PSYC 4220 1st Edition Lecture 21 Outline of Last Lecture I II III IV Evaluation of Vygotsky Preschool Language Development Effects of Poverty on Language Development Social and Personality Development in Preschool A Erikson B Self Concept Outline of Current Lecture I II III IV V Self Concept Gender Development Gender Identity Gender Typing Gender Typed Behavior Current Lecture Self Concept Categorical self continued Rarely use psychological terms to describe selves or others May be due to lack of verbal skills o When asked forced choice questions capable of categorizing selves on psychological dimensions are you more like this or like this Self esteem evaluation how we feel about ourselves judgments of our self worth By age 4 typically have several self judgments o Tend to have a global self esteem and more specific self judgments o Have good and bad feelings about themselves and their performance on certain tasks o Most little kids however will over estimate their ability and underestimate the task difficulty o They will usually think they are pretty good at things o They are not good at social comparison at this age o They are also not very cognitively developed at this age High self esteem initiative to try new things Unrealistic optimism couldn t ride their bike today but definitely tomorrow o This is good and helpful as they are learning and developing because it keeps them trying Gender Development Distinguishing between males and females Sex is biological aspect of being male or female Gender behavioral psychological and social characteristic of males and females the way that the child will be treated based on their genitalia the things society begins to impose and how that influences the development of gender A lot of expectations for how kids will act what they will like and what they will wear based on sex We begin labeling treating children differently according to gender at birth Infants talked about treated differently o Cards before birth already highlight these characteristics girl card talks about visa shopping and boy cards talk about Honda cars o Show two college students they same baby but dress it gender neutrally and those that were told that it was a little girl used cuter sweeter words and those that were told it was a boy used more rough tough words o Girls are talked to more and there is a greater emphasis put on emotions when talking to girls then when talking to boys o People have a hard time stopping that behavior because they want their little girls to have lace and bows and their boys to have manly plain boy clothes Gender Identity Ones awareness of one s gender and implications of gender Learn about categories which category they belong to By 4 months can match faces to voices based on gender By 9 12 months can tell difference between genders in photos By 2 years can label self a as boy or girl Gender Stability understanding the gender is stable lifelong characteristic By age 4 You are a girl today will be a girl tomorrow and will grow up to be a woman But Gender Constancy understanding that gender says same despite changes to outward appearance until age 5 6 Gender Typing Acquisition of information concerning sex based characteristics that culture sets for males and females Gender stereotypes overgeneralizations or beliefs about differences between males and females Men instrumental acting upon the world Women expressive having characteristics associated with emotions or relationships When do kids start understanding these stereotypes and start expecting men and women to act in a different way By 2 5 3 say boy or girl dolls prefer gender typed activities Say boy dolls like to hit people play with dad and drive cars and girl dolls like to cook clean and talk a lot Continue collecting stereotypes over preschool By 4 stereotype about activities occupations toys By 5 also stereotype about personality traits Become more rigid about gender o In one study 4 9 year olds were told a scenario about a little boy named George who liked to play with dolls but that his parents said he shouldn t play with dolls o Then they were asked if George should play with dolls o o o o o By 4 said it was ok By 6 they said absolutely not because it is wrong for boys to play with dolls By 5 they think it is morally wrong for people to break gender roles It is almost as bad as stealing to them By 9 they are a little less rigid with it and say that boys don t usually play with dolls but that if they want to it is ok Gender Typed Behavior Preferring activities toys clothes and interests associated with your gender o By 14 22 months boys prefer cars and tricks girls prefer dolls and soft toys o This is before they can even tell you what gender they are o 18 24 months they gave the kids the choice of playing with nothing or playing with a toy that is often preferred by the opposite sex kids rather play with nothing than play with a toy for the opposite gender Gender segregation tendency to play with one s own sex and think of the opposite sex as outgroup Gender segregation starts earlier than boys Girls age 2 already have a preference for playing with other girls while boys don t show this preference till age 3 If you have siblings of the opposite gender you are more likely to be ok with playing with kids of the opposite gender Gender matters more to kids in terms of who they want to play with than ethnicity