OCR psychology sex and gender

Question	Answer
SEX AND GENDER	Image: 6a7ba1f2-8aa8-4ecd-838f-00609f89866d (image/jpg)
KEY CONCEPTS	Sex: A biological term, tells us if a person is male or female. By the gential they have e.g. penis, vagina or breast Gender: A psychological term, tells us if a person is masculine, feminine or androgynous
CORE THEORY: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH	Says an individual's gender is decided at the same time the sex is decided (contraception). When a foetus is formed it has two sex chromosomes, its genetic make up. this decides if it will be male or female.
CORE THEORY: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH	The biological approach argues that this will also decide what gender the child will be. The sex chromosomes pair for: Females are XX Males are XY
CORE THEORY: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH DEVELOPMENT OF THE FOETUS	6 weeks in the foetus will look the same for males and females. their sexual organs are the same. After 6 weeks, the sex organs begin the take effect, on the foetus.
CORE THEORY: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH DEVELOPMENT OF THE FOETUS	the Y chromosome turns on and the hormone in the males foetus, turns the gonads into testes. Whereas the females foetus does not do this, so it automatically turns into ovaries.
CORE THEORY: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH THE EFFECTS OF HORMONES	Testes produce a lot of testosterone, it affects the brain and behaviour of the child once born. It should make them more aggressive and make them have superior mathematical skills.
CORE THEORY: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH THE EFFECTS OF HORMONES	Ovaries produce a lot of oestrogen, it also affects the brain and behaviour of the child. It should make the child more sensitive and have verbal abilities.
CORE THEORY: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH INSTINCTS, EVOLUTION AND THE BIOLOGICAL APPROACH	The biological approach believes that behaviour is instinctive, and that it has helped us survive and reproduce. it is also thought that the females have a certain amount of eggs so they can only be with one partner, but males can keep making sperm.
CORE THEORY: BIOLOGICAL APPROACH EVALUATION	The biological approach ignores the idea that gender can be learnt If men are biologically similar and all women are biologically similar, why so the two sexes show such a range of behaviours.
ALTERNATIVE THEORY: THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH	Freud said that child develop is stages. During the ages of 3-6 a child has a strong attachment with their opposite sex parent. This is called Oedipus complex for boys and Electra complex for girls.
ALTERNATIVE THEORY: THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH	The Oedipus complex, is when the boys are scared that their father will find out that he loves his mother and will cut off their penis, this leads to castration anxiety. This is stopped when the son develops with the father and has a masculine gender
ALTERNATIVE THEORY: THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH	The Electra complex is when girls desire their fathers penis ( known as penis envy). They blame their mother and they believe they have been castrated already. This stops when they know they won't get a penis so they want a baby
ALTERNATIVE THEORY: THE PSYCHODYNAMIC APPROACH	The two complexes happen in the unconscious of the brain. The theory argues that if a child doesn't have their parent around or has a weak model, their gender wouldn't be as developed as others.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997	This supports the biological theory. Aim: To show that a child cannot be socialised to take on the role of the opposite sex
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 PROCEDURE	The boy who was raised a girl. his name was Bruce. They conducted interviews to help describe the life story of this boy/girl. He was one of a pair of twins, born in Canada 1965. He had a circumcision operation which went wrong and half of his penis was burnt off.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 PROCEDURE	Reconstruction of a new penis was not an option. His parents took advice from experts. One called Money recommended that Bruce was raised as a girl. He believed that babies were not born with genders. thier upbringing made their gender.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 PROCEDURE	At 17 months of age Bruce's testes were removed, he was renamed Brenda by his parents, they treated him like a girl. As she got older she believed that she was born a girl.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 RESULTS	Money was heavily involved in the case, he frequently interviewed and observed her. He said that she adapted to her new gender well, because she liked playing with female toys.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 RESULTS	But when she reached puberty, there were some problems, she was given hormones tablets to develop a female body shape, she had a masculine shape before. She later said she thought she was a man inside a female body and rejected boys.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 RESULTS	She prefered masculine sports. At 13 her parents told her the truth, she was rather relieved about this information, she had a reason for the strange feelings.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 RESULTS	She decided to live the rest of her life as a man, called David, he eventually had a penis reconstruction and married and had children by adopting.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 Conclusion	The effects of Davids chromosome had outweighed the attempts to socialise him as a girl. In other words, gender is more product of nature than nurture.
CORE THEORY: DIAMOND AND SIGMUNDSON 1997 LIMITATIONS	Case studies rely on a small sample, so you can't really generalise. Case studies rely on naturing occurring events, so its not possible to control key variables.
APPLICATIONS	Males and females are very different so they need different opportunities to potentially achieve great things. The use of positive discrimination, when you have a certain amount of jobs available for different people, so 20 jobs for females or 20 jobs for males.

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