Psychology

Psyc 3331 Psychology of Gender Notes 02.02.05

Chapter 1 Key Terms

• Androcentric bias: discipline of psychology that is largely focused on men and describes men as superior and women as inferior.

• Bias in Research Methods: bias occurs in every part of the research process-from question formulation and research design to data analysis and interpretation

• Blatant sexism: occurs when women are treated in a transparently harmful and unequal way.

• Covert sexism: form of sexism that’s intentional, hidden, and often hostile.

• Cultural approach: origins of gender stereotyping from a sociocultural perspective where children are socialized to act according to their culture.

• Cultural feminism: emphasizes characteristics and qualities of women that are devolved and ignored in society.

• Division 35: APA’s division of the psychology of women (est.1973)

• Engendering psychology: a psychology which gender considerations are mainstreamed throughout the discipline.

• Evolutionary psychology: developed by Wilson; psychological traits are selected through evolution

• Feminism: belief that women and men are equal and should be equally valued and have equal rights.

• 1st wave feminism: began in 1903 with the founding of women’s social and political union

• gender: different between boys and girls and women and men are averaged in society’s social interact; based on a composed set of traits, interests, and behaviors.

• Gender schema: structures that allow a person to organize information related to gender by linking gender labels to objects, traits, and behaviors.

• Gender stereotypes: cognitive representation of males and females; organized set of beliefs of psychological traits and characteristics as well as activities appropriate to men or women.

• Liberal feminism: focuses on equality of women and men

• Men’s movement: includes military, political, religion, and economic events that have benefited men

• Radical feminism: focuses on control of women by men; based on belief that men’s oppression of women is primary and serves as a model for all other oppression

• Science: knowledge based activity that depends on facts accumulated through systematic and objective questioning, hypothesis testing, methodological study, analysis, and presentation.

• Sex: biological difference in the genetic composition and reproductive structures and functions of men and women

• Sex discrimination: harmful and unequal treatment of individuals due to their sex.

• Sexism: differential treatment of individuals based on their sex; subordination of women and assumption of the superiority of men solely on the basis of sex or gender

• Social constructionism: view by Foucault that human behavior determined by historical, cultural, and social conditions

• Socialist feminism: focuses on social relations and how social institutions preserve and promote male dominance.

• Sociobiology (Evolutionary Psychology): theory by Wilson that holds that psychological traits are selected through an evolutionary process; adaptive traits are selected because they serve to perpetuate the species.

• Stereotypes: generalized and oversimplified beliefs about groups of people.

• Stereotyping: cognitive perspective used to describe gender difference; people learn to streamline information processing by grouping people into categories based on members’ similarity

• Structured approach: emphasizes common positions that certain groups occupy within social structure; focuses on structural constraints that channel our experience, from family to societal level

• Subtle