Cognitivist Approach on Gender

It is a comprehensive work on Gender from cognitivist point of view. The paper paper describes the concept and meaning of gender, gender identity, gender role, cognitive approach, theories on gender-cognitive theory, Social cognitive theory, gender schema theory. Besides these, it also consists of educational implication. This is a collaborative work of G. Ghaus, J.Alam, A.Husain, B.Shameem and S.Alam. All are students of M.Ed. (2015-17) Department of Educational Studies, Jmaia MIllia Islamia, New Delhi. This paper will help students as well as teacher to understand the gender from the perspective of cognitive psychology.

1. [Year]
A Group Assignment By:
Afzal Hussain
Binish Shamim
Ghulam Ghaus
Jamshed Alam
Shahzad Alam
M.Ed. (B) 2015-16
Submitted to
Mr. Ali Haider
Dept. Educational Studies
Jamia Millia Islamia
Cognitivist Approach
On
Gender Identity & Gender Role Development
21
st
Ma
r
201
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Index
S.No.Content Page No.
1 Preface 2
2 Cognitive Approach 2
3 Introduction 3
4 Key Terms 3
5 Gender 4-5
6 Meaning & Concept 4
7 Gender Identity 4
8 Gender Role Development 5
9 Theories on Gender 7-9
10 COGNITIVE THEORY 7
11 SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY 8
12 GENDER SCHEMA THEORY 9
13 Educational Implication 10
14 Conclusion 11
15 References 12
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COGNITIVIST APPROACH
On
Gender Identity & Gender Role Development
PREFACE
Cognitive Approach
The Cognitive Approach in psychology is a relatively modern approach to human
behaviour that focuses on how we think and how we perceive with the belief that such
thought processes affect the way in which we behave. It is the scientific study of cognition
means it studies all mental activities related to acquiring, storing, and using knowledge. The
domain of cognitive psychology spans the entire spectrum of conscious and unconscious
mental activities, sensation and perception, learning and memory, thinking and reasoning,
attention and consciousness, imagining and dreaming, decision making and problem solving
etc. Other topics that fascinate cognitive psychologists include creativity, intelligence, and
how people learn, understand, and use language. Over the years, cognitive psychologists
have discovered that mental activities that seem simple and natural are, in fact,
extraordinarily complex.
When we study about gender, and think that how children gather and make sense of
information about gender and how their understanding of gender changes over time, we find
different cognitivists such as Kohlberg, Bandura, Piaget, Kelly and Bem etc. have tried to
look gender in different ways and they have given different theories on it. Few of them are
mentioned in this paper.
INTRODUCTION
Gender is one of the most important categories in human social life. Initially it was in
a very simple form; but with the passage of time it became much sophisticated, complex and
also imbued with a host of cultural meaning and practices. That's why we find that in all
culture, male and female, boys and girls meet with distinct sets of gender-related beliefs,
expectations, thoughts and behaviors. Gender identity and gender role is a fundamental issue
because some of the most important aspects of people’s lives, such as the talents they
cultivate, the conceptions they hold of themselves and others, the socio-structural
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opportunities and constraints they encounter, and the social life and occupational paths they
pursue are heavily prescribed by societal gender-typing. In this paper we will analyze
gender-identity and gender-role development in the light of various cognitive theories. And
try to specify that how gender-conceptions are constructed from the complex of mixed
experiences and how they operate in concert with motivational and self-regulatory
mechanisms to guide gender-linked conduct throughout the life course.
Key Terms
Sex: The biological status of being male or female.
Gender: The meanings that societies and individuals attach to being male or female.
Gender Role: The societal expectations for appropriate female and male behavior
Gender Identity: How one psychologically perceives oneself as either male or
female
Gender schema: a mental framework that organizes and guides, a child’s
understanding of information relevant to gender.
Stereotype: cognitive component of one’s attitude towards sex
GENDER
Meaning and Concept
Gender refers to the roles and responsibilities of men and women that are created in
our families, our societies and our cultures. The concept of gender also includes the
expectations held about the characteristics, aptitudes and likely behaviors of both women and
men (femininity and masculinity). Gender roles and expectations are learned. They can
change over time and they vary within and between cultures. Systems of social
differentiation such as political status, class, ethnicity, physical and mental disability, age
and more, modify gender roles. The concept of gender is vital because, applied to social
analysis; it reveals how women’s subordination (or men’s domination) is socially
constructed. As such, the subordination can be changed or ended. It is not biologically
predetermined nor is it fixed forever.
Gender Identity
Gender identity, that we all know, it is the perception of individual about self as a male or
female. It develops gradually, not at once. The process of socialization (social behaviour)
plays a key role in gender identity e.g. from the very beginning, the child starts realizing its
gender identity through its parenting style and social influences. Even the colors of cloths,
toys, playing objects are attached to their identity. Since then their mind becomes receptive
and this lead to the formation of their identity. It means the differences between men and
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women, which are universal and determined at birth. These differences are of two types:
biological and environmental/social.
Biological factors are responsible for the differences in physical structure [such as
face, hair, chest, voice etc.] and neurological structure. The androgens [male sex hormone]
and ovarian [female productive hormone] are important in terms of sexual differentiation,
and are related to morphological, anatomical and functional differences between the brains
of women and men. This is the reason many researchers and educationalists have found
differences between drawings made by boys and girls. Generally girls draw people, flowers,
butterflies, the sun, buildings, and trees using warm colors more frequently than do boys. In
contrast, boys like to draw mobile objects such as vehicles, trains, aircrafts and rockets,
using cold colors. These differences in their drawings are because of biological factors which
are responsible for differences in neurological structure.
On the other hand, the environmental factors are responsible for the differences in the
behaviour and role that a male or female does or performs in a society in which he/she lives.
A person acquire his “gender identity through a process of socialization known as sex
typing, that takes account of the separate roles expected of male and female” in his society.
Apart from physical differences anyone can find big differences in dress, emotions, and way
of talking, behaving and managing task of male and female. In spite of feminism revolution
whose leaders deny any type of difference in male and female, we find differences not only
in dress but also the things they use, like shoes, socks, cosmetic object etc. These all
differences in both the genders are because of environmental factors.
Gender Role Development
When explaining how gender identity and roles develop, cognitive psychologists
emphasize the role of thinking processes. They are interested in how children gather and
make sense of information about gender and how their understanding of gender changes over
time (a developmental perspective). Cognitive psychologists assume that changes in gender
role behavior reflect changes in how children understand and think about gender. These
changes in understanding, in turn, reflect;
1.the accumulation of information about gender gathered from the environment and
2.Developmental changes, in the child’s brain, allow it to process information in more
sophisticated ways.
The cognitive approach to gender development has made a significant contribution to
our understanding of how thinking about gender changes over time. Cognitive
developmental theory, with its focus on the individual, has allowed encouraged us to
recognize the active role that children take in their own development.
As every parent, teacher and developmental psychologist know that male and female
children become “masculine and feminine” respectively, at every early age of life by the
time of four and five, for example, girls and boys, have typically come to prefer activities
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defined by culture as appropriate for their sex and to prefer to same –sex peer. The
acquisition of sex-appropriate preferences, skills, personality, attributes, behaviors and self-
concepts is typically referred to within psychology the gender roles. “These are the shared
expectations (of behavior) that apply to individuals on the basis of their socially identified
gender.”
There are various aspects of gender development that cognitive approach with its
theories on gender has explained. These include some consistent gender differences. For
example, most studies have found that boys’ thinking about gender is more rigid than girls’.
Furthermore there are the universal features of gender role that are found in all cultures that
suggest that some elements of gender are innate. These are most easily explained within a
biological framework. However, a difficulty here is in trying to determine to what extent a
gender difference is caused by the effects of sex role stereotyping on the expectation of male
and female behaviour. We will try to find the answer in the following lines.
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
1.Cognitive Theory of Gender: Kohlberg
Cognitive development theory states that the acquisition of gender roles takes place in
the child’s head. The role of thinking process in the formation of gender identity and role
development is crucial. As Kohlberg (1966) said, “It stresses the active nature of the child’s
thought as he organizes his role perception and learning around the basic conception of his
body and world”.
An assumption of cognitive development theory is that the child is an active
interpreter of the world. His learning occurs when he cognitively organizes what he sees, not
by way of reinforcement and conditioning. In other words, child influences the environment,
not being influenced by environment.
Kohlberg (1966) suggests a series of stages of development for the acquisition of
gender role. As child moves through these stages, its understanding of gender becomes more
complex.
Kohlberg’s stages
a.Gender Identity , which is usually, starts at the age of 2 years. At this stage, the child
is able to correctly label its own sex as ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ and apply it to other also. This
labeling is based on superficial characteristics of people rather than biological.
b.The second stage of gender role development is Gender Stability, which arrives at the
age of 4 years. In this stage, the child realizes that the gender remains the same across
time. However, its understanding of gender is heavily influenced by and depends on
external features like hair and clothing. Children understanding at this stage can
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change with regard to gender role if external appearances are not matching with the
identity of person.
c.The third stage which is Gender Constancy, where child understand that gender is
independent of external features. The stage is usually arrived at the age of 7. Despite
the change in its external features, they will not change their own identity and of
others about gender.
2.Social Cognitive Theory: Bandura
Bandura’s social cognitive theory (SCT) builds on the earlier social learning
approaches by addressing the fact that human development involves a complex interplay of
many factors. His behavior is not only influenced by way of reinforcement or stimulus, but
in spite of this, there is an important role of modeling of our own behavior through
observational learning. SCT highlights the active role of children in their observational
learning. Children select the particular events or people in the environment, then mentally
organize, combine and rehearse the observed behavior, decide when to enact the behavior
and finally monitor the outcomes of that behavior. Experiment conducted by (Perry and
Bussey) to investigate the extent of modeling has on gender development shows that
“children imitate that behavior which is most frequently or largely performed by model of
their same sex”
Apart from modeling and social experiences, there is an evidence of choice and
flexibility in children’s behavior where cognitive process becomes active. Once children
began to internalize the standard of behavior appropriate for males and females (through
social experiences), their behavior is no longer dependent on external rewards or
punishments. Rather, they become capable of directing their own behavior to satisfy their
internalized standard. They also monitor their behavior against those standards, so that they
feel pride on performing gender role-consistent behavior, even if there is no external praise.
Bandura also gave the concept of reciprocal determinism, through research he agreed
that on the one hand, the environment caused behavior and on the other hand, behavior also
had an effect on the environment. In other words, the situation we are in may cause us to
behave in a certain way, but the way we behave will have a further effect on the situation we
are in. In this concept, he included three factors:
a.an individual’s behavior,
b.the environment and
c.psychological factors
which when interact with each other, produces individual personality. This added a cognitive
component to the theory and signified Bandura’s move away from behaviorism and towards
cognitivism.
3.Gender Schema Theory: Bem
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Dr. Sandra Bem (1944-2014) developed a gender schema theory in 1981 to explain
how gender develops through socialization in a given culture. Gender- related information is
passed through the generations in the form of gender schemas.
A gender schema contains the knowledge of what being male and female means and
what behaviors, cognitions and emotions are associated with these categories. These schemas
allow children to categorize and organize gender-related behaviors.
Now, what is meant to be gender schematic; someone who is gender schematic uses
gender category to make decision about what to wear, how to behave what career to pursue
and what emotions to present to other, while someone who is gender schematic does not
consider gender when making these decision. Gender schema theory is a theory about the
process by which we acquire gender roles, not that describe the content of roles .This theory
help to know the process due to which gender stereotype has psychologically ingrained in
our society solidifying the existence of gender stereotype. This theory combines elements of
both social learning theory and cognitive development theory in describing how we acquire
gender roles. Social learning theories explain how we acquire the features of male and
female gender categories and what we associate with those categories. Cognitive
development theory describes how we begin to encode new information in to their cognitive
categories to maintain consistency. The child learns to invoke a gender role category or
schema when processing new information.
Bem (1984) advanced her gender schema theory by showing that sex-type people
engage in gender schematic processing. Bem hypothesized that sex-type respondent
compared to androgynous respondents would describe more quickly that a sex appropriate
attribute described them and that a sex in appropriate attribute did not describe them. It
appears that sex type individuals were faster in making schema consistent judgment than
cross sex typed androgynous and undifferentiated individuals. In other studies, Bem found
that sex-typed individual were more likely to categorize a list of attributes in terms of gender
and more likely to organize groups of other in terms of gender compared to androgynous
persons. Bem also found support for her theory by demonstrating that sex typed individuals
prefer to engage in behavior consistent with their gender role.
Education implications
Schools are important context for the socialization of young children’s attitudes and
behaviors. Teachers and classmates shape children’s gender attitudes and in turn gender
differences in cognition and behavior. Unfortunately, teachers receive relatively little
training in recognizing and combating gender stereotypes and prejudices – their own and
other – and, as a consequence, teacher often modal, expect, reinforce and lay the foundation
for gender differentiation among their pupils. Thus, most schools create and maintain –
rather than counter act – traditional gender stereotypes, biases and differences.
To overcome this stereotype attitude of children, following suggestion will be of great
help. These are;
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The educators should make commitment to gender egalitarianism and thus promote
cross gender interaction treatment with both gender should be same.
Educational policies makers should resist the creation of gender segregated educational
context (i.e. single sex school) but instead seek to enhance co-educational schools for
promoting egalitarian attitudes and behaviors.
Teacher should expose peoples to counter – stereotypes model. cross sex types behavior
should be encourage in the class room like girls participation in sports or challenging
task; there interest or involvement in subject like maths, computer, science etc. whereas
boys should be given task like class room maintenance, updating notice and class room
board etc.
Teacher need to train themselves for recognizing their own explicit and implicit biases
and how these biases affect their class room behavior, as children model their teachers.
The teacher should also receive explicit training in confronting children’s biases and
adopt strategies to overcome there.
Parent should seek those educational setting for their students that our gender integrated
and that make use of curricula that directly teach about ,and challenge gender bias and
inequality.
Conclusion
Many psychologists have given their own approaches and theories on gender after
their keen study. The cognitivists also have given their own, among which three theories are
very important to understand the gender phenomenon. These three theories describe not only
the concept of gender but also role and identification.
The first theory ‘Cognitive Theory of Gender’ given by Kohlberg represents the three
stages of gender development a)‘Gender Identity’, b)‘Gender Stability’ and c)’Gender
Constancy’. This theory inform us in which age a child becomes aware of his own gender,
how does he/she become stable on his/her understanding of gender and what is the age in
which a child can differentiate male and female really.
On the other hand Bandura’s ‘Social Cognitive theory of Gender’ deals with how a child
take particular events or people in the environment, then mentally organize, combine and
rehearse the observed behavior, decide when to enact the behavior and finally monitor the
outcomes of that behavior. His theory is builds on the earlier social learning approaches.
According to him there are various factors which influence a person; a) an individual’s
behavior, b) the environment and c) psychological factors.
Bem’s ‘Gender Schema Theory’ explains how gender develops through socialization
in a given culture. Gender- related information is passed through the generations in the form
of gender schemas which contains the knowledge of what being male and female means and
what behaviors, cognitions and emotions are associated with these categories. These schemas
allow children to categorize and organize gender-related behaviors.
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It is an interesting thing to become aware of difference the word ‘sex’ and ‘gender,
which are used interchangeably. While each word represents one factor. The earlier denotes
the bio logical/neurological factors of differences in male and female, the later describes
environmental factor.
Reference
1.Tina, Abbott “Social and Personality Development”
2.Helgeson, Vicki S. “Psychology of Gender” 2
nd
Edition
3.Ecks, Thomas & Trautner, Hanns M. “The Developmental Social Psychology of
Gender”
4.http://www.open.edu/cognitiandgenderdevelopment
5.http://en.wikipedia.org/genderschematheory
6.http://study.com/sandra-bem-gender-schema-theory-andeogyny-test.html
7.http://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/approach.php
8.Encyclopedia of Encarta/cognitive psychology
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