PSYCH 109: Social Psychology

Chapter 5: Genes, Culture, & Gender

Outline

 Introduction
o Social influence helps explains how our social world works
 3 Influences
 Genetic and evolutionary influences
 Cultural Influences
 Gender Influences
 How are we influenced by Biology
o evolutionary perspective on human behavior: gender differences
 common biology & common behavioral tendencies
 sleeping and waking up
 hunger and thirst
 language development through identical mechanisms
 Humans are intensely social
 joining groups, conform, recognize social status
 return favors, punish offenses, grieve loved one’s death
o children (8 months)- fear of strangers
o adults – favor group member
 Anthropologist Donald Brown (1991, 2000)- there are several hundred
such universal behavior & language patterns
 Morality is common across cultures & eras
o Genes, Evolution &Behavior
 Universal behaviors arise from biological similarities
o Fun fact: we were all Africans
 Due to climate change & resource availability, early hominoids migrated
across continents
 Adapted to new environments, early humans developed differences
o i.e., skin colors
 Evolutionary process (Charles Darwin)
o Natural selection
 Enabled evolution
 Organisms have many varied offspring
 Offspring compete for survival in their
environment
 Certain biological & behavioral variations
increase chances of survival & reproduction in
that environment
  Offspring that survive and reproduce are more
likely to pass their genes to ensure generations
o Population characteristics may change
 Certain genes (predisposed traits) that increased the
odds of survival become more abundant
 Ex: in the arctic, white fur and thick coat won
the genetic competition in polar bears
 Evolutionary psychology
o natural selection also predisposed psychological traits & social
behavior that enhance the preservation & spread one’s genes
 we are the way we are because nature selected those
who had advantageous traits
 we long whatever helped our ancestors survive,
reproduce and nurture
o Biology and Genders
 Gender Differences- most researched & continuous area of nature & nurture
 Terms for studying sex and Gender
o Sex – male and females as two biological categories based on
chromosomes, genitals, and secondary sex characteristics:
 More muscle mass for male
 Female breasts
o Gender – characteristics people associate with males & females
that can be rooted in biology, culture, or both
 Ex: wearing dress, liking sports, having long hair
o Intersex- born with a combination of female & male organs
o Gender fluid/ nonbinary- as neither male or female
o Transgender- those whose sense of being male or female differs
from their birth sex
 Ex: Bruce Jenner
 Gender & Mating Preferences
o Why Men have stronger sex drive than women?
 For them, sex is a cheap investment and a big
commitment for women
 Men and women face different adaptive challenges
when it came to sex and reproduction (Buss 1995, 2009)
 Females invest their reproductive opportunities
carefully
 Looking for signs of resources & commitment
o Men will strive to offer what women
desire: external resources and physical
protection
 Males- competes with other males to win genetic
sweepstake
 Women seek to produce wisely, men widely
 o Little of this process is conscious
 Emotions execute evolution’s disposition
 Ex: the feeling of hunger is our body’s signal for
needing nutrients
o Universal sex difference in mate preferences (Conroy-Bearn et
al., 2015)
 Physical features:
 Men: women with youthful faces and forms
suggest fertility
 Women: men whose wealth, power, & ambition
promise resources for protecting and nurturing
offspring
 Gender similarities: desires kindness, love, and
mutual attraction
 Age:
 Men prefer women with age and features
suggest peak fertility (Kenrick et al., 2009)
 Women of all ages prefer men slightly older
 Gay men prefer younger partners and lesbian
women prefer older (Conway et al., 2015)
 Monthly Fertility
 Women behaviors, scents, and voices provide
subtle clues of ovulation which men can detect
(Haselton & Gildersteene, 2011)
o Gender and Hormones
 Way that biology influences sex differences
 Chemicals in our bodies that influence behavior and mood
 Ex: testosterone- hormone that have higher levels on men
o Linked to dominance and aggression
 Important because genes by themselves cannot be the only source of sex
differences
 Males & Females difference differs only on a single chromosome, Y
(Male) chromosomes is distinguished by primarily by one gene.
o Directs the formation of testicles which secretes testosterone
 Girls exposed to excess testosterone during fetal
development tend to exhibit tomboyish play behavior
form other girls (Hines, 2004)
 Hormone changes one possible explanation for shrinking gender differences
 Role demands- modern parents, or adult parents tend to disregard socially
predetermined roles of parenthood and execute both roles of assertiveness and
nurturance
 Androgenous- capable of both assertiveness & nurturance
 andro (man) + gyn (woman) thus mixing both masculine and feminine
characteristics
 Problems of evolutionary explanation according to critics
o Starts with a finding then work backward to construct explanation for it.
 Critics also worry that evolutionary explanations justify male aggressions as
natural behaviors
 Reinforce troublesome stereotypes
o Evolutionary psychologists answers: evolutionary wisdom is the wisdom of the past, tells
us the behaviors that worked in our early history as species. Whether such tendencies
are still adaptive today or much less socially acceptable is an entirely different question.
o The most significant trait that nature endowed us with, it seems, is the capacity to
adapt- to learn and to change.
o Evolution is not genetic determinism, because evolution has prepared us to adapt to
varied environments (Confer et al., 2010).