Jason Navi

Mrs. Talamo
AP Psychology - 12

Social Development and Gender Differences

1. Males are XY and females are XX in chromosomes. Women have ovaries and

men have testes. Male hormones are called androgens such as testosterone and
females have more hormones called estrogen and progesterone. Gender is the
way we classify ourselves socially. When growing up, gender role which is the
behaviors, attitudes and expectations that correspond to our behavior plays a
massive role in how we develop and what we do. Gender role stereotypes are
the beliefs of what feminine and masculine people should be like. Another
interesting point is sex-typing in which males and females are treated differently.
In the Social Learning Theory, it states the genders learn and develop from
imitating, identifying and interacting with other in the environment. Observational
learning allows the children to know what they should and should not be doing.
The child acting like his/her own gender will gain praise and continue to do it.
Kohlbergs theory suggests that we develop as a result of our own figuring out by
ourselves what we should do such as figuring out gender identity, stability and
constancy. Freuds psychoanalytical theory suggests that boys and girls develop
their own genders differently as a result of figuring out their own biological
natures from their parents. In the Oedipal complex for boys the young boys
starts to feel passionate towards his/her own mother which eventually leads to
conflicts with the boy because he is jealous of his dad. The boy then realizes that
the father is the head honcho and is afraid of him and acts like his dad so he
doesnt get hurt and thus, he identifies with the aggressor his dad and becomes
masculine. In the Electra complex in girls, a girl has an attachment to her mother
and blames her for not having a penis, and she wants one which her father has
and she must cope with the fact that for her desire and her loss of love by

defense mechanisms and gains mother affection by becoming like her. in verbal
skills, girls are generally faster and better than boys. In mathematical skills, at
first girls are better before adolescence and after boys get better at mathematical
reasoning and spatial visualization. Boys tend to be more aggressive and girls
love intimate supporting groups whereas guys are more competitive. Girls have a
higher rate of depression at adolescence and boys have more physical,
emotional and cognitive vulnerability to stress. According to gunter, kids who
watch a lot of tv have a stronger sex-stereotype and stereotyped choice of toy
than those who dont watch as much. Stereotypically, boys are usually more
angry and aggressive and nature and that is expected of them.
2. Rudolph Schaffer and Peggy Emerson studied anxiety in babies. Up to 3 months,

a baby could be attached to any person and responds the same to anyone. After
4 months, they begin to develop a preference for certain people and still accept
care from anyone. After 7 months they have a preference for a single caregiver. It
begins to fear strangers and has separation anxiety. After 9 months, the babies
had multiple attachments. Dollard and Miller suggests that the attachment is a
set of learned behaviors and an infant will attach to anyone that feeds it. They
associate the feeder with the comfort of being feed which is called classical
conditioning. Through operant conditioning they learn that certain behaviors such
as crying produces desirable consequences. Harlow studied monkeys to show
the theory of attachment that monkeys will attach to the thing that is closest to
their mother which is the puppet with the cloth on and not the water. In isolation,
some monkeys died and others were so frightened that when later exposed to
other monkeys they acted abnormally. The monkeys only spent time to get the
milk from the wired monkeys and then quickly ran back to the clothed monkeys.
The monkeys would also explore more only when the clothed mother was there.
Harlow concluded by saying that the normal development for monkeys is in a

critical first couple of months to which they can cling to their mothers. Lorenz also
studied imprinting in which he took a couple of geese eggs and placed them
under a geese and under him. When the geese hatched next to Lorenz he
quacked like them and they follow him everywhere because the first moving
object Geese see they automatically assume is their mother so they follow it
everywhere even if it is a human. Imprinting usually occurs around 12-17 hours
after birth. Mary Ainsworth created an assessment technique called the Strange
Situation Classification in order to investigate attachments in children. The
experiment set up a small room with a one way glass so they can observe the
infant. Then, a series of strange situations would happen such as the mother
leaves and a stranger comes or the stranger leaves and the mother comes and
the scoring would be out of 4 based on how much interaction was directed
toward the mother in the reunion episodes. Ainsworth identified multiple
attachment styles such as secure type A, insecure avoidant type A and insecure
ambivalent/resistant type C. Securely attached children were the majority
because they feel that the attachment figure will meet their needs and the use
this figure to explore the environment. In insecure avoidant, children do not
orientate to the figure while exploring the environment and are very independent
of them physically and emotionally because the caregiver may not attend to their
needs. Insecure ambivalent is when the child will be clingy to the caregiver and
be distant because when they are stressed they need the figure however when
exploring and happy they dont feel an attachment. Bowlbys evolutionary theory
of attachment says that children come into the world evolutionarily programmed
to form attachments because this will help them survive. Attachments are
instinctive and help children when stressed out. Babies who stay with their own
mothers for protection and nurture often live the longest and reproduce. A child is
innately programmed to attach to one main figure which is usually the mother.

This relationship, Bowlby argues is much different than any other argument. The
child will bond to the figure in all costs including crying and screaming to get their
attention. A child should receive this special type of figure care from one person
which is usually the mother figure. If the child does not get the proper care they
will suffer long term consequences and develop trust issues, reduced
intelligence, depression and increase in aggression etc. The 4th thing Bowlby
believed was that a short term separation from a figure leads to distress. The first
stage is protest which is the child screaming and protesting loudly to the parent,
the 2nd stage is despair in which the child protests stop and they appear to be
calm but still upset. The 3rd stage is detachment which is if the separation
continues the child will engage with other people again and will reject the
caregiver. The 5th part of the theory is the internal working model in which the
childs attachment relationship with the primary caregiver leads to development.
This internal model is a framework consisting of the mental representations for
understanding the world and others. A persons interaction with others is
influenced by memories and expectations from this model which help to shape
the persons actions with other people. Bowlby interviewed 44 kids who were in a
program for stealing. He then got another group of 44 that acted as the control.
He found that in the juvenile group the kids had been separated from their
mother for more than six months during the first 5 years which shows that
separation causes psychopathic tendencies.
The theory that I find the most compelling is the Bowlbys theory of
attachment because it explains why kids act why they do and shows the value of nature
vs. nurture. Kids love their parents because they are born innately to do so to increase
their chances of survival. When the kids dont have a mother to be attached to their
chances of living go down which explains their unusual behavior and eventually
psychopathic tendencies as described by the experiment conducted. In addition, the

internal working model is a very good way of explaining everything in the eyes of a
child. They not only base their relationships based on the ones with their mother and
other friends but also with how society expects the relationship to work.

3. The parenting style that my parents used was that that the theory of attachment
requires you to do so. When the child cries, you come over and help them especially
when they are screaming. However, I feel like my parents did that too soon by spoiling
me and getting me whatever I asked them to do and if they didnt I would scream way
too much. They were too easy on me and not harsh enough and should have punished
me when I did something wrong. To this very day I dont think I have had an actual real
punishment like go into your room your grounded or something taken away from me
that I couldnt find. Even when they took away my things I would guilt my Mom into
giving it back by crying. Thus, I believe they were too nice and not enough disciplinary
towards me. My parents fall into the permissive parenting style because they didnt
punish me often and were too soft; giving into all my demands when I cried and
screamed. I would adopt the authoritarian parenting style because I believe from my
friends and my life that we are very bad people to our parents. We constantly disrespect
them and gossip to others about how bad they are even when they are very nice. In
order to change that, I would punish my kids for the slightest of things so they never
disrespect me because after all, Im the one that brought them into this world.