Biosocial Approach to Gender

the biological and environmental factors intersected to create gender identity - biological factors interact with social factors to create a person's gender 

signposting

• a child's sex acts as a signpost determining all of their future treatment 
• once a child's sex is labelled, the social context exerts itself 
• differential treatment follows after the gender labelling has occured 

Baby X Baby Y 

• babies were dressed in unisex snowsuits 
• they were labelled with either male or female names 
• the results showed that the babies were treated differently depending on their percieved sex 

Albanian sworn virgins

• females in Albania adopted the male gender 
• they cut their hair short, dressed like males, did male jobs etc 
• they swore never to marry again 
• they were also given the full rights and privalges that males had 

There were four types of masculinity found in British schools 

• New Entrepenuers 
• Macho Lads 
• Real Englishmen 
• Academic Achievers 

this is showing that there is social factors affecting people's gender causing them to act in the ways that the do 

Eagly & Wood devised this theory 

• social roles were constructed due to sex role allocation which then lead to gender development to take place
• roles that were assigned to people based on their biological sex lead to physiological differences occuring in people 
• hormone differences in gender are viewed as being socially influenced 

• most of the studies are conducted as field experiments - this makes it high in mundane realism and external validity 
• the results can easily be generalised to the population 
• they arent very scientific - the methods used and the data collected are suggesting that psychology isn't a science 
• it says that there is more than one factor causing a person's gender - this means that the approach isn't deterministic or reductionist 
• nature v nurture debat - the approach says that both nature and nurture influence a person's gender