Question

A gender difference that appear early in development and across culture is, that compared to girls, boys are more what?

Answer 1

According to behavioral approach, gender related behaviors are acquired through classical learning gender norms based on reinforcement and punishment mechanisms as well as imitation or social learning. Osme examples of gender related behaviors’ which get established through rewards and punishment are as follows:

Gender related behaviors or gender stereotypes are generalizations about gender appropriate behaviors, differences, & roles of individuals and/or groups. While Stereotypes can be positive or negative, they rarely communicate accurate information about the other gender & always involve expectations from people to fit in a predicting frame of beliefs and action patterns merely on the basis of their gender rather than their actual ability, skills, etc.

It is often seen that girls are scorned by their parents form climbing trees, or lifting heavy objects, while their brother’s may be encouraged and even rewarded for doing ‘heavy’ Or more physically demanding work. Such actions on part of the parents leads to a learning of gender stereotype about females being physically less stronger And in equipped to handle manual labor compared to the young male members. This may lead to learning that lifting heavy objects is a “man’s job”

A harsher instance of learning gender related behaviors’ based on punishment may be seen when young boys are ridiculed for crying and are discouraged from expressing their feelings and told that crying is expected from girls instead. Such negative criticism leads them to associate crying with weakness and they learn on a reinforcement contingency of punishment that crying is not a gender appropriate behavior for them

second example presents a corollary of the former example. Learning of Gender stereotypes is also reinforced in instances where a boy who tries to help his mother in the kitchen, is asked by her to leave and go play outside instead. This may positively reinforce the behavior that domestic works are made for women, not men & men can expect positive rewards in the form of leisure time more than women in the household environment.

Fourthly, gender specific behaviors’ may be seen exceptionally clearly in the gender specific social activities that are organized for young boys and girls. The Boy Scout and the girls scout groups in the United States represent a tradition of socialization of young boys into adult Male world where they are trained in acquiring practical skills in a group environment. However, there is a distinct gender division in this world as boys are reinforced to enhance their performance in competitive sports, outdoor activities such as camping, fishing, rock climbing, etc, while girls learn more of domestic skills related to cooking, baking, etc and these ultimately lead to a learning that ‘practical knowledge for females entails ‘running the kitchen’ while practical knowledge for being a male member of society means being ‘strong’ & ‘outdoorsy’.