Table of Contents
In a day and age where we see new gender identities arising every day, the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ still continue to be used as synonyms. A major milestone in psychology was when RK Unger’s ideas in her paper ‘Toward a Redefinition of Sex and Gender’ led scholars to become more selective in their usage of the term sex and gender to avoid framing research in ways that might hint at biological determinism. Unger defined gender and gender identity as ‘the non-physiological components of the two sexes that are culturally perceived as appropriate for individuals of each sex, with gender identity referring to the characteristics that individuals develop and internalize in response to the stimulus functions of the sex they were assigned at birth.’ (Poulin, 2007)
The distinction between sex and gender is the primary dissimilarity of a person’s biological sex (the anatomy of an individual’s reproductive system, and secondary sex characteristics) from that person’s gender, which can refer to either social roles based on the sex of the person (gender role) or personal identification of one’s own gender based on an internal awareness (gender identity). Most people’s gender corresponds to their biological sex. There are preconceived notions attached with the concept of gender identity. There is a dramatic difference of physique and behaviour between the two sexes which, in my opinion, has as much to do with evolution as a person’s psychology. The very fact of belonging to a given sex group triggers categorization, labelling, attribution and stereotypes that delineate one’s gender.
This paper focuses on the comparison of theories of evolutionary psychology with the social cognitive theory to discuss how these two varied theories explain the phenomenon of gender identity and sex differences in today’s world.
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Evolutionary Psychology Perspective
Evolutionary psychology looks at the differences in genders as being hardwired since the ancestral times. This approach argues that the gender roles and sex differences we see today are a product of the adaptation of struggles that ancient humans faced and are not in any way, a development of the environment.
To support the evolutionary perspective, the division of labour between males and females, thousands of years ago, was shown to be an advantage. Men were the hunters and gatherers since hunting required speed, agility, good visual perception so men developed this skill while the women were at home looking after the children. On the off chance that a woman was to hunt, this would reduce the group’s reproductive success, as the woman was the one who was pregnant or producing milk. Women would contribute to other businesses like agriculture, making clothes, shelter etc. Hence, the evolutionary perspective talks about how human sex differences reflect the pressure of differing physical and social environments between females and males in primeval times.
The ancestral origin of differences in gender roles which affected an individual’s gender identity is dissected in terms of partner preferences, reproductive strategies, parental investment in offspring, and the aggressive nature of males. Viewed from this perspective, contemporary gender and sex differences are rooted in successful ancestral adaptation to the different procreative demands that the men and women faced. Evolutionary psychology assumes that women have adapted to the role they play in reproduction and parenthood, while men, because of their size and strength advantage, have dominated women.
According to Trivers’ theory of parental investment, reproductive success can be achieved by the parent investing in an offspring, to increase the offspring’s chances of survival at the expense of the parent’s ability to invest in another offspring. This is argued as the origin of behavioural differences between men and women because men contributed less to their offspring’s chances of survival so they sought multiple partners and were less choosy with whom to mate. By preferring fewer sexual partners and favouring those who would be good long-term providers of the basic necessities of life for themselves and their offspring, women adapted to their role in reproduction and parenting.
Comparatively, men reproduced with numerous young and physically attractive women in an attempt to maximize the likelihood of paternity. Coercive force allows males to control female’s sexuality and to mate with many females (Smuts, 1992). Taking this evolutionary history into account, women have now come to invest more heavily than men in parenting roles (Trivers, 1972). Males, in turn, evolved into aggressors, social dominators and prolific maters because such behaviour increased their success in propagating their genes.
According to evolutionary psychology, many current gender and sex differences, such as the number of preferred sexual partners, criteria for selecting sexual partners, aggression, jealousy and the roles they fulfil result from the ancestral sex differentiated reproductive strategies. (Buss, & Schmitt, 1993).
Social Cognitive Theory
The social cognitive theory was first proposed by Kay Bussey and Albert Bandura in an attempt to compile the most constructive tenets of the social learning theory, cognitive development theory and gender schemas. Through SCT, human behaviour is explained in terms of triadic reciprocal causation which includes personal, behavioural and environmental factors.
Personal factors include conceptions of gender which are developed at an early age through observational learning and /or modelling which the child learns in a direct, vicarious or a self-evaluative manner by parents, peers, significant persons in social, educational and occupational contexts. In addition, modeling of gender roles and conduct is enhanced by mass media. One of the important sources of constructing gender conceptions, which later evolve into sex differences, is the reinforcement and punishment that occurs throughout childhood since social norms dictate appropriate conduct for both the genders and moulds one’s self-efficacy, due to outcome expectation, which plays a pivotal role in acquisition of gender identity.
Parents reward their child with (vicarious/direct) positive reinforcement when their children engage in activities considered appropriate for their gender and punish them if they take up activities deemed inappropriate for their gender in turn trying to instil a personal sense of gender in their children. Direct tuition is another way of contributing to an individual’s gender identity. It serves as a pragmatic way of informing children about different styles of behaviour and their relationship to gender. Social cognitive theory speculates that, through these experiences, children come to categorize themselves as girls or boys, gain substantial knowledge of gender attributes and roles, and extract rules as to what kind of behaviour is considered appropriate for their gender.
The ability to differentiate between the two sexes and to link them to different activities and social sanctions associated with them leads the children to choose activities which conform to gender stereotypes even before they have a conception of gender. This level of gender understanding precedes gender self-identity which already infers a reflection of a set of gender attributes embedded in a more broad knowledge structure. As children acquire better cognitive skills, their insight of gender goes beyond the nonverbal categorization of people and objects and includes explicit labeling of people, objects, and styles of behaviour based on gender.
When children begin to comprehend the language, they notice that verbal labeling in masculine and feminine terms is particularly used by those around them. It does not take long for them to learn that children are characterized as boys and girls, and adults as mothers and fathers, women and men. Gender labeling gives salience not only to sorting people on the basis of gender but also the traits and activities that characterize each gender. It not only highlights gender as an important classification for viewing the world but also as the basis for categorizing oneself.
Bandura believed that, in the course of development, the regulation of behaviour changes from primarily external sanctions and mandates to a progressive substitution of self-sanction and self-determination based on personal norms (Bandura, 1986). Once self-regulatory functions are developed, children guide their conduct by rules they apply to themselves. These include self-monitoring of gender-related conduct, judgment of conduct in relation to personal standards, and environmental circumstances, and the influence of self-reactions. Social cognitive theory extends the analysis of human agency to collective agency (Bandura, 1997).
Environmental factors include the imposed environment, selected environment, and constructed environment. Peer selection, activities, and educational pursuits are examples of environmental selectivity that affect developmental pathways (Bandura & Walters, 1959). For example, much of early role learning takes place in the symbolic play of children. By their selection of playmates and the structuring of play activities, children successfully construct their symbolic environment.
Sex and Gender Constructions in the Jamaican Classroom
The data in this paper was collected for a U.N.I.C.E.F. funded research project based at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica. The research focused upon gender and educational performances in the English speaking Caribbean region. The main data collection methods were classroom observations of ninth grade pupils (fourteen year olds) and semi-structured ethnographic interviews with head teachers, guidance counsellors and ninth grade teachers in English language, biology and physics.
The sample consisted of eight Jamaican high schools, including urban and rural schools out of which two were boys’ schools, two were girls’ schools and four were coeducational. Forty-seven teachers were observed and introduced out of which thirty seven were female and ten were male.
The researcher found that there were differences between single sex male and female classrooms as the male students tended to be more loud and disruptive than the females. The study found that there were two ways in which teachers differentiated between male and female students. The first being classroom responses, particularly the issue of verbal discipline i.e. that the female teachers use sarcasm and ridicule as a means of disciplining their female students but the males do not experience this treatment. The second was in the construction of heterosexual sex/gender identities in the context that the notions of responsibility and blame are implicitly reinforced by blaming the females for the under achievement of male pupils.
Theory Comparison
The researcher mentions that in Jamaica, manhood is attested by sexual prowess, usually measured in terms of numbers of serial or concurrent female sexual partners. Secondary proof of ‘manhood’ resides in numbers of offspring whether inside or outside of a steady relationship. Hence, one of the findings of this study which states that school policies reinforced female sexual responsibility by suspending pregnant pupils and while girls were penalized, the educational careers of baby fathers continued uninterrupted.
In taking responsibility for sexual relationships girls were subjected to a double standard which, as one guidance counsellor at the rural coeducational school explained, meant taking the blame: “Girls can’t do what boys do”. This finding is supported by both the theories mentioned in the paper as we see that the gender identities being formed because of a social construct as a result of the environment (cultural expectations and societal structures) and can also arise because of ancestral sex differences of mate preferences and reproductive strategies.
The data further suggested that implicit in the different constructions of sex/ gender identities are notions of responsibility and blame. This account is particularly concerned with ways in which females are blamed for academic under-achievement of male pupils. The argument is very crude and broadly runs like this. Boys understand that girls of their own age seek out older men for sexual relationships. They see this as a function of the gifts and money which older men can provide for the girls. That is, they interpret the motivations of the girls as mercenary. This motivates boys to seek quick and unorthodox ways of obtaining wealth to attract women.
This finding can be supported by evolutionary psychology as the theory claims that the criteria for selecting sexual partners originated from the ancestral sex differentiated reproductive strategies wherein men would choose younger, more physically attractive women and women prefer men who are financially well resourced; which is what we see happening in this context. So we could say that the reason for the boys’ behaviour is rooted deep in their biology. But times have changed and the present day lifestyle patterns run counter to this theory. Thus this finding can also be rightfully explained by the social cognitive theory’s reciprocal determinism, which can be more trusted upon in the present age.
It was found that male teachers reinforce the anti-academic version of masculinity in various ways because they are clustered in the ‘traditional male’ subjects such as physics and maths. This finding is supported by the social cognitive theory because this evidently shows that as a result of modeling, the children’s perceptions of male gender role stereotypes is reaffirmed by their male teachers, in turn affecting the child’s core gender identity. Evolutionary psychology does not provide the mechanisms responsible for this social pattern of behaviour.
In conclusion, we see that the social cognitive theory holds more ground than evolutionary psychology because we observe the mechanisms of the SCT in action even today in our everyday lives. One can say that there are evolutionary factors at play in the social cognitive theory, when it comes to gender.
References
- Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
- Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W. H. Freeman.
- Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1959). Adolescent aggression. New York: Ronald Press.
- Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: An evolutionary perspective on human mating. Psychological Review, pp. 204-232.
- Feist, J & Feist G. (2008) Theories of Personality (Seventh Edition). McGraw Hill Primis. pp. 478-482
- Parry, Odette. (1996). Sex and Gender Constructions in the Jamaican Classroom. Social and Economic Studies. Vol. 45, pp. 77-93
- Poulin C. It made us think differently: Unger’s ‘toward a redefinition of sex and gender’ Feminism & Psychology. 2007;17:435–441
- Smuts, B. (1992). Male aggression against women: An evolutionary perspective. Human Nature, pp. 1-44
- Trivers, R. L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. Sexual selection and the descent of man. pp. 136-172. Chicago: Aldine.
