Women & Psych - 320 - Module 2 Exam (Ch. 3 +10P, 5, 6, 8)

Emotion - family socialization

-1. parents sometimes treat sons and daughters differently -mothers talk about emotions more with their daughters than with sons -when parents do talk about emotions with their children, its often in a way that conveys gender stereotypes -classic jack in the box study: adults who thought that boy was a baby labeled the emotions as anger and those who thought the baby was a girl labeled the emotions as fear -2. mothers and fathers differ in emotion socialization behaviors -mothers are more emotionally expressive than fathers -mothers talk about emotions more often with their children and are more supportive of their children's negative emotions -mothers are more likely to serve as emotional gatekeepers for children, which involves taking on the work of regulating children's emotions and fostering children's emotional competence -when fathers become more involved with their children, patterns of gendered emotions are different -girls with more involved fathers express less fear and sadness -boys with more involved fathers express more warmth and fear -in essence, fathers' involvement in the family seems to be crucial to breaking down stereotypes in the next generation -3. both parent gender and child gender interact in the socialization of gendered emotions -4. how mothers and fathers response to their children's expression of negative emotions may depend on the child's gender and also differ across ethnic groups -for response to their daughters' negative emotions, mothers were more supportive than fathers in all groups (Euro, Lumbee American Indian, and AA) -in response to their sons' negative emotions, Euro mothers were more supportive than euro fathers, American Indian mothers and fathers were equally supportive, and AA mothers were less supportive than AA fathers -5. Why do parents socialize children's emotions in stereotypical ways? -parents' patterns of socialization likely reflect the roles that they anticipate sons and daughters will hold in adulthood -p. 146-147

Different cultures hypothesis

-Deborah Tannen's perspective that gender differences in communication are so different that it is as though women and men come from different linguistic cultures -communication between women and men is as challenging as communication between people from different cultures -claimed that gender differences in communication stem from the different goals that men and women have when the communicate and that these different goals are rooted in gender roles -related to affiliative speech (speech that demonstrates affiliation or connection to the listener and may include praise, agreement, support, and/or acknowledgment) and assertive speech (speech that aims to influence the listener and may include providing instructions, information, suggestions, criticism, and/or disagreement) -gender differences are two small to support her hypothesis -p. 113/Ch. 5 Lec.

Brody's transactional model

-Leslie Brody -proposed a comprehensive model for the development of gender differences in emotional expression and emphasizing the complex interactions among biological, social, and cultural factors -model that emphasizes the bidirectional influences of children and parents, interacting and shaping each other's behaviors -the process begins in infancy with subtle differences in temperament between boys and girls -parents respond to the temperamental traits that they perceive in their children, such as by reinforcing girls' sociability and empathy with more opportunities to develop their social skills and emotional competence -parents also socialize their children in socially acceptable gender-stereotyped ways, preparing them for their adult gender roles -in turn, the subtle gender differences in activity, sociability, language, and self-control develop into meaningful gender differences in emotional expression -as children continue to develop, peers play an increasingly important role in gender role socialization -peers enforce gender stereotypes and gendered displayed rules of emotion, especially in gender-segregated groups -children and teens are motivated to adhere to their gender role and follow the display rules for fear of social exclusion -results in social acceptance in the short-term, but decreased mental and physical well-being in the long term -p. 148-149

Display rules

-a culture's rules for which emotions can be expressed or displayed -ex: in American culture, is it acceptable for people to express happiness, and they are encouraged to do so, but expressions of grief are discouraged -some emotions are acceptable for men, but not for women and vice versa -ex: restriction on boys and men crying ("boys don't cry"); acceptable for men, but not women, to express anger -p. 139

Hypothalamus

-a part of the brain that is important in regulating certain body functions, including sex hormone production -gender differences do exist here, which are the result of differentiation of brain tissue in the course of fetal development, much as is the case for the reproductive organs -the estrogen sensitivity effect is a result of the organizing effect of hormones; hormones administered in adulthood activate male and female nervous systems differentially depending on early determination of estrogen sensitivity -one that has undergone differentiation in the female direction will direct the pituitary to release hormones cyclically, creating a menstrual cycle, whereas a hypothalamus differentiated in the male direction directs a relatively steady, acyclic production of pituitary hormones -gender differences in this may have some consequences for behavior too: the organization in a male or female direction may have some influence on both sexual and aggressive behavior -p. 233

Self-confidence

-a person's belief that they can be successful at a particular task or in a particular domain such as athletics or academics -meta analysis: -male participants had more self-confidence in physical appearance (d = 0.35), and athletics (d = 0.41) -females had more self-confidence in the areas of behavioral conduct (-0.17) and morals/ethics (d = -0.38) -gender similarities were found in the areas of academics and social acceptance -math self-confidence (d = 0.26); this has important effects on women's career choices -interpretation of results: do not use female-deficit interpretations; women lack in self-confidence for rating their math scores low, could also be that men are overconfident or it could be both) -p. 74

Narcissism

-a personality trait characterized by an excessive focus on oneself, along with a grandiose, exaggerated sense of one's own talents, and extreme need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others -stereotype that men are more narcissistic than women -meta-analysis d = 0.29 (men are more, but only a little) -variations by type -p. 75

Traditional masculinity ideology

-a set of cultural beliefs about how men and boys should, or should not, think, feel and behave -includes: avoidance of anything feminine; being high status, successful, looked up to; exuding confidence, strength, and self-reliance; being aggressive, tough, and daring -variability across cultures in masculine ideologies because these ideas are shaped by and within cultures; however, there is commonality centering around power and dominance -Ch. 6 Lec.

Gender stereotypes

-a set of shared cultural beliefs about men's and women's behavior, appearance, interests, personality, and so on -conscious stereotypes -research shows that even in modern American society, there is a belief that men and women do differ psychologically in many ways -ex: women = emotional, caring, and talkative; men = strong, intelligent, and leaders -these have changes little since the 1980s, but attitudes about gender roles have changed considerable over the last 30+ years (more positive) but stereotypes remain in private -helps us function in social situations; helps us assess a situation and figure out how to interact with others in a socially appropriate way; happen because of these quick judgments we make -p. 62-63/Ch. 10 and 3 Lec.

Tag question

-a short phrase added to a sentence that turns it into a question -ex: "this is a great class, isn't it?" -related to Robin Lakoff's theorization and discussion of tentativeness -meta-analysis, d = -0.23 -p. 112

Stereotype threat

-a situation in which there is a negative stereotype about a person's group, and the person is concerned about being judged or treated negatively on the basis of that stereotype -situations when a person is at risk of confirming (as a self-characteristic) a negative stereotype about one's social group -threat is activated when it is drawn to our attention/highlighted -Claude Steele administered a test of verbal intelligence to black and white college students; half of each group were told that the test was diagnostic of intelligence and half the group was told that it was not diagnostic of intelligence; black students who were told that the test measured intelligence performed worse than the black students who were told it did not -same type of study done on men and women with math; those who believed that test was gender faired showed no gender differences in performance; among those who believed the test showed gender difference, women underperformed compared to men -math: for female non-whites, like Latinas, they are the subject of two negative stereotypes; for Asian women, they do well if their ethnicity is highlighted, but do worse if their gender is highlighted -processes that underlie this include: -1. Underperformance due to extra pressure to succeed (motivated to disconfirm the negative stereotype about their group, which leads to extra pressure to perform well, which leads to them exerting more effort and high stress (and lower memory capacity) that sometimes hurts performance -2. Underperformance due to threats to self-integrity and belonging (engage in various kinds of self-handicapping, such as setting lower goals so that don't fail, which only makes them reach lesser goal; reduces their sense of belonging and motivation) -p. 65-68

Deindividuation

-a state in which a person has become anonymous and has therefore lost their individual identity - and therefore the pressure to conform to gender roles -under such conditions, people feel no obligation to conform to social norms such as gender roles; places them in a situation free of gender roles -experiment on aggression: -half of the participants were placed in an individuated condition (sitting close to the experimenter, identify themselves by name, wear large name tags, and answer personal questions) -deindividuated participants sat far from the experimenter and were told to wait quietly -participants played a video game in which they first defended and ten attacked by dropping bombs (number of bombs dropped was the measure of aggressive behavior) -findings: men dropped significantly more bombs than women did in the individuated group; no significant gender differences in the deindividuated group (gender differences in aggression disappeared when the influenced of gender roles were removed) -p. 72

Meta-analysis

-a statistical technique that allows a researcher to combine the results of multiple research studies on a particular question -allows researchers to bring order out of this seeming chaos of sometimes contradictory studies -helps determine what the results from all previous studies, taken, together, say -researcher goes through 3 steps in conducting this: locate all previous studies related to the question investigated, statistic is computed for each study that measures how big the difference between males and females is and the direction of difference, averages the d values over all studies, which tells what direction and how large the gender difference was -if d is a positive value, then male participants scored higher, if it is a negative value, then female participants scored higher; if d is zero, there is no difference -d of 0.20 = a small difference -d of 0.50 = moderate difference -d of 0.80 = large difference -mate-analysis is a much more reliable source than a single study -p. 69-70

Amygdala

-a structure in the central part of the brain that is highly involved in processing emotions -meta-analysis -shows that the volume was about 10% larger in men than women, roughly the same discrepancy as in overall brain volume -if studies correct for total brain volume, gender differences in this volume are insignificant -p. 233-234

Expectancy-value theory

-a theory of motivation that posits that a person will take on a challenging achievement task if they expect that they can succeed at it and if they value it (find it useful or interesting) -Jacquelynne Eccles -any particular achievement behavior is a product of the person's expectations for success and the persons' values (particularly utility value and interest-enjoyment value) -ex: theory says that a Marika will only sign up for a physics class if she has positive expectations for success (like good grades) in the course and positive values with respect to the course (like that it will be helpful for getting into college) -gender differences in math performance are not so much caused by gender differences in innate ability as by gender differences in course choice -factors that shape values = goals and socializer's beliefs/perception of those socializer's beliefs -factors that shape expectancies for success = aptitudes and grades & interpretations or attributions -evidence supports this model -ex: research has linked parents' beliefs and their child's sense of competence and achievement in math and science -ex: when students perceive more utility value in their courses, they work harder, develop more interest in the material, and perform better in the course -implications of this model ex: how do we get more girls enrolled in science courses to expand their career options? -on the expectancy side, get them to have higher expectancies for success in math and science by stressing that no average gender differences exist in math ability, pointing to a pattern of success in math and science courses for an individual girl, and by encouraging girls to attribute their previous good grades in math and science to their own abilities -on the value side, increase the utility value that girls attach to math and science courses by examining each girl's anticipated career and the math and science required for it -p. 186-190

Genderless languages

-a type of language in which gender is expressed only lexically and neither personal nouns or pronouns are differentiated for gender; examples include Finnish, Mandarin, and Turkish -p. 125

Natural gender languages

-a type of language in which most personal nouns are gender-neutral (ex: student), but pronouns are differentiated for gender; examples include English and Swedish -personal pronouns are differentiated by gender (she, he, her, him, etc.), but most personal nouns are gender neutral (ex: student) -masculine generics are more prominent in grammatical languages and this one -p. 124

Grammatical gender languages

-a type of language in which parts of speech (including nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) are gender-inflected; examples include Spanish, German, Hindi, and Hebrew -ex: in German, the term student is masculine and the word university is feminine -countries with grammatical gender languages tend to have less gender equality relative to countries with natural gender languages or genderless languages -masculine generics are more prominent in this and natural gender languages -p. 125

Intensifiers

-adverbs such as very, really, and vastly -ex: "the governor is really interested in this proposal" -related to Robin Lakoff's theorization and discussion of tentativeness -add little content to a sentence and reduce its strength -meta-analysis, d = -0.38 -p. 112

Brain mosaic

-aka gender mosaic -Daphna Joel used MRI scans of multiple brain regions, assessing the volume of each -each region was then classified as female-leaning (if, on average, it is larger in women) or male-leaning (if, on average, it is larger in men); regions that don't show a male-female difference are termed intermediate -findings: -most people have brains that are a mosaic of female-leaning, male-leaning, and intermediate regions -very few women have brains with all female-leaning regions and very few men have brains with all male-leaning regions -most brains are gender mosaics (or, "intersex") -this discredits the notion of the "male brain" and the "female brain" -p. 238/Ch. 10 and 3 Lec.

Spatial ability

-an ability -1. Spatial visualization -involved finding a figure in a more complex one, with d = 0.13 (favors boys and men slightly) -2. Spatial perception -requires a person to identify a true vertical or true horizontal line when there is distracting or misleading info around it, showing a somewhat larger gender difference favoring boys and men -3. Mental rotation -requires the person to mentally rotate an object in three dimensions in order to obtain the correct answer, with d = 0.57 (males outperforming females moderately) -gender differences in one type of spatial ability, mental rotation, but it can be improved through training -this is not an innate ability, and training and practice can improve this skill -though ten hours of training, both men and women improved their performance on the mental rotation test, with women improving more than men and the women performing as well as the men in the control group (training improved scores by d = 0.47 compared to controls) -intersection of gender and social class -no gender differences among low-income children, but the usual gender difference was found for middle and upper income children -low-income boys did not have access to the activities (computer games, puzzles, building toys, etc.) that higher income boys did -p. 182-183

General intelligence

-an ability -no evidence to support the hypothesis that girls and women are less intelligent than boys and men -research has consistently shown that there are NO gender differences in general intelligence -however, IQ tests have been designed with possible gender differences in mind (designed to keep a "level playing field") -p. 182/Ch. 8 Lec.

Math performance

-an ability -stereotype that boys and men have the edge over girls and women in math -meta-analysis: -for grades 2-11, d = 0.0065 indicating that there is NO gender difference in math ability -for people of all ages, d = 0.05 indicating that there is NO gender difference in math performance -similar results for many other countries (all close to 0) -stereotypes persist despite the evidence; implicit stereotypes still link males with math -importance? -math skills are essential to a number of high-status, lucrative occupation that are male-dominated, such as engineering and the physical sciences -women's underrepresentation in these fields has been attributed to their lack of math ability, but the meta-analysis proves this wrong -important that women have equal access to the high-paying, prestigious careers -p. 184-185

Verbal ability

-an ability -stereotype that girls and women show better verbal abilities than boys and men -meta-analysis: -overall, d = -0.11, indicating that females are slightly superior, but one that is so small is can be called zero (NO differences) -analysis looked at different types of such as vocab, analogies, reading comprehension, and essay writing; the gender difference was small for all types -gender differences have grown smaller over time (prior in 1973, d = -.23, after 1923, d = -0.10) -could be due to gender role socialization practices becoming more flexible over the years or that standardized tests became more sensitive to gender equality issues -p. 182

STEM

-an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics -women tend to be underrepresented in some, but not all, of these fields -women earn roughly half of the undergraduate degrees in biology and math and earn half of the PhDs in biology and a large fraction in chemistry -however, women are very underrepresented in computer science, engineering, and physics (CEP) in both PhDs and in the work force -why do we care about the underrepresentation of women in STEM? -we want women to have equal opportunities in all areas of life and the data indicate that they do not in some of these fields -these jobs pay well and there is a demand for those workers (can help themselves and their families in support) -explanations for the gender gap in this: women lack interest, women can't do the math, hostile environment/discrimination, role models, self-expressive value systems, systematic attribution biases, the belief in geniuses -p. 191-193

Gendering of language

-an element of how women and nonbinary people are treated in language -languages vary with regard to how they handle gender -1. Natural gender languages - a type of language in which most personal nouns are gender-neutral (ex: student), but pronouns are differentiated for gender; examples include English and Swedish; personal pronouns are differentiated by gender (she, he, her, him, etc.), but most personal nouns are gender neutral (ex: student) -2. Grammatical gender languages - a type of language in which parts of speech (including nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) are gender-inflected; examples include Spanish, German, Hindi, and Hebrew; ex: in German, the term student is masculine and the word university is feminine -3. Genderless languages - a type of language in which gender is expressed only lexically and neither personal nouns or pronouns are differentiated for gender; examples include Finnish, Mandarin, and Turkish -researchers have demonstrated that these different language types reflect societal gender equality -a country's level of gender equality was associated with its language type -countries with grammatical gender languages tend to have less gender equality relative to countries with natural gender languages or genderless languages -masculine generics are more prominent in grammatical and natural gender languages -p. 124-125

Infantalizing

-an element of how women and nonbinary people are treated in language -treating people, for example, women, as if they were children or babies -ex: -while boy refers to male children and man to male adults, girl is used for both female children and female adults -women are called by a term that seems to make them less mature and less powerful (devaluation) -"women and children first" when a ship is sinking -expressions for women such as baby or babe carry a meaning of immaturity and lack of power -p. 123/Ch. 5 Lec.

Misgendering

-an element of how women and nonbinary people are treated in language -a form of sexist language in which gendered language that does not match the person's gender identity is used or when a person's gender identity is misidentified by some other means -particularly common among women working in stereotypically male professions, who may be referred to using masculine pronouns -transgender people are frequently misgendered, such as when medical and mental health professionals label them by their assigned birth gender rather than their gender identity -harmful effects = their personal identity has not been affirmed, which threatens their sense of a strong and coherent identity -linked to negative moods (like anxiety and depression), feeling negatively about their identity and appearance, and feelings of stigmatization -may feel ignored, devalued, stigmatized, and hurt -p. 122

Male as normative/female as the exception

-an element of how women and nonbinary people are treated in language -male is regarded as the normative (standard) member of the species -ex: man is used to refer to all human beings and he is used as a neutral pronoun -male generics - the common usage of masculine forms (ex: he, his, him) as generic for all people; male terms are used to refer to all people, whereas it would not work for female terms -female as the exception phenomenon - if a category is considered normatively male and there is a female example of the category, gender is noted because the female is the exception; a by-product of androcentrism -ex: "BG Swimmers Defeated" vs. "BG Women Swimmers Win"; Female governor (no one would mention the maleness of a governor) -many parallel words also reflect this: adding suffixes (actor vs. actress; adulterer vs. adulteress; comedian vs. comedienne) masculine is the norm and the feminine is the deviation -p. 123-124

Euphemisms

-an element of how women and nonbinary people are treated in language -when a mild or indirect word is substituted for one considered to be too harsh, blunt, or distasteful -generally, when there are many if these for a word, it is a reflection of the fact that people find the word and what it stands for to be distasteful or stressful -feminist linguists have argued that we similarly have a strong tendency to use these for the word woman -people tend to avoid using the term woman and instead substitute a variety of terms that seem or more polite or less threatening, the most common being lady and girl -others objectify or sexualize women: chick, shorty, honey, ho -another is hostile: bitch -study on undergrads: euphemisms for woman were more likely to carry a sexual meaning (50%) -woman is used less frequently than man and apparently causes some discomfort or we wouldn't use euphemisms for it -p. 122-123/Ch. 5 Lec.

Encoding and decoding

-an element of non-verbal behavior -effectively encoding (sending/conveying) and decoding (perceiving/reading) nonverbal behaviors are important for social interaction -meta-analysis: -women convey nonverbal messages or cues more accurately than men do (some evidence indicates that men tend to suppress their nonverbal expressions, beginning around adolescence, whereas women tend to amplify their expressions) -women are also more accurate at decoding or reading others' nonverbal cues (this difference exists even in childhood) -these patterns of gender differences suggest that men and women differ not because they are innately different, but because they face pressure to adhere to different gender roles -in particular, the female role entails communality, or establishing and maintaining social relationships, which requires interpersonal sensitivity -p. 118

Posture

-an element of non-verbal communication -contractive posture - sitting or standing with legs together and arms close to the body; makes a person seem smaller and conveys submissiveness; women are more likely to do this -expansive posture - sitting or standing with limbs extended away from the body, also referred to as power posing; takes up more space with one's body and conveys social dominance and confidence; men are more likely to do this ("manspreading" on public transit) -study: -participants were randomly assigned to position their posed in contractive or expansive postures -those who were in expansive poses felt more powerful, more willing to gamble their payment for participation, and even showed hormonal changes that are usually associated with power (found in both males and females) -why do women have a more contractive posture? -may be a strategy to avoid being perceived as threatening or to protect or shield one's body from scrutiny and the male gaze (adaptation to objectification) -p. 121

Interpersonal distance

-an element of non-verbal communication -men prefer a greater distance between themselves and another person, whereas women tend to be comfortable with a smaller distance between themselves and others (particularly in same-gender pairs) -people also tend to prefer to maintain greater interpersonal distance from unfamiliar men than they do from unfamiliar women -regardless of our gender, we tend to need greater interpersonal space with men than with women in order to feel comfortable -possible interpretations: -1. may reflect concerns about falsely signaling that we are sexually/romantically interested in someone -2. men are perceived as a threat or considered potentially dangerous, so we try to avoid their space and conflict (women are perceived as non-threatening and safe) -3. preferences are shaped by sexual attraction, self-protective, and affiliative forces -4. positioning is one way that we "do gender"/perform our gender roles -one study found that it was more so that feminine people stood closer and masculine people stood farther apart, as opposed to women and men -p. 119/Ch. 5 Lec.

Eye contact

-an element of non-verbal communication -this between two people when speaking to each other can reflect patterns of power and dominance -in North American cultures, higher-status people tend to look at the other person while they (the dominant people) are speaking, and lower-status people tend to look at the other person while listening -Visual dominance ratio - the ratio of the percentage of time looking while speaking relative to the percentage of time looking while listening; an indicator of social dominance (men have higher ratio) -study: -in the neutral discussion, men were visually dominant: men looked at their partners more while speaking and women looked more while listening -but, when women were in the powerful role, they looked more than men while speaking, and men looked more while listening (they become visually dominant when given social power) (this provides some evidence that eye contact has to do with power and status) -p. 120-121/Ch. 5 Lec.

Smiling

-an element of non-verbal communication -women smile more than men -meta-analysis: -this gender difference fluctuates across the lifespan -Infancy and childhood, d = -0.01 -Adolescence, d = -0.56 -Middle adulthood, d = -0.30 -Older adulthood, d = -0.11 -some evidence also suggests that gender differences seem to vary as a function of ethnicity (the pattern is more characteristic of white women than African American women) -why do people smile? -1. Indicate happiness -2. Appeasement (women may not want to be seen as threatening and encourage others to treat you kindly) -3. Status indicator (dominant people may smile less and subordinate people may smile more; may show women's subordinate status) -4. Part of the female role (required to be warm, nurturant, and physically attractive; smiling is the appropriate thing to do) -experiment: women who did not smile were rated more negatively than women who did smile -p. -p. 118-119/Ch. 5 Lec.

Interruptions

-an element of verbal communication -different interpretations: are an expression of power or dominance; women are generally perceived as lower status and, thus, can be interrupted -some researchers suggest that these can have multiple meanings (clarification, agreement or support, disagreement, and change the subject) -those expressing disagreement and changing the subject express dominance -women are more likely to be interrupted than men (by both men and women) during conversations -meta-analysis -gender difference in interruptions d = 0.15, indicating that men interrupt more often than women, but small -for intrusive interruptions (display dominance, like changing the subject or expression of disagreement), d = 0.33 -no gender differences in interruptions for clarification or agreement/support -p. 114-115/Ch. 5 Lec.

Gender-linked language effect

-an element of verbal communication -Anthony Mulac -verbal communication of girls and women tends to be rated as more socially intelligent and aesthetically pleasing, whereas the verbal communication of boys and men is rated as more dynamic and aggressive -he proposed that, while many features of verbal communication show very small gender differences, it is the clustering of these features that matters -there are feminine and masculine patterns of speech, each with multiple features that show subtle differences on their own but, in combination, are perceived as distinctly gendered -Mulac study: found that students performed no better than chance at determining whether a speaker was male or female, but highly trained coders could do so -this finding (and others) demonstrate that the gender-linked language effect exists but that the effect is subtle -p. 115-116

Affiliative vs. assertive speech

-an element of verbal communication -Deborah Tannen -popularized the belief that women's and men's communication patterns are vastly different and that these differences create problems when women and men communicate -different cultures hypothesis -perspective that gender differences in communication are so different that it is as though women and men come from different linguistic cultures -stated that communication between women and men is as challenging as communication between people from different cultures -claimed that gender differences in communication stem from the different goals that men and women have when the communicate and that these different goals are rooted in gender roles -women display affiliative speech - speech that demonstrates affiliation or connection to the listener and may include praise, agreement, support, and/or acknowledgment -men display assertive speech - speech that aims to influence the listener and may include providing instructions, information, suggestions, criticism, and/or disagreement -meta-analysis -girls and women are somewhat more affiliative relative to boys and men -among children, d = -0.26 (small) -in adulthood, d = -0.12 (shrunk) -regarding assertiveness, the gender differences are tiny -among children, boys engage in more assertive speech than girls do, but the difference is small (d = 0.10) -among adults, men are slightly more assertive than women (d = 0.09, which is marginal) -essentially, the gender differences in affiliative and assertive speech are just too small to support the different cultures hypothesis -p. 112-114

Tentativeness

-an element of verbal communication -Robin Lakoff theorized that gender differences in communication stem from gender roles and the relative power those have (social hierarchy makes them different); argued that men use more assertive speech because have power -includes: 1. Expressions of uncertainty (disclaimers - phrases such as "I may be wrong, but" or "this is just my opinion, but") 2. Hedges - phrases such as "sort of" that weaken or soften a statement or "kind of" 3. Tag question - a short phrase added to a sentence that turns it into a question ("this is a great class, isn't it?") 4. Intensifiers - adverbs such as very, really, and vastly ("the governor is really interested in this proposal"); add little content to a sentence and reduce its strength -meta-analysis of the four elements -d = -0.33 for disclaimers, d = -0.15 for hedges, d = -0.23 for tag questions, and d = -0.38 for intensifiers -these indicate that women used more tentative speech but that the gender differences are small -saying that women's use of tentative speech it a negative quality rather than inferring that tentative speech reflect better interpersonal communication is an example of a female deficit interpretation -p. 112/Ch. 5 Lec.

Women lack interest explanation

-an explanation for the gender gap in STEM -according to this explanation, women simply lack interest in CEP (computer science, engineering, phsyics) and don't pursue it -meta-analysis: -in general, men are more interested in things (robots, computers, race cars) and women are more interested in people -men showed more interest in engineering (d = 1.11), science (d = 0.36), and math (d = 0.34) -women were more interested in social (d = -0.68) and artistic (d = -0.35) areas -however, these large differences tell us nothing about why the differences are there in the first place -does not mean they are biologically determined or hardwired -more likely, boys are encouraged to be interested in fields like engineering and girls are not -also people who are in the CEP fields tend to portray them in a certain way that will be more interesting to men than to women -p. 193

Belief in geniuses explanation

-an explanation for the gender gap in STEM -in some fields, the top people are considered geniuses (ex: math genius) -women are underrepresented in the "brilliance-required" STEM fields of math and physics (and also humanities: philosophy) -study: found that the belief in field-specific brilliance among people in the field correlated with female representation in the fields (r = -0.60), which is substantial and negative; in other words, the more that people in the field believe that brilliance (raw, innate talent) is required in their field, the smaller number of women -these stereotypes about gender and brilliance appear early (age 6) -the brilliance required effect might reduce the representation in those fields in two ways: -1. Might discourage women from entering the field because women are less likely to see themselves as brilliant geniuses than men are -2. Powerful people in the field may not encourage aspiring women students because the powerful people believe that women don't have the necessary brilliance -p. 196

Self-expressive value systems explanation

-an explanation for the gender gap in STEM -self-expressive value system = in the US, we believe that you should work at a job that you love and feel passionate about -n a global context, this is very privileged; in many other, less wealthy nations, the goal is to find a job that will support you and your family, and love for the work is a remote luxury -study: -44 nations -more gender segregation in the workforce in the more economically developed nations** -women were in more gender-stereotypical occupations in wealthier nations than in less wealthy nations -pay and job security are far more important in developing countries than whether the workers find it interesting or love doing it -therefore, our American emphasis on individuals preferences and finding a job that you love may be a factor in keeping women in traditional, female-dominated jobs and out of CEP ones -p. 195

Hostile environment and discrimination explanation

-an explanation for the gender gap in STEM -according to this explanation, women continue to be discriminated against in CEP via modern sexism, including implicit attitudes held by those in power -evidence of this in CEP: -research shows that implicit attitudes link men and science, but not women and science -study: faculty members rates the male applicant as significantly more hirable and competent and offered him a higher salary than the female with the same qualifications (shows continued discrimination against women in science) -study: among hs girls who wanted STEM careers, women in those undergrad majors, and women in those PhD programs 61% reported experiences with gender bias in the past year -bias was most common in CEP (computer science, engineering, and physics) fields; women are underrepresented in areas (CEP) where they experience more bias** -masculine culture (few women in the field and stereotypes of people are dominated by nerdy men, therefore women feel as if they do not belong) -p. 194

Women cannot do the math explanation

-an explanation for the gender gap in STEM -the areas in which women are underrepresented require a high level of mathematical skills (math-intensive) -however, girls are scoring as well as boys in the US, and women are earning 46% of the undergraduate degrees in math, so this cannot be the explanation for women's underrepresentation in CEP (computer science, engineering, and physics) -p. 193

Stereotypic attribution bias explanation

-an explanation for the gender gap in STEM -when people are told about a situations in which a woman has a setback in a STEM field, they tend to attribute it to internal causes such as her lack of ability; when people hear about a man encountering a setback in a STEM field, they tend to attribute it to external factors such as not getting enough sleep -internal attributions imply that the woman is probably not going to make it in STEM (she just doesn't have the ability), whereas the external attributions for men mean that they can make it, they just have to try again -if a woman in a STEM field has this bias, she is likely to give up on STEM when she encounters a setback -if powerful others such as her grad school advisor or boss have this attribution bias, and she has a setback, they are likely to believe that she won't be successful in STEM -p. 195-196

Role models explanation

-an explanation for the gender gap in stem -conventional wisdom is that girls don't aspire to CEP careers because of the absence of roles models, specifically female ones; only 15% of the engineering workforce is women (girls look that these jobs in different media, and I think that they don't belong there) -programs launched to expose girls to female role models in the sciences have not been effective -one of the flaws of these interventions may be that they expose girls to stereotypical role models, and girls (and many boys as well) are turned off by these role models, not the field itself -study: exposure to the stereotypical role model (nerdy) reduced women's interest in computer science and their sense of belonging in the field, and the gender of the model made no difference, just the stereotype -p. 194-195

Utility value intervention

-an intervention to close gaps in STEM -based on Eccles' expectancy value theory -idea is that, by writing about the utility value or usefulness of the material they are studying, students will become more motivated -study: -in the utility-value condition students wrote essay about the usefulness/relevance of the course material -in the control condition students wrote essays summarizing the material -social class gap = gap in performance between first-generation college students and continuing-generation college -race gap = gap in the performance between white students and those who are from unrepresented minority groups -in the control condition, the gap between first-generation students/underrepresented minority groups and continuing generation students/white students was large (d = 0.98) -the intervention, though, reduced the gap substantially by 61% -why didn't the gap close completely? (other factors like high school quality and preparation that likely contribute) -p. 197

Values affirmation intervention

-an intervention to close gaps in STEM -based on the idea that if an underrepresented or at-risk group feels threatened about underperforming in an academic setting, that sense of threat can be offset by having the students affirm their own person values through writing assignments -study: -in the control condition (students wrote about their least important values), the gender gap was substantial (d = 0.93) with men performing better -in the affirmation condition (students wrote about the values most important to them), the gender gap was small (d = 0.18) -p. 197

Emotion - gender stereotype consequences

-anger is male-stereotyped, and sadness is female stereotyped -because we don't expect women to express anger, we may inaccurately perceived and explain their anger -study: -participants rated men's blended/ambiguous faces as significantly angrier than women's and women's blends as significantly sadder than men's -gender affects the emotions we see people displaying, even when the facial expressions are identical -participants rated women's unambiguous anger poses as significantly less angry than men's unambiguous anger poses -gender stereotypes of emotions may also lead us to inaccurately explain or attribute another person's feelings -study: -pictures of faces expressing sadness, fear, anger, and disgust with explanations -then asked to view the pictures again without descriptions and label them as emotional or having a bad day -participants attributed women's emotions to their being more emotion (dispositional, internal attributions for women's emotions) -when men expressed the same emotions, participants made situational, external attributions, attributing men's emotions to their simply having a bad day -gender stereotypes can lead us to ignore information about the situational causes and overemphasized the dispositional causes of women's emotions or exaggerate the situational causes and minimize the dispositional causes of men's emotions -p. 136-137

Aggression

-behavior intended to harm another person -one of the most consistently documented psychological gender differences, with boys and men being more aggressive and girls and women -this gender difference appears about as early as children being playing with each other, at around age 2 and continues consistently through the school years -meta-analysis, d = 0.55 for physical aggression, which is a moderate difference and for verbal aggression, d = 0.09, or close to no difference -decreases with age -potential causes: nature (greater size, muscle mass, and testosterone) or nurture (part of the male role and not of the female role, imitation of men's aggression, boys received more rewards/less punishment for aggression though that is disputed) -related to deindividuation experiment -p. 71-72/Ch. 10 and 3 Lec.

Relational aggression

-behavior intended to hurt others by damaging their peer relationships; also termed indirect aggression -harm caused through damaging social standing or relationships -stereotype that girls are mean to each other rather than physically aggressive -ex: spreading rumors, excluding, etc. -meta analysis, d = -0.19 by peer ratings and -0.13 by teacher reports, which shows that girls scored higher in this, but the gender difference was small; boys are nearly as mean as girls -p. 71 -72

Socialization of gendered emotions

-between the ages of 2 and 5, children rapidly learn to identify their own emotions and those of others -parents guide this process, socializing their children about how to label and interpret their feelings and what to do with them; in this process, parents are likely to impose gender stereotypes -both family and peers are early socializers of gendered emotions -p. 145

Neural plasticity

-changes in the brain in response to experience -the brain is simply not hardwired -new connections between neurons are constantly being made to register learning, and other, unnecessary connections are pruned away -if a researcher uses brain scanning methods and find that a region "lights up" more for men doing math problem than for women, there is no way of telling whether it is because there are innate, hardwired, unchangeable male-female differences in that region, or because men have more experiences that use region X (may reflect nature as much as nurture) -neural circuits form not because a boy or girl was born that way, but because they have had different experiences -p. 236-237/Ch. 10 and 3 Lec.

Neurosexism

-claims that there are fixed differences between male and female brains and that these differences explain women's deficits in performance or why they should occupy certain roles -coined by Cordelia Fine -way to dignify old-fashioned sexism and stereotypes, for example, that women are emotional and men are unemotional and rational -it capitalizes on our lack of knowledge related to neuroscience -this exists despite the fact that neuroscience know that there are NOT hardwired differences between male and female brains -p. 237-238

Temperament

-constitutionally based individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation, such as emotional intensity, inhibitory control, activity level, and distractibility -a much more trait-like measure than an emotional state; innate -includes traits such as emotionality and the tendency to express specific emotions like anger and fear -meta-analysis: -boys were NOT more prone than girls to express anger (d = 0.04) (no difference) -girls were NOT more emotional than boys (d = 0.01) (no difference) -girls were only slightly more prone than boys to express fear (d = -0.12) and sadness (d = -0.10) -p. 141/ Ch. 6 Lec.

Activity

-debate about whether there are gender differences in this, while parents and teachers would likely say that boys are more active -meta-analysis, d = 0.50, indicating that there is a moderate gender difference with boys and men having higher activity level -among infants d = 0.29, among preschoolers d = 0.44 and among older children and young adults d = 0.64; difference gets larger with age, at least among children -potential causes: -the small difference in infancy is magnified by social interactions, especially when boys increasingly play actively with other boys and not with girls (gender segregation effect); rewards and punishments -another possibility has to do with the developmental precocity of girls (girls develop somewhat ahead of boys, including in the brain and they might learn to control their activity more because of that greater maturity) -p. 73

Self-conscious emotions

-emotions about the self, which often have to do with morality or adhering to social norms; includes guilt, shame, pride and embarrassment -gender-stereotypes hold that women experience more guilt, shame, and embarrassment, but men experience more pride -meta-analysis -women and girls report experiencing more guilt (d = -0.27) and shame (d = -0.29) -gender similarities/no difference for embarrassment (d = -0.08) and pride (d = -0.01) -gender differences in emotional experiences may vary across ethnic groups -ex: for guilt and shame, people of color displayed gender similarities but white people displayed gender differences -p. 142

Multiple stereotype threat

-experiencing stereotype threat as a result of belonging to more than one stigmatized group Ex: highlighting to them that women and ethnic minorities are bad at math ; woman that is also an ethnic minority then has increased stereotype threat that is presented to them (like prior to an assessment) -results in compounded stereotype threat -Ch. 10 and 3 Lec.

Nonsexist language

-feminists advocate for this in order to reduce sexist stereotyping and discrimination -might include: -omitting inappropriate or irrelevant references to gender, replacing masculine forms of words like policeman) with gender-unmarked forms (like police officer) and increasing the use of feminine forms (like he or she) to make female referent more visible -common solution is to use "he or she" instead of the generic he, her, etc. -some believe that "he or she" should appear with equal frequency to "she or he" (problem with these phrases though it that they reaffirm the gender binary and therefore make nonbinary people invisible) -another possibility is to use "they/their" or use no pronouns -some gender-neutral pronouns have become more visible -avoid irrelevant reference to a person's gender and gender identity (ex: avoid Miss, Ms., Mr., etc.) -changing occupational titles (ex: firemen to firefighter) -p. 128-130

Social class gap

-gap in performance between first-generation college students (neither parent has a college degree) and continuing-generation college (at least one parent has a college degree) -related to the utility value intervention, an intervention to close gaps in STEM -p. 197

Race gap

-gap in the performance between white students and those who are from underrepresented minority groups (African American, Latinx, and American Indian) -related to the utility value intervention, an intervention to close gaps in STEM -p. 197

Emotional intensity

-gender differences in self-reported intensity of emotional experience and expression, with women reporting the greater intensity -girls and women use more emotion words and talk about emotion more than boys and men do -powerful vs. powerless emotions -powerful emotions = emotions that function to display one's power and dominance and encourage competition (anger, contempt, and pride); stereotyped as masculine -powerless emotions = emotions that function to display one's vulnerability and maintain harmony within a relationship (fear, sadness, shame, and guilt); stereotyped as feminine -study: -found gender similarities in the experience of powerful emotions; men and women reported experiencing the same intensity of anger and disgust, regardless of culture -women reported experiencing significantly more intense powerless emotions; men's experience of fear, sadness, shame, and guilt was less intense than women's -gender roles may account for the gender difference in intensity of emotion -for women, endorsement of gender stereotypes and reports of intensity of personal emotional experiences are positively correlated; the more than women believe in stereotypes, the more intense they report their own emotions to be -for men, the correlation between endorsement of gender stereotypes and reports of emotional intensity is negative; the more that men believe in gender stereotypes, the less intense their emotions -in essence, stereotypical men do not express emotions and stereotypical women do -study: when men are encouraged to be emotionally expressive, their responses were the same as women's -p. 142-143

Gender stereotypes/intersectionality

-gender stereotypes may not be the same in different ethnic groups -gender-ethnic stereotypes contain distinct elements -ex: black women, but not any other women, were stereotyped as athletic -Latinx men, like white men and white women but no others, were described as arrogant -Latinx men and women are described as hardworking, but only the men are described as arrogant -white women and Asian women are stereotyped as intelligent, but no other women are -p. 65

Female as the exception phenomenon

-if a category is considered normatively male and there is a female example of the category, gender is noted because the female is the exception; a by-product of androcentrism -ex: -"BG Swimmers Defeated" vs. "BG Women Swimmers Win" -Female governor (no one would mention the maleness of a governor) -many parallel words also reflect this: adding suffixes (actor vs. actress; adulterer vs. adulteress; comedian vs. comedienne) masculine is the norm and the feminine is the deviation -related to the concept of male as normative concept -p. 124

Sexist language

-inappropriate or irrelevant reference to gender, the use of masculine generics and male as normative/female as exception words choices, as well as the use of misgendering speech -also objectifying, sexualizing, or infantilizing euphemisms -evidence indicates that this reflects societal gender inequality and has harmful effects on how we think -in job descriptions, may contribute to a lack of gender diversity in the work place -p. 122, 129-130

Helping behavior

-known as prosocial behavior in psychology -meta-analysis shows d = 0.34, indicating that men helped others more than women, although it was small to moderate -this finding is somewhat surprising when compared to our gender stereotypes -some kinds of helping are part of the male role vs the female role: -helping that is heroic/chivalrous, involves danger, and/or is in front of an audience are linked to males -helping that involves nurturance and caretaking fall within the female role -because social psychologists have spent most of their time studying the kinds of helping behaviors that occur in relatively short-term encounters with strangers and devoted little research to the kind of caretaking help of females that occurs in long-term relationships, the gender difference is probably no more a result of the fact that only one type of helping was studied -p. 74-75/Ch. 10 and 3 Lec.

Implicit stereotypes

-learned, automatic associations between social categories (e.g. female) and other attributes (e.g. nurse but not mathematician) -not necessarily conscious -implicit Association Test (IAT) is used to measure an individual's relative strength of association between different pairs of concepts -Use reaction time on a computer to test; we react quickly to two concepts that we associate strongly and more slowly to two concepts that we do not associate strongly -ex: associations found between science and male but not science and female (discourage girls from studying science and then when girls do not do well in science because they studied it less, that strengthens the stereotypes) -p. 64-65

Hippocampus

-located close to the amygdala and is important in memory -because more women than men become depressed, researchers have wondered whether women have smaller this than men -meta-analysis shows that, when corrected for total brain volume, there is no gender difference in this volume -p. 234

Precarious manhood theory

-manhood is an elusive status and that all men are constantly working to achieve it and defend it and that it is easily lost if they show any signs of femininity -men have to constantly demonstrate and defend their masculinity -Ch. 6 Lec.

Brain size

-meta-analysis -men's total brain volume is roughly 11.5% larger than women's, roughly the same as the overall size difference between men and women (men's larger size = men's larger brain) -no evidence that, among humans, brain size is correlated with intelligence -in the late 1800s, and again resurfacing in the 1990s, scientists attributed brain size difference to women's lesser intelligence -the theory that women's smaller brain size relative to men means they are not as intelligent as men is an example of the female deficit model -p. 232/Ch. 10 and 3 Lec.

Specific emotions

-meta-analysis (children's expression): among the female-stereotyped emotions, such as happiness, surprise, sadness, fear, and disgust, gender differences were generally close to zero or very small, with the exception of shame (which was higher in girls) -among the male-stereotyped emotions, findings were mixed -girls expressed more contempt than boys and boys expressed only slightly more anger than girls did -p. 142

Anxiety

-meta-analysis shows d = -0.38, indicating that women are more fearful and anxious that boys and men, although the difference is not large -possible that females have higher levels of anxiety, but also possible that men experience the same levels of anxiety as women, but women are more willing to admit them -because women are stereotyped as more anxious, this encourage women to admit their feelings and men to pretend not to have them -p. 76

Physical performance and athletics

-meta-analysis: -for physical height, d = 2.0 -among teens and regarding the 50-yard dash, d = 0.63 -for all ages and regarding the 50-yard dash, d = 2.5 -throwing distance, d = 1.98 -for balance, d = 0.09 (this one has a small gender difference) -athletic performance is strongly responsive to training and diet -today, women run faster than the record-breaking men of 1928; the gender gap has narrowed -p. 185

Emotion - gender stereotypes

-most emotions are stereotyped as feminine, whereas only a few are stereotyped as masculine or gender neutral -women have long been stereotyped as more emotional than men -stereotype that women experience and express more emotions and do so more intensely -this stereotype is among the most pervasive of gender stereotypes; found in the US and most other cultures -this stereotype can hurt women as they try to succeed in education and the workplace -specific emotions that are appropriate based on one's gender -13/19 emotions were stereotyped as appropriate for women (included positive and negative emotions) most of which conveyed vulnerability and powerlessness -3 emotions were stereotypes as male (anger, contempt, and pride) which were all associated with dominance and power -3 additional emotions that were gender-neutral (amusement, interest, jealousy) -different cultures hold different views on the experience and expression of emotion; substantial variation from one ethnic group to the next in their expectations about which emotions are expressed by women and which are expressed by men (implications on interpersonal interactions = ex: black woman angry and white male boss) -p. 134-136

Self-enhancement goal

-one of two reasons why people stereotype others -stereotypes tend to be negative -make ourselves feel better by denigrating another group -ex: as adults, we might say that teenagers are so irresponsible -p. 64

Comprehension goal

-one of two reasons why people stereotype others -when we meet a new person, we tend to fill in a lot of assumed information about that person so that we can understand them until we have more actual information -ex: when we meet a man, we are likely to invoke the breadwinner stereotype and ask him what kind of work he does rather than if he is a househusband -we look for cues of a purpose about how they appear, present themselves, speak, etc. and then we act with them accordingly -stereotypes can be positive or negative here -just trying to understand more about the person than they actually know -p. 63

Emotion - peer socialization

-peers may socialize one another and enforce gendered display rules of emotion -study: -asked teens to imagine how their friends would react if they expressed negative emotions like anger in response to a negative event -girls reported that their friends were likely ask questions about the situation, reward or magnify the emotions, or override the emotions by telling the girl to cheer up -boys reported that their friends would likely ignore or neglect their negative emotions or engage in physical, verbal, or relational victimization -other studies: -boys and girls are socialized differently by their peers when it comes to expressing negative emotions -boys who do express sadness in front of their peers are less accepted and popular and more likely to be teased -essentially, peers are active socializers who enforce gendered display rules about negative emotions such as anger and sadness -p. 148

Disclaimers

-phrases such as "I may be wrong, but" or "this is just my opinion, but" -related to Robin Lakoff's theorization and discussion of tentativeness -meta-analysis, d = -0.33 -p. 112

Deborah Tannen

-popularized the belief that women's and men's communication patterns are vastly different and that these differences create problems when women and men communicate -different cultures hypothesis - perspective that gender differences in communication are so different that it is as though women and men come from different linguistic cultures -stated that communication between women and men is as challenging as communication between people from different cultures -claimed that gender differences in communication stem from the different goals that men and women have when the communicate and that these different goals are rooted in gender roles -women display affiliative speech - speech that demonstrates affiliation or connection to the listener and may include praise, agreement, support, and/or acknowledgment -men display assertive speech - speech that aims to influence the listener and may include providing instructions, information, suggestions, criticism, and/or disagreement -gender differences are two small to support her hypothesis -p. 112-113/Ch. 5 Lec.

Traditional views of masculinity and femininity

-psychologists' traditional view, beginning roughly in the 1930s, was that masculinity and femininity were at opposite ends of the single scale -unidimensional, bipolar continuum (one-dimensional, two opposite ends) -in the 1970s, feminist psychologists raised a number of criticisms of this, particularly whether femininity and masculinity are really opposites of each other (ex: more feminine you are, the less masculine you are) -p. 77-78

Emotion - gender stereotype consequences (women)

-regarding women in leadership role: -too much emotional expression violates leadership role -too little emotional expression violates gender role -Double bind (No-win situation) = subordinate group member criticized for acting like member of dominant group but also criticized for failing to be model member of subordinate group; consequence of the gender stereotypes -p. Ch. 6 Lec.

Corpus callosum

-region in the central part of the brain containing fibers that connect the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere -meta-analysis shows that men have a slightly larger this overall, but again probably because of larger brain volume -p. 234

Hedges

-related to Robin Lakoff's theorization and discussion of tentativeness -phrases such as "sort of" that weaken or soften a statement or "kind of" -related to Robin Lakoff's theorization and discussion of tentativeness -meta-analysis, d = -0.15 -p. 112

Powerful vs. powerless emotions

-related to emotional intensity -powerful emotions = emotions that function to display one's power and dominance and encourage competition (anger, contempt, and pride); stereotyped as masculine -powerless emotions = emotions that function to display one's vulnerability and maintain harmony within a relationship (fear, sadness, shame, and guilt); stereotyped as feminine -study: -found gender similarities in the experience of powerful emotions; men and women reported experiencing the same intensity of anger and disgust, regardless of culture -women reported experiencing significantly more intense powerless emotions; men's experience of fear, sadness, shame, and guilt was less intense than women's -p. 142-143

Emotion - measurement

-researchers have measured this experience and expression in a variety of ways -there is no one best way to measure it; instead, the difference methods tap into different aspects or modalities -1. Measure physiological aspects of emotion (biological foundations; emphasize plasticity; variety of tests = blood pressure, heart rate, skin conductance, EEG, fMRI, PET) -2. Examine people's own subjective experience of emotion, typically with self-reports (may include checklists or diaries; assumes that people and are aware of the emotions they experience, which is not always true) -3. Focus on emotional expression (look at patterns of facial muscle contraction when the person displays certain emotions; can use visual observations or facial EMG to study; can also study verbal expressions via the number and kind of emotion words people use in speech or writing) -p. 139-140

Sexist language - importance

-sexist language and sexist attitudes go hand in hand -the use of masculine generics reflects not only the cultural or societal status of women, but also personal attitudes about gender -study: participants who endorsed modern sexist beliefs were less able to detect sexist language, in part because they had narrower definitions of sexist language -men are generally more supportive of sexist language and women are more supportive of non-sexist language, which was explained by men's preference for social inequality and belief that gender inequality is fair -need to be concerned about the effects that sexist pronoun usage has on children and their attitudes about gender and aspirations for themselves -p. 125-128

Contractive posture

-sitting or standing with legs together and arms close to the body -makes a person seem smaller and conveys submissiveness -women are more likely to do this -women may do this to avoid being perceived as threatening or to protect or shield one's body from scrutiny and the male gaze (adaptation to objectification) -p. 121

Expansive posture

-sitting or standing with limbs extended away from the body, also referred to as power posing -takes up more space with one's body and conveys social dominance and confidence -men are more likely to do this ("manspreading" on public transit) -study: -participants who were in expansive poses felt more powerful, more willing to gamble their payment for participation, and even showed hormonal changes that are usually associated with power (found in both males and females) -p. 121

Assertive speech

-speech that aims to influence the listener and may include providing instructions, information, suggestions, criticism, and/or disagreement -men display this -related to Deborah Tannen and the different cultures hypothesis -male roles require that men exert control preserve their independence, enhance their status, display their knowledge, avoid disclosing personal information, avoid showing the slightest vulnerability, engage in conversational dominance (like interrupting) -the gender differences are tiny -among children, boys engage in more assertive speech than girls do, but the difference is small (d = 0.10) -among adults, men are slightly more assertive than women (d = 0.09, which is marginal) -p. 113-114

Affiliative speech

-speech that demonstrates affiliation or connection to the listener and may include praise, agreement, support, and/or acknowledgment -women display this -related to Deborah Tannen and the different cultures hypothesis -female roles require that women aim to establish and maintain relationships, show support or empathy, engage in conversation maintenance (trying to get a conversation started and keep it going) -girls and women are somewhat more affiliative relative to boys and men -ex: "I've felt that way too" -among children, d = -0.26 (small) -in adulthood, d = -0.12 (shrunk) -p. 113-114

Emotion - experiences vs. expression

-study: -the researchers used physiological, facial expression, and self-report measures when participants were shown clips that induces various emotions -results: -women tend to be more facially expressive than men (except perhaps for anger), but men, at least for some emotions, show more autonomic nervous system reactivity -this study found that women were more likely to be externalizers = they were more facially expressive but had low skin conductance response -men were more likely to be internalizers = being facially inexpressive but having a higher skin conductance response -this corresponds to the gender role requirement that men restrain or control their emotional expression -gender role identity shows larger effects on emotion response than gender did: androgynous people were more facially expressive than masculine people -p. 140-141

Double bind

-subordinate group member criticized for acting like member of dominant group but also criticized for failing to be model member of subordinate group -related to women in leadership roles/consequence of gender stereotypes (too much emotional expression violates leadership role and too little emotional expression violates gender role) -no-win situation -consequence of the gender stereotypes -Ch. 6 Lec.

Emotional competence

-the ability to perceive, appraise, and express emotions accurately and clearly; to understand, analyze, and use knowledge about emotions to think and make decisions; and to regulate the emotions of oneself and others -aka emotional intelligence -on most of these abilities, women score higher them men: -women tend to display more complex emotion knowledge when describing how others might feel in a hypothetical situations -girls are better at regulating their emotions than their male classmates -women are more skilled at recognizing the emotions of others, whether in photos, films, or audio recording (d = -0.27) -women demonstrate more awareness of their own emotions and seem to encode their emotional experience in more detail in memory than men do -women are generally more accurate decoding nonverbal cues (reading body language and facial expressions) -girls are better than boys at displaying socially appropriate emotions/masking socially inappropriate behaviors/feigning polite emotions -when motivated, men can be just as emotionally competent as women are -unlike the female gender role, the male gender role does not entail many aspects of emotional competence -one area of emotional competence in which women do not seem to do as well as men is some aspects of emotion regulation -p. 144

Androgyny and transgender

-the androgyny of the 1970s might be seen as a forerunner of the concept of genderqueer today; the androgynous individual blends masculinity and femininity as the genderqueer individual does -However, androgyny is about personality traits and behaviors (independent, forceful, etc.), whereas genderqueer and transgender are about identity (man, woman, neither, both, etc.) -most people who score as androgynous on the Bem scale have definite cisgender identities, so at this point, the link between androgyny and genderqueer breaks down -p. 79-80

Differences model

-the belief that women and men are very different from each other -culture is dominated by this -ex: men are from mars and women are from venus -p. 76

Androgyny

-the combination of masculine and feminine psychological characteristics in an individual -emerged in the 1970s as feminist psychologists sought to create new models of human behavior that would overcome gender stereotypes -based on a two-dimensional model (one dimension is femininity, ranging from low to high, and the other is masculinity, ranging from low to high); with this conceptualization, a person could have a high score on both femininity and masculinity, and would therefore be androgynous (upper right quad) -measured by Sandra Bem: -presented adjectives/descriptive phrases (some feminine, masculine, and neutral) and each person rated themselves on these -score high on both (androgynous), high on fem and low on mas (feminine), low on fem and high on mas (masculine), low on both (undifferentiated) -criticism of Bem's scale now because it is forty years old and cultural ideals of masculinity and femininity have changed a lot over those decades; we can't really know whether the same items would describe femininity and masculinity today -p. 77-79

Male generics

-the common usage of masculine forms (ex: he, his, him) as generic for all people -male terms are used to refer to all people, whereas it would not work for female terms -related to the concept of male as normative/female as the exception -p. 124

Lateralization

-the extent to which one hemisphere of the brain organizes a particular mental process or behavior -the extent to which a particular function, like verbal processing, is handled by one hemisphere rather than both -ex: if verbal processing in one person is handled entirely by the left hemisphere, we would say that that person is highly lateralized or completely lateralized; if another person processed verbal material using both hemispheres, we would say that that person is bilateral for verbal functioning -measured via dichotic listening task and split visual field -meta-analysis: -gender differences in this are close to 0 (d = 0.06) (no difference) so therefore, stereotypes that women or men are certain-brained are not true -are not gender differences in verbal abilities and there are gender differences in only one type of spatial ability -no gender difference in this for language -p. 234-235

Gender similarities hypothesis

-the hypothesis that men and women are similar on most, but not all, psychological variables -scientific evidence from meta-analysis leads to a different conclusion than what our culture says: men and women are actually quite similar -meta-analyses: -30% of the effect sizes were close to 0 (d ≤ 0.10), and an additional 48% were small (d between 0.11 and 0.35); therefore, 78% of the gender differences were small or smaller -are a few exceptions, like aggression (gender difference is moderate) and some aspects of sexuality -p. 76-77

Self-esteem

-the level of global positive regard that one has for oneself -stereotype that girls have major self-esteem problems beginning in early adolescence and that boys do not -meta-analysis shows d = 0.21, indicating that males score higher, but the difference was small -among elementary school kids d = 0.16, among middle school d = 0.23, among high schoolers d = 0.33; this indicates that in early adolescence, the gender difference is small and it grows larger -among adults (aged 23-59) d= 0.10 and among those 60+ d= 0.03; this indicates the gender differences in self-esteem is close to zero in adulthood -ethnicity: for white sample d = 0.20, whereas for black samples it was -0.04; this indicates that the much-publicized gender difference in self-esteem for whites (even though its small), it not found for blacks -p. 73

Visual dominance ratio

-the ratio of the percentage of time looking while speaking relative to the percentage of time looking while listening; an indicator of social dominance -men exhibit a higher ratio -study: -in the neutral discussion, men were visually dominant: men looked at their partners more while speaking and women looked more while listening -but, when women were in the powerful role, they looked more than men while speaking, and men looked more while listening (they become visually dominant when given social power) -p. 120-121/Ch. 5 Lec.

Impulsivity

-the tendency to act spontaneously and without careful thought -aspects include: reward sensitivity (being especially likely to do something because it will feel good right now), sensation seeking (tendency to seek out novel and intense experiences), risk taking, and impulse control (being able to control one's actions) -stereotypes say that men are more impulsive than women -meta-analysis, d = 0.38 on risk taking and d = 0.22 on sensation seeking, showing that men do score higher on these -no gender difference in reward sensitivity or impulse control -men's greater tendency toward risk taking has negative implications for their health and life expectancy, but, at time, calculated risks result in achieving more (like starting a business) while women are disadvantaged in this way -p. 72

Whorfian hypothesis

-the theory that the language we learn influences how we think -if this is true, then gendered language doesn't just reflect gender inequality, the language it perpetuates it -similarly, some experts have argued that language encodes inequalities in a culture and that language can normalize bias by making it a part of everyday speech -researchers examined how using a natural gender language or a grammatical gender language influenced people's self-reported sexist attitudes; findings suggest that using a grammatical gender language may actually promote sexist attitudes -p. 126

Robin Lakoff

-theorized that gender differences in communication stem from gender roles and the relative power those have (social hierarchy makes them different) -argued that men use more assertive speech because they have power power and women use more tentative speech because of their lack of power -elements of tentativeness include: expressions of uncertainty (disclaimers), hedges, intensifiers, and tag questions -the meta-analysis indicated that women used more tentative speech but that the gender differences are small -p. 112/Ch. 5 Lec.

School achievement

-type of achievement -meta-analysis: -girls earn better grades than boys at all grade levels and they earn better grades in all subjects, including those stereotypes as showing male superiority, such as math and science -overall, d = -0.23 (small) -when broken down by subject, the female advantage was grates in language arts and smallest (but still higher) in math -media have proclaimed that there is now a boy crisis in education, implying that boys have recently fallen behind girls to an alarming extent; meta-analysis of data from 1914 to 2011, girls have been getting better grades than boys the whole time, contradicting this claim -caution against universalizing statements about gender differences; boys aren't better than girls at science in all ethnic groups, nor do girls always perform better -p. 190

Occupational achievement

-type of achievement -over the past several decades, women have moved strongly into a number of high-status, challenging occupation that were formerly dominated by men, such as medicine, veterinary medicine, and law -however, some occupations have not seen an influx of women and remain male-dominated, such as in engineering -longitudinal study: -in high school, girls and boys had similar educational expectations, on average expecting to attend college -girls had higher expectations of a professional occupation than boys did, from high school through age 26 (same across all ethnic groups) -by age 26, women had attained more education than the men had and were more likely to be in a professional occupation than men were -p. 190-191

Stereotype Boost

-when in a positively stereotyped group, can see improved performance when stereotype is activated/salient -ex: Asian Americans are stereotyped as good at math; if this is highlighted to the person beforehand, we see a boost in their performance -Ch. 10 and 3 Lec.