4 ways that children acquire gender roles
identification and modelling, vicarious reinforcement, role models, reinforcement
where do the SLT suggest that gender is learnt from?
others
do they think that there are any psychological differences between male and females when they are born?
no
what are the 2 conditions for acquiring behaviour?
Attention and retention
what is attention?
when a child watches a persons behaviour
what is retention?
recalling that behaviour
what type of person do we identify with?
same sex role models
what does a child have to do to learn a gender role?
imitation
what is it that a child needs in order to display a behaviour?
motivation
and how does a child get this motivation?
through reinforcement
when does reinforcement occur?
through positive outcomes
if a behaviour is punished what happens?
the behaviour is less likely to be repeated
what is it when a behaviour doesn't need to be reinforced anymore?
a behaviour has become part of our personality, it has been internalised so continuous reinforcement is no longer needed
So the SLT believe...
..that gender is a construct that can change at any time
what is vicarious reinforcement?
when someone else gets rewarded for a behaviour
who investigated the SLT explanation of GD
Smith and Lloyd
what did Smith and Lloyd do?
gave 32 mothers babies presented equally as their own sex and as of the opposite sex, using stereotyped clothing
what types of toys were in the room
sex-typed and sex neutral toys
what did Smith and Lloyd find?
babies perceived as boys were encouraged to play actively, babies perceived as girls were given dolls and babies perceived as boys were offered hammers
as the play was not dictated by the babies what were the mothers involved in?
the process of differential treatment of boys and girls
why were the mothers involved in the process of differential treatment?
because the babies were happy to play in masculine or feminine ways depending on which sex they were perceived to be
what is an issue with smith and lloyd's study?
first toy offered and length of toy used is not an accurate measurement of complex behaviour
What type of validity does this study lack?
construct
what is the problem with the SLT approach?
it doesn't explain gender inappropriate behaviour, it also doesn't explain where behaviour comes from
what is a strength of the SLT approach to GD?
it has high control and high reliability