Assignment: Advance Social Psychology

Influence of culture, gender and race on individuals – Notes

K. Rachana – 121318038023
 Group Processes: Humans are social animals who cooperate with each other to survive
and flourish. Human–human interactions occur at many levels, including friendships, romantic
relationships, neighbourhoods, communities, and organizational structures. Group
process refers to one aspect of human cooperation—the behaviour of human beings as they
work together to make decisions, solve problems, and perform tasks in working groups of
between three and twelve members.

Behaviour = f (Person, Environment)

This equation indicates that the behaviour of an individual is a function of both the
individual (person) characteristics as well as the influence of the other people in their social
environment. The relationship is dynamic because changes in the group affect the individual,
and changes in the individual affect the group.

Gender, Race and Cultural Influences – There are many obvious dimensions of human
diversity, but for people’s self-concepts and social relationships, the two dimensions that matter
most, and that people first attune to, are race and, especially, gender, and culture.

Race or Ethnicity refers to the particular and distinctive genetic pool that an individual
is born into, i.e. Caucasian, Indian, African-American, Hispanic etc. Gender refers to the
characteristics that people associate with male and female, and plays a significant role in
determining the social interactions of individuals in relation to expected prototypical
behaviour, prejudice and discrimination, and stereotyping phenomena.

Assertiveness, Aggression and Social Dominance: Women are often viewed negatively
for exhibiting traditionally masculine behaviour. Assertive female leaders are disliked, while
assertive male leaders gain respect. Research shows that this distaste for assertive female
leaders also varies by race – unlike white women, black women are often stereotyped as being
assertive, confident and not feminine. These masculine traits are not only expected for black
women but also allowed, at least in leadership roles.

In almost all countries, people rate men as more dominant, driven, and aggressive.
Moreover, studies of nearly 80,000 people across 70 countries show that men more than women
rate power and achievement as important. These perceptions and expectations correlate with
reality. In essentially every society, men are socially dominant.

Conformity – In terms of conformity, the overall conclusion from these studies is that
that there are only small differences between men and women in the amount of conformity they
exhibit, and these differences are influenced as much by the social situation in which the
conformity occurs as by gender differences themselves.
 Education and Vocation – Gender gaps in pursuing natural science, technology,
engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields sometimes varies by race. Women of colour in
STEM may sometimes face “double jeopardy” because of both racial bias and gender bias
in some contexts such as gaining influence over others in academic departments. In general,
men gravitate disproportionately to jobs that enhance inequalities (prosecuting attorney,
corporate advertising), while women gravitate to jobs that reduce inequalities (public defender,
advertising work for a charity).

Early Socialization – Studies indicate that girls who were exposed to excess
testosterone during fetal development tend to exhibit more tomboyish play behaviour than
other girls. Other case studies have followed males who, having been born without penises, are
reared as girls. Despite their being put in dresses and treated as girls, most exhibit male-typical
play and eventually come to have a male identity.

Sexuality – Not only do men fantasize more about sex, have more permissive attitudes,
and seek more partners, they also are more quickly aroused, desire sex more often, masturbate
more frequently, are less successful at celibacy, refuse sex less often, take more risks, expend
more resources to gain sex, and prefer more sexual variety. Cultures everywhere attribute
greater value to female than male sexuality, as indicated in gender asymmetries in prostitution
and courtship, where men generally offer money, gifts, praise, or commitment in implicit
exchange for a woman’s sexual engagement. In human sexual economics, researchers note that
women rarely if ever pay for sex.

Mating Preferences – Studies in 37 cultures, from Australia to Zambia, reveal that men
everywhere feel attracted to women whose physical features, such as youthful faces and forms,
suggest fertility. Women everywhere feel attracted to men whose wealth, power, and ambition
promise resources for protecting and nurturing offspring. Men’s greater interest in physical
form also makes them the consumers of most of the world’s visual pornography. Both women
and men desire kindness, love, and mutual attraction

Biology – The gender gap in aggression also seems influenced by testosterone. In

various animals, administering testosterone heightens aggressiveness. In humans, violent male
criminals, football players, and younger men in general have higher than normal testosterone
levels. Moreover, for both humans and monkeys, the gender difference in aggression appears
early in life (before culture has much effect) and wanes as testosterone levels decline during
adulthood. Taken together, there is enough data to confirm that sex hormones matter.

Environment – However, women and men also differ not just due to genetic material,
but also because their culture socializes their behaviour. When people’s roles vary across time
and place, “culture” describes those roles, according to empirical research done by evolutionary
psychologists based on data from animal behaviour, cross-cultural observations, and hormonal
and genetic studies. However, critics of this theory argue that the most significant trait that
nature has endowed us with is the capacity to adapt—to learn and to change. Therein lies
culture’s shaping power. Therefore, while it does dictate behaviour, it does not determine
absolutely the fate of an individual’s social choices.

Alice Eagly and Wendy Wood (2007) theorized how biology and culture interact –
resulting in the social-role theory of gender differences in social behaviour. It states that various
influences, including childhood experiences and factors, bend males and females toward
differing roles. It is the expectations and the skills and beliefs associated with these differing
roles that affect men’s and women’s behaviour.

Men, because of their biologically endowed strength and speed, tend to be found in
roles demanding physical power. Women’s capacity for childbearing and breastfeeding
inclines them to more nurturing roles. Each sex then tends to exhibit the behaviours expected
of those who fill such roles and to have their skills and beliefs shaped accordingly. As role
assignments become more equal, Eagly predicts that gender differences will gradually lessen.

Fig: Social-role theory of gender differences in social behaviour.

Culture and Biology – Culture is defined as “what’s shared by a large group and transmitted
across generations – ideas, attitudes, behaviours, and traditions.”

For example, research states that girls spend more time helping with housework and
child care, and boys spend more time in unsupervised play. Even in contemporary, dual-career,
North American marriages, men do most of the household repairs and women arrange the child
care. Such behaviour expectations for males and females define gender roles. The variety of
gender roles across cultures and over time shows that culture helps construct our gender roles
and dictates the thresholds for the violation of these expectations.

Cultural norms affect our attitudes and behaviour, but they don’t do so independent of
biology. What the biological heritage initiates, culture may accentuate. If genes and hormones
predispose males to be more physically aggressive than females, culture may amplify that
difference through norms that expect males to be tough and females to be the kinder, gentler
sex.

Biology and culture may also interact. Advances in genetic science indicate how
experience uses genes to change the brain – research shows that environmental stimuli can
activate genes that produce new brain cell branching receptors, and parental touch activates
genes that help offspring cope with future stressful events. Genes are therefore not set in stone,
but respond adaptively to our experiences.

Gender Roles, Culture and Time – Gender roles are flexible and change with time. In
1965 the Harvard Business School had never granted a degree to a woman. At the turn of the
twenty-first century, 30 percent of its graduates were women. The changing male-female roles
cross many cultures, as illustrated by women’s gradually increasing representation in the
parliaments of nations from Morocco to Sweden is an illustration of this phenomenon. Such
changes, across cultures and over a remarkably short time, signal that evolution and biology do
not fix gender roles; time also plays a major part in bending gender.

References:

Eagly, A. H. (1983). Gender and social influence: A social psychological analysis. American
Psychologist, 38, 971–981.

Miller, D. (2016). Intersectionality: how gender interacts with other social identities to
shape bias. Retrieved from: http://theconversation.com/intersectionality-how-gender-interacts-
with-other-social-identities-to-shape-bias-53724

Myers, D. G., & Twenge, J. M. (2018). Exploring social psychology.

Myers, D.G. (2012). Gender, Genes, and Culture Exploring Social Psychology. Picture
retrieved from: https://slideplayer.com/slide/8150521/

Principles of Social Psychology: Person, Gender, and Cultural Differences in Conformity.

Retrieved from: https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/chapter/person-gender-and-cultural-
differences-in-conformity/

Stangor, C. (2017). Organizational and Institutional Psychology, Social Psychology.