). Cognitive psychologists assume that changes in gender role behavior reflect changes in how children understand and think about gender. These changes in understanding, in turn, reflect;

1. the accumulation of information about gender gathered from the environment and2. Developmental changes, in the child’s brain, allow it to process information in more

sophisticated ways.

The cognitive approach to gender development has made a significant contribution to our understanding of how thinking about gender changes over time. Cognitive developmental theory, with its focus on the individual, has allowed encouraged us to recognize the active role that children take in their own development.

As every parent, teacher and developmental psychologist know that male and female children become “masculine and feminine” respectively, at every early age of life by the

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time of four and five, for example, girls and boys, have typically come to prefer activities defined by culture as appropriate for their sex and to prefer to same –sex peer. The acquisition of sex-appropriate preferences, skills, personality, attributes, behaviors and self-concepts is typically referred to within psychology the gender roles. “These are the shared expectations (of behavior) that apply to individuals on the basis of their socially identified gender.”

There are various aspects of gender development that cognitive approach with its theories on gender has explained. These include some consistent gender differences. For example, most studies have found that boys’ thinking about gender is more rigid than girls’. Furthermore there are the universal features of gender role that are found in all cultures that suggest that some elements of gender are innate. These are most easily explained within a biological framework. However, a difficulty here is in trying to determine to what extent a gender difference is caused by the effects of sex role stereotyping on the expectation of male and female behaviour. We will try to find the answer in the following lines.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES1. Cognitive Theory of Gender: Kohlberg

Cognitive development theory states that the acquisition of gender roles takes place in the child’s head. The role of thinking process in the formation of gender identity and role development is crucial. As Kohlberg (1966) said, “It stresses the active nature of the child’s thought as he organizes his role perception and learning around the basic conception of his body and world”.

An assumption of cognitive development theory is that the child is an active interpreter of the world. His learning occurs when he cognitively organizes what he sees, not by way of reinforcement and conditioning. In other words, child influences the environment, not being influenced by environment.

Kohlberg (1966) suggests a series of stages of development for the acquisition of gender role. As child moves through these stages, its understanding of gender becomes more complex.

Kohlberg’s stages a. Gender Identity , which is usually, starts at the age of 2 years. At this stage, the child

is able to correctly label its own sex as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ and apply it to other also. This labeling is based on superficial characteristics of people rather than biological.

b. The second stage of gender role development is Gender Stability, which arrives at the age of 4 years. In this stage, the child realizes that the gender remains the same across time. However, its understanding of gender is heavily influenced by and depends on

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external features like hair and clothing. Children understanding at this stage can change with regard to gender role if external appearances are not matching with the identity of person.

c. The third stage which is Gender Constancy, where child understand that gender is independent of external features. The stage is usually arrived at the age of 7. Despite the change in its external features, they will not change their own identity and of others about gender.

2. Social Cognitive Theory: BanduraBandura’s social cognitive theory (SCT) builds on the earlier social learning

approaches by addressing the fact that human development involves a complex interplay of many factors. His behavior is not only influenced by way of reinforcement or stimulus, but in spite of this, there is an important role of modeling of our own behavior through observational learning. SCT highlights the active role of children in their observational learning. Children select the particular events or people in the environment, then mentally organize, combine and rehearse the observed behavior, decide when to enact the behavior and finally monitor the outcomes of that behavior. Experiment conducted by (Perry and Bussey) to investigate the extent of modeling has on gender development shows that “children imitate that behavior which is most frequently or largely performed by model of their same sex”

Apart from modeling and social experiences, there is an evidence of choice and flexibility in children’s behavior where cognitive process becomes active. Once children began to internalize the standard of behavior appropriate for males and females (through social experiences), their behavior is no longer dependent on external rewards or punishments. Rather, they become capable of directing their own behavior to satisfy their internalized standard. They also monitor their behavior against those standards, so that they feel pride on performing gender role-consistent behavior, even if there is no external praise.

Bandura also gave the concept of reciprocal determinism, through research he agreed that on the one hand, the environment caused behavior and on the other hand, behavior also had an effect on the environment. In other words, the situation we are in may cause us to behave in a certain way, but the way we behave will have a further effect on the situation we are in. In this concept, he included three factors:

a. an individual’s behavior,b. the environment and

c. psychological factors

which when interact with each other, produces individual personality. This added a cognitive component to the theory and signified Bandura’s move away from behaviorism and towards cognitivism.

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3. Gender Schema Theory: BemDr. Sandra Bem (1944-2014) developed a gender schema theory in 1981 to explain

how gender develops through socialization in a given culture. Gender- related information is passed through the generations in the form of gender schemas.

A gender schema contains the knowledge of what being male and female means and what behaviors, cognitions and emotions are associated with these categories. These schemas allow children to categorize and organize gender-related behaviors.

Now, what is meant to be gender schematic; someone who is gender schematic uses gender category to make decision about what to wear, how to behave what career to pursue and what emotions to present to other, while someone who is gender schematic does not consider gender when making these decision. Gender schema theory is a theory about the process by which we acquire gender roles, not that describe the content of roles .This theory help to know the process due to which gender stereotype has psychologically ingrained in our society solidifying the existence of gender stereotype. This theory combines elements of both social learning theory and cognitive development theory in describing how we acquire gender roles. Social learning theories explain how we acquire the features of male and female gender categories and what we associate with those categories. Cognitive development theory describes how we begin to encode new information in to their cognitive categories to maintain consistency. The child learns to invoke a gender role category or schema when processing new information.

Bem (1984) advanced her gender schema theory by showing that sex-type people engage in gender schematic processing. Bem hypothesized that sex-type respondent compared to androgynous respondents would describe more quickly that a sex appropriate attribute described them and that a sex in appropriate attribute did not describe them. It appears that sex type individuals were faster in making schema consistent judgment than cross sex typed androgynous and undifferentiated individuals. In other studies, Bem found that sex-typed individual were more likely to categorize a list of attributes in terms of gender and more likely to organize groups of other in terms of gender compared to androgynous persons. Bem also found support for her theory by demonstrating that sex typed individuals prefer to engage in behavior consistent with their gender role.

Education implicationsSchools are important context for the socialization of young children’s attitudes and

behaviors. Teachers and classmates shape children’s gender attitudes and in turn gender differences in cognition and behavior. Unfortunately, teachers receive relatively little training in recognizing and combating gender stereotypes and prejudices – their own and other – and, as a consequence, teacher often modal, expect, reinforce and lay the foundation

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for gender differentiation among their pupils. Thus, most schools create and maintain – rather than counter act – traditional gender stereotypes, biases and differences.

To overcome this stereotype attitude of children, following suggestion will be of great help. These are;

The educators should make commitment to gender egalitarianism and thus promote cross gender interaction treatment with both gender should be same.

Educational policies makers should resist the creation of gender segregated educational context (i.e. single sex school) but instead seek to enhance co-educational schools for promoting egalitarian attitudes and behaviors.

Teacher should expose peoples to counter – stereotypes model. cross sex types behavior should be encourage in the class room like girls participation in sports or challenging task; there interest or involvement in subject like maths, computer, science etc. whereas boys should be given task like class room maintenance, updating notice and class room board etc.

Teacher need to train themselves for recognizing their own explicit and implicit biases and how these biases affect their class room behavior, as children model their teachers.

The teacher should also receive explicit training in confronting children’s biases and adopt strategies to overcome there.

Parent should seek those educational setting for their students that our gender integrated and that make use of curricula that directly teach about ,and challenge gender bias and inequality.

ConclusionMany psychologists have given their own approaches and theories on gender after

their keen study. The cognitivists also have given their own, among which three theories are very important to understand the gender phenomenon. These three theories describe not only the concept of gender but also role and identification.

The first theory ‘Cognitive Theory of Gender’ given by Kohlberg represents the three stages of gender development a)‘Gender Identity’, b)‘Gender Stability’ and c)’Gender Constancy’. This theory inform us in which age a child becomes aware of his own gender, how does he/she become stable on his/her understanding of gender and what is the age in which a child can differentiate male and female really.

On the other hand Bandura’s ‘Social Cognitive theory of Gender’ deals with how a child take particular events or people in the environment, then mentally organize, combine and rehearse the observed behavior, decide when to enact the behavior and finally monitor the outcomes of that behavior. His theory is builds on the earlier social learning approaches. According to him there are various factors which influence a person; a) an individual’s behavior, b) the environment and c) psychological factors.

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Bem’s ‘Gender Schema Theory’ explains how gender develops through socialization in a given culture. Gender- related information is passed through the generations in the form of gender schemas which contains the knowledge of what being male and female means and what behaviors, cognitions and emotions are associated with these categories. These schemas allow children to categorize and organize gender-related behaviors.

It is an interesting thing to become aware of difference the word ‘sex’ and ‘gender, which are used interchangeably. While each word represents one factor. The earlier denotes the bio logical/neurological factors of differences in male and female, the later describes environmental factor.

Reference1. Tina, Abbott “Social and Personality Development”2. Helgeson, Vicki S. “Psychology of Gender” 2nd Edition

3. Ecks, Thomas & Trautner, Hanns M. “The Developmental Social Psychology of Gender”

4. http://www.open.edu/cognitiandgenderdevelopment

5. http://en.wikipedia.org/genderschematheory

6. http://study.com/sandra-bem-gender-schema-theory-andeogyny-test.html

7. http://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/approach.php

8. Encyclopedia of Encarta/cognitive psychology

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http://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/approach.php

http://study.com/sandra-bem-gender-schema-theory-andeogyny-test.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/genderschematheory

http://www.open.edu/cognitiandgenderdevelopment