Gender — AQA A-Level Psychology
Test yourself on Gender with AQA A-Level practice questions.
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Gender explained
Sex is biological: the XX or XY chromosomes present at conception and the anatomy that follows.
Read the full explanation
Gender is psychological and social, the roles and behaviour a culture ties to being male or female, which is why it shifts between cultures and decades. Sex-role stereotypes carry those expectations; Furnham and Farragher (2000) analysed television adverts and found men shown in autonomous professional roles, women in domestic ones. Bem (1974) then argued masculinity and femininity are two separate dimensions, not opposite ends of one ruler, so a person high on both is androgynous, which she linked to better psychological wellbeing. Her inventory rates sixty traits on a seven-point scale and sorts people into masculine, feminine, androgynous or undifferentiated.
The role of chromosomes and hormones (testosterone, oestrogen and oxytocin) in sex and gender. Atypical sex chromosome patterns: Klinefelter’s syndrome and Turner’s syndrome.
The twenty-third chromosome pair is XX in females and XY in males, and the SRY gene on the Y switches on the testes, which flood the foetus with testosterone and masculinise the genitals and the developing brain. Testosterone is associated with aggression and competitiveness, oestrogen with female sexual characteristics and the menstrual cycle, and oxytocin, released in labour and breastfeeding, with bonding and calm. Atypical patterns reveal what chromosomes contribute. Klinefelter's syndrome is XXY, roughly one in six hundred males: reduced body hair, some breast development, clumsiness and poor language. Turner's syndrome is XO, roughly one in five thousand females: no ovaries or menstruation, a webbed neck, and higher verbal but poorer spatial and mathematical ability.
Cognitive explanations of gender development, Kohlberg’s theory, gender identity, gender stability and gender constancy; gender schema theory.
Kohlberg (1966) says gender understanding tracks cognitive maturity through three stages. At about two to three a child reaches gender identity and can label themselves and others, but thinks a boy could become a girl. At about four comes stability: their own gender is fixed over time, yet a man in a dress is still judged a woman. By six or seven constancy arrives: gender is fixed across time and situation, and only now do children actively seek same-sex models. Slaby and Frey (1975) found high-constancy children watched the same-sex model far longer in a split-screen film. But Bussey and Bandura (1992) found four-year-olds already felt good about gender-appropriate toys, so schema theory (Martin and Halverson, 1981) puts learning at identity, children recalling in-group information best.
Psychodynamic explanation of gender development, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, Oedipus complex; Electra complex; identification and internalisation.
Freud claims gender arrives in the phallic stage, between roughly three and six, and before it children are bisexual, neither masculine nor feminine. A boy desires his mother and sees his father as a rival, and that conflict produces castration anxiety; to resolve it he gives up his mother and identifies with his father, internalising his attitudes, morals and gender role wholesale. A girl, in the Electra complex, believes she has been castrated already, envies the penis, and eventually substitutes a wish for a baby, identifying with her mother more weakly because she has less to fear. Freud's evidence is the case of Little Hans, a five-year-old whose horse phobia he read as displaced fear of his father, collected second-hand from letters written by the boy's father.
Social learning theory as applied to gender development. The influence of culture and media on gender roles.
Bandura says gender behaviour is learned, not matured into. Children observe models, especially same-sex ones, and imitate what they see rewarded, which is vicarious reinforcement; direct tuition ('good girls don't shout') and differential reinforcement do the rest, mediated by attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. Smith and Lloyd (1978) dressed the same babies as boys or girls and found adults handed 'boys' a hammer and 'girls' a doll, so differential treatment starts before the child acts at all. Culture and media supply the models: Mead found neighbouring Papua New Guinea tribes with very different gender norms, and Williams (1986) found children in a Canadian town called Notel became markedly more stereotyped in their views within two years of television arriving.
Atypical gender development: gender dysphoria; biological and social explanations for gender dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria is the distress caused by a mismatch between the gender a person experiences and the sex they were assigned at birth; the diagnosis rests on the distress, not on the identity itself, and it is unrelated to sexual orientation. Brain-sex theory says the mismatch is neural: Zhou et al. (1995) found the BSTc in the hypothalamus, normally twice as large in men, was female-sized in six transgender women, and Kruijver et al. (2000) repeated this with neuron counts. Coolidge et al. (2002) put heritability at about sixty-two per cent of the variance. Social explanations counter this: Stoller (1973) reported unusually close mother relationships in interviews with transgender women, and societies recognising a third gender, such as Samoan fa'afafine, report far less distress.
Your focus
- Explain the difference between sex and gender, using cross-cultural variation as evidence that gender is partly learned.
- Describe how the Bem Sex Role Inventory works, from sixty items and a seven-point scale to its four categories.
- Apply the idea of a sex-role stereotype to an advertisement and say what expectation it transmits.
Show all 24 objectives
- Evaluate the Bem Sex Role Inventory using its 1970s American sample and the social desirability self-report invites.
- Describe how the SRY gene on the Y chromosome triggers the testes and prenatal testosterone.
- Explain what testosterone, oestrogen and oxytocin each do, giving one distinct function for each.
- Apply the chromosome pattern of Klinefelter's or Turner's syndrome to predict the physical and cognitive profile expected.
- Evaluate what atypical patterns prove about biology, given unrepresentative samples and social reactions to being unusual.
- Describe Kohlberg's three stages with their ages and what the child can and cannot yet judge at each.
- Explain why constancy matters to Kohlberg, using Slaby and Frey's split-screen finding on watching same-sex models.
- Apply in-group and out-group schemas to explain why a child distorts a gender-inconsistent picture a week later.
- Evaluate Kohlberg using gender-typed preferences appearing before constancy in Bussey and Bandura's four-year-olds.
- Describe the Oedipus complex from desire for the mother through castration anxiety to identification with the father.
- Explain how identification and internalisation differ as the two steps by which a child takes on a gender role.
- Apply Freud's reading of Little Hans to show how a horse phobia was treated as evidence of the Oedipus complex.
- Evaluate the psychodynamic account using the single father-reported case of Little Hans and the theory's unfalsifiability.
- Describe modelling, vicarious reinforcement and the four mediational processes as the route by which gender behaviour is learned.
- Explain how Smith and Lloyd's baby-dressing study shows differential treatment starting before the child acts.
- Apply social learning theory to the change in Notel children's gender views in the two years after television arrived.
- Evaluate social learning theory by weighing its account of rapid cultural change against gender-typed behaviour in infants.
- Explain what gender dysphoria is as distress from a mismatch, separating it from sexual orientation and from being transgender.
- Describe brain-sex theory using the BSTc findings of Zhou and the heritability estimate from Coolidge's twin study.
- Apply a social explanation to the lower distress reported in societies recognising a third gender such as fa'afafine.
- Evaluate the BSTc evidence using Hulshoff Pol's finding that cross-sex hormone therapy itself alters brain volume.
Gender exam tips
Marking Points
- Sex defined as biological status fixed by chromosomes and anatomy; gender defined as the psychological and social role attached to that status.
- Gender shown to be at least partly learned, evidenced by variation in roles across cultures and historical periods.
- Sex-role stereotypes defined as shared expectations about how males and females should behave, with named evidence of transmission such as advertising content analysis.
- Androgyny defined after Bem (1974) as high masculine and high feminine traits in the same person, treated as two independent dimensions.
- Bem Sex Role Inventory described mechanically: sixty items, seven-point rating, scores placing a person in one of four categories.
- Evaluation credited: the 1970s American standardisation sample dates the scale, self-report invites social desirability, and Spence argues a single trait score cannot capture gender identity.
- Chromosomes identified correctly, with the SRY gene on the Y triggering testes and prenatal testosterone.
- Each named hormone given a distinct function: testosterone and aggression or male development, oestrogen and female characteristics, oxytocin and bonding.
- Klinefelter's described as XXY with physical and psychological characteristics named, and its rough prevalence.
- Turner's described as XO with its physical characteristics and the verbal-over-spatial cognitive profile.
- Evaluation: atypical patterns support a biological contribution, but the samples are unrepresentative and differences may be social reactions to being unusual rather than chromosomal.
- Evaluation: hormone evidence is largely correlational, often from animals, and biological accounts ignore social learning and culture.
- The three Kohlberg stages named in order with approximate ages and what the child can and cannot yet do at each.
- Constancy explained as the trigger for actively seeking and imitating same-sex models, which is the theory's central claim.
- Slaby and Frey (1975) used as supporting evidence, with the split-screen finding stated.
- Gender schema theory contrasted: schemas begin at identity, around two to three, not at constancy.
- In-group and out-group schemas explained, with Martin and Halverson's finding that children distorted gender-inconsistent pictures a week later.
- Evaluation: evidence of gender-typed behaviour before constancy undermines Kohlberg; stage evidence relies on interviewing young children whose answers may reflect limited vocabulary rather than limited understanding.
- The phallic stage located at roughly three to six, with gender said to be acquired only at its resolution.
- Oedipus complex traced through desire for the mother, rivalry with the father and castration anxiety.
- Electra complex traced through penis envy and the substitution of a wish for a baby.
- Identification and internalisation defined as distinct processes: adopting the same-sex parent as a model, then taking their gender role in as one's own.
- Little Hans used as evidence, with the interpretation stated rather than just the phobia.
- Evaluation: the case is one boy, reported by a father already committed to Freud's theory, so it lacks objectivity and cannot be generalised; the theory is androcentric and largely unfalsifiable.
- Modelling, imitation and identification with same-sex models set out as the core mechanism.
- Vicarious reinforcement and differential reinforcement distinguished, with an example of each.
- The mediational processes named: attention, retention, motor reproduction, motivation.
- Evidence of differential treatment cited, such as Smith and Lloyd's (1978) baby-dressing study.
- Culture and media treated as sources of models, with named evidence such as Mead's cross-cultural work or Williams's (1986) natural experiment in Notel.
- Evaluation: social learning explains rapid cultural change in gender roles better than biology, but media findings are correlational and the approach cannot account for biological cases or for gender-typed behaviour in children too young to model.
- Gender dysphoria defined as distress arising from a mismatch between experienced gender and biological sex, separated from sexual orientation and from being transgender.
- A biological explanation given in detail, usually brain-sex theory with the BSTc findings of Zhou et al. (1995), and genetic evidence such as Coolidge's twin study.
- A social explanation given in detail, such as Ovesey and Person's psychoanalytic account of separation anxiety, Stoller's interview findings, or social constructionist arguments about binary cultures.
- The two explanations compared rather than simply listed, ideally as an interactionist or diathesis-stress position.
- Evaluation: Hulshoff Pol (2006) showed cross-sex hormone therapy itself alters brain volume, so BSTc differences may be a consequence of treatment rather than a cause.
- Evaluation: brain and twin studies use tiny samples and post-mortem tissue, and social accounts rest on retrospective self-report open to bias.
Examiner Tips
- 💡For 'outline how androgyny is measured', give the machinery: item count, rating scale, the four categories. What Bem believed is not a measurement procedure.
- 💡In an extended response on androgyny, develop several distinct evaluation points, such as temporal validity, social desirability and whether androgyny predicts wellbeing, rather than repeating description.
- 💡On an application question, quote the traits described in the stem and place that person in a named BSRI category; generic theory earns no AO2.
- 💡Learn one physical AND one psychological characteristic of each syndrome; questions often demand both and a list of physical signs caps the marks.
- 💡Use the syndromes as evaluation as well as description: they are natural experiments, so cause cannot be isolated and the samples are atypical.
- 💡For an extended response on biological influences, contrast the account with social learning evidence or the case of David Reimer rather than adding more chromosome detail.
- 💡If asked to apply, match the child in the stem to a stage using what they SAY, for example a child who thinks a haircut changes gender is pre-constancy.
- 💡For an extended response on cognitive explanations, cover both Kohlberg and gender schema theory and use their contrasting predictions to support evaluation.
- 💡Do not spend AO1 space on ages; examiners credit the reasoning of the child at each stage more than the numbers.
- 💡Write the male and female routes separately; an answer that describes only the Oedipus complex cannot access full AO1 on a question about gender.
- 💡Strong AO3 here is falsifiability and the nature of case-study evidence; say WHY unconscious concepts cannot be tested rather than asserting it.
- 💡In an essay, contrast Freud with social learning theory: both predict same-sex imitation, but only one names an observable mechanism.
- 💡Application questions on this topic almost always give a scenario with a parent, sibling or advert; name the specific process at work in each line of the stem.
- 💡Use culture and media as AO3 as well as AO1: cross-cultural variation is evidence FOR learning and against pure biology.
- 💡Keep one biological counter-argument ready, such as prenatal testosterone or atypical chromosome patterns, to avoid a one-sided discussion.
- 💡Questions usually ask for biological AND social explanations, so split your time deliberately; one strong study for each beats four vaguely remembered ones.
- 💡The strongest AO3 is methodological: sample size, post-mortem tissue, and the direction of cause between hormones and brain structure.
- 💡If the stem describes an individual, quote their described experience and match it to a named explanation rather than describing theories in the abstract.
Common Mistakes
- Using sex and gender as synonyms once the definition mark has been claimed, which then contradicts the rest of the answer.
- Defining androgyny as being 'in the middle' or average on both scales; it is HIGH on both, and low on both is undifferentiated.
- Treating the BSRI as a measure of sexual orientation or of gender identity, rather than of gender-role traits.
- Naming Bem without a single mechanical detail of the inventory, so the description cannot be credited beyond one mark.
- Saying Turner's syndrome is XXY and Klinefelter's is XO; the two are frequently swapped and the whole answer then reads as wrong.
- Claiming oxytocin is a female hormone only; men produce it too, just in smaller amounts, and overstating this loses credibility.
- Asserting testosterone causes aggression from correlational or animal evidence, when human studies are mixed.
- Listing symptoms of the syndromes with no link back to what they show about chromosomes and gender.
- Confusing stability with constancy; stability is across time for the self, constancy is across time AND situations and for other people.
- Giving Kohlberg's stages as a description of Kohlberg's moral development stages, which are a different theory entirely.
- Presenting gender schema theory as identical to Kohlberg rather than as a rival that moves the onset of gender-typed learning much earlier.
- Quoting ages as fixed rules; they are approximate and a mark is not lost for 'around' but is lost for claiming a child is not gender-typed before six.
- Crediting the Electra complex to Freud; the term is Jung's, and Freud wrote far less confidently about female development.
- Saying boys identify with their mothers or girls with their fathers, which reverses the whole mechanism.
- Using 'identification' and 'internalisation' as if they were one word; examiners want both defined separately.
- Claiming the theory is simply disproved by children raised without a father, without citing evidence such as Bos and Sandfort (2010), who found children of lesbian parents no less gender-typed.
- Describing social learning theory in general terms about aggression and never applying a single process to gender.
- Confusing vicarious reinforcement with direct reinforcement; vicarious means the MODEL is rewarded and the child observes it.
- Claiming media studies prove that television causes stereotyping, when the evidence is largely correlational and children may choose stereotyped content.
- Omitting the mediational processes, which is exactly what separates social learning theory from plain behaviourism.
- Treating gender dysphoria as a sexual orientation, or using transgender and dysphoric as interchangeable terms.
- Reporting the BSTc studies without noting the participants had received hormone treatment, which is the key criticism.
- Writing the social explanation as mere opinion about upbringing with no named theory or study.
- Using outdated or judgemental terminology; questions are marked on sensitivity as well as accuracy in this topic.