DP Gender Critical Analysis

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  • Created by: Psych951
  • Created on: 09-05-19 17:54

DP Gender Critical Analysis

Advantages

  • Support for biological determinism from relations between genetics, sex and gender and support for social constructionist from studies
  • Support for social learning theory from impact of parental interactions and displayed gender identity, helping to understand basis of gender identity
  • Support for gender schema theory and helps to understand how gender concept grows
  • Viewing gender on a scale is more useful for understanding real behaviours and differences between individuals
  • Theories can help to create environments that encourage wide behaviours and reduce gender-typed pressures

Disadvantages

  • Biological factors are impacted by socialisation processes from birth, and biological sex informs socialisation
  • Evidence supports gender spectrum rather than categories, suggesting current understanding is limited
  • Both social and cognitive theories fails to explain individual differences in gender identity following similar experiences e.g. Maines twins
  • Intersex babies, cultural variations and autistic individuals demonstrate that observed gender development is not fixed
  • Differences are averages and so cannot help to predict individual behaviour
  • Stereotypes and gender socialisation pressures negatively impact wellbeing
  • Measurement tools often impact differences observed
  • Short encounters in socialisation experiments are not reflective of regular interactions, and may simply reflect strangers using the limited information available to inform interactions

Evaluation

The current theories of gender development offer an evidence-based understanding of how gender identity develops and what differences there may be between genders. However, it is likely that the theories interact, due to the reciprocal relationship between biology and the environment, and the measurement issues means that the theories are limited by exceptions and inconsistencies. 

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