“Hyde et al. (2019). The future of sex and gender in psychology: Five challenges to the gender binary.” – Article summary

The gender binary assumes that one’s category membership is biologically determined (1), apparent at birth (2), stable over time (3), a powerful predictor of psychological variables (4) and salient and meaningful to the self (5). There is an idea that brains are gendered (i.e. male and female brains). In neuroscience requires two assumptions:

  1. Sex is a dimorphic system (i.e. system that can only take two forms).
  2. Effect of sex on other systems (e.g. brain) is characterized by dimorphic outcome (e.g. male vs. female brain).

For a system to show dimorphism, each of its elements should be dimorphic. Furthermore, all the elements within an individual should be internally consistent (i.e. either all in the form typical of males or typical of females). The brain sex differences are context-dependent. However, it is unlikely that brains are internally consistent and dimorphic. Mosaicism (i.e. one typical female-part in the brain and one typical male-part in the brain) is most common in the human brain.

The idea of gender binary in behavioural neuroendocrinology involves two assumptions:

  1. The reproductive glands are dimorphic (i.e. male and female hormones).
  2. The levels of these hormones are genetically determined and fixed.

These assumptions do not hold as both men and women have testosterone and oestrogen. Furthermore, the average level of these hormones does not differ between men and women. The differences in levels of hormones vary across the lifespan. Thus, the gender binary cannot be completed based on androgens and oestrogens.

The reproductive glands are not fixed and innate as their levels vary widely within individuals. Hormones are influenced by social context. For example, testosterone decreases with supportive environments and increases with competitiveness. Furthermore, gendered expectations and lived experiences can shape hormones.

Gender binary in psychological research involves the assumption that there are only two discrete categories of people (i.e. males and females), implicitly stating that there is no overlap between the two categories.

People possess both feminine and masculine psychological characteristics. Internal consistency in personality traits (e.g. all masculine traits) is extremely rare. Stereotypes of men and women exist but individuals who consistently match these stereotypes are very rare. T

Transgender and non-binary people have largely been ignored in psychological research. Psychological research on transgender and non-binary people lead to three major challenges to the gender binary:

  1. It shows that gender-assigned categories are imperfect for predicting how a person will self-label their gender identity.
  2. It shows that the assumption that gender/sex only comprises the dichotomous categories of male and female is not correct.
  3. It shows that self-labelling of gender (i.e. being gender) is different from enacting gender roles and stereotypes (i.e. doing gender).

Gender identity is not invariably linked to sex category at birth. Gender could be seen as a bundle of separable constructs.

Being gender could be a precondition for doing gender in ways that are not tied to the birth-assigned gender category. This means that realizing you are a boy or a girl leads you to pay attention to the relevant stereotypes for the self-labelled categories. One’s self-assigned gender identity can focus a person’s attention on how gender is expected to be done within that category.

Gender emerges as a psychologically salient and meaningful dimension in childhood and is not the inevitable result of an innate mechanism. There are several practices that establish gender as a salient and binary category:

  1. Heightening the perceptual discriminability of gender
    This is heightened due to social and cultural norms (e.g. different clothing for males and females) and this makes it more likely that children categorize each other into binary gender categories.
  2. Linguistic labelling of gender
    Language affects a child’s conceptualization and makes categorization easier. Categorization in language makes inferences about category members easier. Linguistic labelling of gender leads to children using the gender binary.
  3. Explicit and implicit use of gender for sorting
    Exposing children to environments that are characterized by gender sorting contributes to children’s attention to sorting people by gender. Explicit sorting makes use of linguistic labels whereas implicit sorting makes use of context.

The developmental intergroup theory states that children’s endogenous qualities (e.g. cognitive capacities) interact in dynamic ways with their environmental context to induce children to attend to, categorize others and develop stereotypes and prejudice concerning gender.

There are several costs of using the gender binary:

  1. Reliance on the gender binary is an obstacle to scientific progress (e.g. only studying nurturing behaviour in women).
  2. Gender binary denies and denigrates the existence of individuals who fall outside the binary.
  3. Gender binary leads to unequal treatment (1), shape self-conceptions (2), undermine individuals’ performance in stereotyped domains (3) and shape legal and social policies (4).

Gender stereotypes may lead to biases in mental health diagnoses and treatment in clinical practice. It may also shape the diagnosis and treatment for issues specifically related to gender. Gender stereotypes may obscure the understanding of etiological factors as well as their choices of diagnosis and treatment.

Sex cannot be studied without consideration of gender. It is multidimensional and each component is dynamic and responsive. Gender should only be used in research to make sure that the sample is representative. It may be useful to measure gender in a continuous way. However, asking people about gender in research implies that this is important.

The term gender/sex allows researchers to develop integrated research questions and paradigms that simultaneously explore biological and sociocultural influences that relate to gender and sex.

Image

Access: 
Public

Image

Join WorldSupporter!
Check more of topic:
This content is used in:

Clinical Perspective on Today’s Issues – Interim exam 1 (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM)

Clinical Perspective on Today’s Issues – Full course summary (UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM)

Search a summary

Image

 

 

Contributions: posts

Help other WorldSupporters with additions, improvements and tips

Add new contribution

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Image CAPTCHA
Enter the characters shown in the image.

Image

Spotlight: topics

Check the related and most recent topics and summaries:
Institutions, jobs and organizations:
Activities abroad, study fields and working areas:
This content is also used in .....

Image

Check how to use summaries on WorldSupporter.org

Online access to all summaries, study notes en practice exams

How and why use WorldSupporter.org for your summaries and study assistance?

  • For free use of many of the summaries and study aids provided or collected by your fellow students.
  • For free use of many of the lecture and study group notes, exam questions and practice questions.
  • For use of all exclusive summaries and study assistance for those who are member with JoHo WorldSupporter with online access
  • For compiling your own materials and contributions with relevant study help
  • For sharing and finding relevant and interesting summaries, documents, notes, blogs, tips, videos, discussions, activities, recipes, side jobs and more.

Using and finding summaries, notes and practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter

There are several ways to navigate the large amount of summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter.

  1. Use the summaries home pages for your study or field of study
  2. Use the check and search pages for summaries and study aids by field of study, subject or faculty
  3. Use and follow your (study) organization
    • by using your own student organization as a starting point, and continuing to follow it, easily discover which study materials are relevant to you
    • this option is only available through partner organizations
  4. Check or follow authors or other WorldSupporters
  5. Use the menu above each page to go to the main theme pages for summaries
    • Theme pages can be found for international studies as well as Dutch studies

Do you want to share your summaries with JoHo WorldSupporter and its visitors?

Quicklinks to fields of study for summaries and study assistance

Main summaries home pages:

Main study fields:

Main study fields NL:

Follow the author: JesperN
Work for WorldSupporter

Image

JoHo can really use your help!  Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world

Working for JoHo as a student in Leyden

Parttime werken voor JoHo

Statistics
3992