Deck 16: Gender-Role Development and Sex Differences

Question 1

When scientists refer to sex or gender differences they are

A) describing a biological process through which physical differences emerge.
B) indicating that biology is primarily responsible for behavioural differences between boys and girls.
C) indicating only that boys and girls differ on a particular characteristic without providing an explanation of the origin of the difference.
D) examining the process by which children develop behaviours and attitudes appropriate to their sex.

Answer 1

indicating only that boys and girls differ on a particular characteristic without providing an explanation of the origin of the difference.

Question 2

The term "gender role" refers to which of the following?

A) The biological process through which physical differences between sexes emerge
B) The effects of gender that are due to our biology
C) The effects of gender that are due to the environment
D) A set of behaviours considered appropriate for males or females within a culture

Answer 2

A set of behaviours considered appropriate for males or females within a culture

Question 3

The process by which children develop the behaviours and attitudes considered appropriate for their gender is known as

A) sex differentiation.
B) sex typing.
C) sex cleavage.
D) sex segregation.

Answer 3

sex typing.

Question 4

Maya has started playing with dolls and likes to pretend to put make-up on. This is known as

A) Sex role
B) Sex differentiation
C) Sex typing
D) All of the alternatives are correct

Question 5

According to the evolutionary approach, males __________ than females.

A) have more at stake when they copulate.
B) make a greater parental investment in their offspring.
C) have evolved to be choosier about who they mate with.
D) have evolved to focus more of their efforts on mating.

Question 6

The psychobiological approach to gender-role development and sex differences has focused primarily on the role of

A) socialization.
B) hormones.
C) cognitive development.
D) experience.

Question 7

A psychologist studying sex differences states the following, "Sex differences observed among children and adults follow from the roles commonly held by females versus males." Which approach do you think this psychologist follows?

A) Cognitive-developmental
B) Evolutionary and biological
C) Sociocultural
D) Environmental/learning

Question 8

In contrast to the evolutionary and biological approach, researchers working in the __________ tradition reject the idea that sex differences reflect evolved psychological dispositions.

A) cognitive-developmental
B) evolutionary
C) sociocultural
D) environmental/learning

Question 9

Gender identity refers to

A) the ability to categorize oneself as male or female.
B) an individual's biological status as a male or female.
C) whether an individual physically appears to be male or female, regardless of his or her genotype.
D) how closely an individual adheres to societal expectations appropriate to his or her gender.

Question 10

Your young nephew runs up to you and says, "Guess what? I'm a boy!" According to Kohlberg your young nephew is demonstrating the concept of (a)

A) gender consistency.
B) gender stability.
C) gender identity.
D) gender schema.

Question 11

The understanding that all boys grow up to be men and all girls grow up to be women is known as

A) gender identity.
B) gender stability.
C) gender consistency.
D) conservation.

Question 12

Your niece runs up to you and says, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a Daddy!" This suggests to you that she hasn't yet grasped the concept of (a)

A) gender identity
B) gender stability
C) gender role
D) sex typing

Question 13

According to cognitive-developmental models, knowledge of gender emerges in what order?

A) Gender identity, gender stability, gender consistency
B) Gender consistency, gender stability, gender identity
C) Fender stability, gender consistency, gender identity
D) Gender identity, gender consistency, gender stability

Question 14

The cognitive approach to gender-role development focuses on

A) how children's gender identity influences their cognitive development.
B) the processes by which sex differences in brain development produce sex differences in behaviour.
C) children's ability to understand the concepts of male and female and identify with one of them.
D) how children acquire gender-role knowledge through the principles of conditioning.

Question 15

The understanding that superficial changes in hair style, toy preferences, and occupation do not change one's gender is known as

A) gender consistency.
B) gender constancy.
C) gender identity.
D) gender stability.

Question 16

Gender schema refers to

A) the understanding that one's gender is a permanent part of personality.
B) concepts such as object permanence and conservation that must be acquired before children can understand gender.
C) the stages children progress through on the way to establishing gender constancy.
D) a cognitive representation of the characteristics associated with being either male or female.

Question 17

Information processing theorists believe gender schemas derive from

A) the child's inborn tendency to classify the world and the culture's emphasis on providing gender-distinguishing cues.
B) inborn predispositions for behaving in a way appropriate for one's gender and social reinforcement for engaging in gender-role-appropriate behaviour.
C) innate categories of "maleness" and "femaleness" present at birth.
D) genetic influences on brain organization and hormone production.

Question 18

Eddie takes his 5-year-old daughter, Mara, to her first college basketball game. According to the information processing perspective, Mara will most likely

A) conclude she is a boy because she knows only boys go to basketball games.
B) pay the greatest amount of attention to the female cheerleaders.
C) infer that athletes are as likely to be female as male.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 19

The fact that children often show gender-typed toy preferences before they even display gender identity is consistent with the view that

A) children develop gender constancy earlier than Kohlberg had believed.
B) children may know more about gender roles than they are given credit for.
C) children develop gender constancy later than Kohlberg had believed.
D) concepts such as gender identity, gender stability, and gender constancy are irrelevant to the study of gender-role development.

Question 20

According to the social-learning perspective, differences in sex-typed behaviour are

A) unaffected by cognitive development.
B) not due to biological differences between males and females.
C) acquired through experience and shaped by the environment.
D) linked to psychosexual development.

Question 21

According to the social-learning perspective, children learn about sex-typed behaviours by

A) being reinforced for acting in sex-typical ways.
B) having the right genetic mechanisms for such learning to take place.
C) observing and imitating television characters.
D) both a and c

Question 22

A meta-analysis involves

A) re-analyzing the results of one ground-breaking study
B) re-analyzing the results of two studies in which the findings contradict each other
C) analyzing the results of a group of studies that have all examined the same topic
D) None of the alternatives are correct.

Question 23

Which of the following is FALSE concerning meta-analysis? Researchers conducting a meta-analysis

A) analyze a group of studies that all examine the same thing.
B) help one make sense of individual, smaller studies that yield discrepant results.
C) analyze a large body of data that is usually collected by different researchers.
D) typically carry out this analysis early rather than later in the historical study of a given variable.

Question 24

Which of the following statements is the most accurate with respect to sex differences?

A) They are due to differences in biology between males and females.
B) They are due to differences in males' and females' early environments.
C) They are due to both biological and environmental differences.
D) It is a myth that they actually exist.

Question 25

Which of the following statements is the most accurate with respect to sex differences?

A) Generally, the difference within each sex is larger than the difference between males and females
B) Generally, the difference within each sex is smaller than the difference between males and females
C) The research on sex differences is too inconclusive to draw any conclusions.
D) Although some domains are well understood, general statements cannot be made.

Question 26

Which of the following is more typical of females than males?

A) More likely to be miscarried
B) More likely to die in infancy
C) Higher activity level
D) Somewhat more sensitive to pain, and better coordinated neurologically and physically

Question 27

Male newborns, compared to female newborns, are

A) healthier.
B) developmentally advanced.
C) more sensitive to pain.
D) larger and heavier.

Question 28

The higher activity level observed in males versus females is evident

A) only from 3 years of age onwards.
B) during the prenatal period.
C) only when boys and girls are interacting together.
D) mainly in adolescence.

Question 29

Rebecca has two children, a boy and a girl. She affirms that both of her children have very different behaviours. Which of the following is most likely true?

A) Her daughter was more active in utero than her son
B) Her son is more active when he plays with his sister
C) Her son is more active when he plays with other boys
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 30

Which of the following is more typical of females than males in the early years?

A) Females have an edge in skills that require strength
B) Females have an edge in gross motor skills that require a combination of balance and precise movement
C) Females have higher activity levels
D) None of the alternatives are correct.

Question 31

Young females outperform young males in some kinds of verbal skills. This may be related to the fact that

A) testosterone slows the development of the left hemisphere.
B) the brains of females are less lateralized.
C) females use both hemispheres to process language, whereas males' language processing tends to be localized in the left hemisphere.
D) All of the alternatives are correct

Question 32

Heather's children developed at different rates. Which is of the following is most likely true?

A) Her daughter made more sounds earlier than her son did
B) Her son made more sounds earlier than her daughter did
C) Her son's vocabulary was larger at an earlier age
D) Her daughter is more likely to stutter

Question 33

Lateralization refers to

A) the specialization of functions in the right and left hemisphere of the brain.
B) an individual's handedness.
C) sex differences in cognitive abilities.
D) genes that affect males and females differently.

Question 34

Current understanding of brain lateralization includes the belief that

A) the left hemisphere is responsible for language and speech processes whereas the right hemisphere is more involved with quantitative and spatial abilities.
B) the brains of males and females are equally lateralized.
C) lateralization affects the processing of socioemotional information but is unrelated to sex differences in nonsocial cognitive processing.
D) individuals who are left-brain dominant are more creative.

Question 35

Studies of the relationship between brain lateralization and language/verbal abilities suggest that

A) both males and females process language in the right hemisphere.
B) there are large individual differences in where language processing occurs in the brain.
C) language processing and verbal abilities appear to be among the skills least affected by lateralization.
D) language functioning in females is more equally spread between the two hemispheres, whereas in males it is more concentrated in the left hemisphere.

Question 36

More males than females have

A) problems with stuttering.
B) high scores in reading and writing.
C) language processing in both hemispheres of the brain.
D) mothers who vocalize to them more.

Question 37

Females achieve higher scores in reading and writing throughout the school years. One possible reason for this is that they may have an advantage over males in

A) executive functioning.
B) verbal memory.
C) the ability to detect the sounds of language.
D) both b and c.

Question 38

Which of the following was NOT mentioned in your text as an environmental factor contributing to sex differences in language skills?

A) Mothers vocalize more to their daughters than their sons.
B) Mothers imitate their daughters' vocalizations more than their sons'.
C) Mothers direct more infant-directed speech towards their daughters than their sons.
D) Parents believe their daughters to have greater reading ability than their sons.

Question 39

In designing a program to enhance quantitative skills for children in the sixth grade, teachers decided to focus on the children's areas of weakness. This means they should particularly work with

A) girls on computational skills.
B) boys on math reasoning.
C) girls on math reasoning.
D) both boys and girls on computational skills.

Question 40

Male superiority in quantitative ability has been attributed to

A) greater adherence to mathematical rules taught in school.
B) slower, more methodical approaches to math problems.
C) use of more sophisticated strategies such as retrieval.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 41

Which of the following is a TRUE statement?

A) Females earn higher grades in math than boys
B) Males earn higher grades in math and earn higher scores on standardized math tests
C) Females apply less orthodox strategies when solving math problems
D) Males do better overall, but they do worse than females on tricky problems that require a novel approach

Question 42

Why boys and girls approach mathematical problems differently is not well understood. One possibility is that girls

A) rely on strategies that might work well in English class, but are ill-suited to Math.
B) have less confidence in their mathematical abilities, leaving them vulnerable to stereotype threat.
C) are less concerned with following Math teacher's rules and expectations.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 43

Which of the following is TRUE with respect to spatial reasoning?

A) Spatial reasoning is solely influenced by biological factors and thus cannot be trained.
B) Typical school activities such as puzzle-play facilitate the development of spatial reasoning.
C) Females cannot be trained on how to solve the water-level problem.
D) Spatial reasoning should not be trained because it is not useful for most professions.

Question 44

Bryan's teacher has noticed that he has trouble with his spatial abilities. Which of the following statements is true?

A) If Bryan is under the age of 12, he can still get help in order to enhance his spatial skills
B) His spatial abilities can be enhanced through training
C) His parents are to blame for his lack of spatial abilities
D) None of the above alternatives is correct

Question 45

The water level task is a measure of

A) creativity.
B) fine motor coordination.
C) spatial ability.
D) abstract thinking.

Question 46

Who is most likely to fail the water level task?

A) Males
B) Bartenders
C) Females
D) Servers (i.e., waiters and waitresses)

Question 47

Spatial ability

A) is sex-linked and is not easily affected by training.
B) is more likely to increase when school is in session than during summer vacation.
C) is an area where a significant number of boys exhibit serious deficiencies.
D) is the focus of more remedial programs than reading.

Question 48

Compared to male infants, female infants during the first weeks of life

A) maintain greater eye contact.
B) display more motor activity.
C) are more irritable.
D) are less sensitive to pain.

Question 49

Alicia and Robert are newborn twins. Which of the following statements is most likely true?

A) Alicia is more likely to maintain greater eye contact with her caregivers
B) Robert is more likely to maintain greater eye contact with his caregivers
C) Robert is more likely to engage in face-to-face communication
D) Alicia is less likely to smile during interactions

Question 50

Female infants' greater propensity for social interaction during the first months of life may be due to

A) the fact that they are more inherently sociable.
B) the fact that mothers use more infant-directed speech with them than with male babies.
C) male infants' greater fussiness and irritability.
D) None of the alternatives are correct.

Question 51

In the disappointing gift procedure, _______ to hide their negative emotions.

A) boys are more likely
B) girls are more able
C) both boys and girls are equally likely
D) when given incentives, boys are especially likely

Question 52

Which of the following is FALSE with respect to sex differences in self-control?

A) Boys have more difficulty than girls with tasks that require impulse control
B) Girls tend to comply more than boys with parental requests to perform unpleasant tasks
C) Girls and boys do not differ much on measures of self-control
D) Prior to age 4, girls and boys engage in disruptive and impulsive behaviour equally often

Question 53

Boys and girls differ in their emotional development. Which of the following is most likely?

A) Katie will talk more about her anger
B) Frank will talk more about his sadness
C) Emma is better than Elliot at producing a sad facial expression
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 54

Boys and girls differ in their activities and interests. Which of the following is LEAST likely?

A) Janice prefers to watch non-educational cartoons.
B) Robert spends more time playing computer and video games.
C) Mary prefers sedentary activities over rough and tumble play.
D) Andrew prefers mechanical toys.

Question 55

Dale, a new school psychologist who is freshly out of graduate school, has been noticing many differences between the boys and girls he sees. Which of the following is most likely true?

A) More girls are going to be kicking and hitting
B) The boys exhibit more prosocial behaviour
C) The girls exhibit more prosocial behaviour
D) The girls exhibit more generous and cooperative behaviours

Question 56

A Canadian study of how children used the Internet in grades 4-11 reported that boys spent slightly more time online than did girls and considerably more time playing games. The study also found that

A) girls spent considerably more time using online chat.
B) girls spent considerably more time using email.
C) boys spent considerably more time using computers for homework.
D) None of the alternatives are correct

Question 57

Mrs. Thomas is the counsellor at the local high school. She notices that

A) more girls than boys enjoy music classes.
B) more boys than girls are interested in advanced math classes.
C) more girls than boys express interest in the biological sciences.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 58

The fact that males and females are biologically different for the purposes of reproduction is referred to as

A) gender cleavage.
B) sexual dimorphism.
C) sexual pleomorphism.
D) hermaphrodism.

Question 59

The sex chromosomes begin to influence the fertilized zygote at

A) the moment of conception.
B) 2 weeks post conception.
C) different points in development depending on whether it is an X or a Y chromosome.
D) after the gonads have developed.

Question 60

Sex-limited traits

A) can be carried by only men.
B) are carried on the sex chromosomes.
C) require the presence of certain hormones in order to be expressed.
D) affect men and women in similar ways.

Question 61

Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is caused by

A) fetal failure to respond to masculine hormones during fetal development.
B) failure to respond to masculine hormones during adolescence.
C) overproduction of androgens during prenatal development.
D) underproduction of estrogen and progesterone during adolescence.

Question 62

Females affected by congenital adrenal hyperplasia

A) appear hyperfeminine.
B) tend to become overtly masculine, while still preferring quiet indoor activities.
C) show higher spatial skills than unaffected girls.
D) prefer associating with their fathers.

Question 63

Androgen insensitivity

A) occurs when too much androgen is produced during pregnancy.
B) is an inherited enzyme deficiency that causes the adrenal glands to produce androgens, regardless of the presence or absence of testes.
C) is a genetic defect in males that prevents the body's cells from responding to androgens.
D) causes females to take on male characteristics.

Question 64

Androgen-insensitive males tend to be feminine in

A) appearance.
B) gender identity.
C) preferences and abilities.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 65

Catherine was born with ovaries, but her clitoris is quite large (resembling a penis) and has an empty scrotal sac. She will most likely be diagnosed with

A) Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS)
B) Estrogen insensitivity syndrome (EIS)
C) Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)
D) None of the alternatives are correct.

Question 66

Support for the notion that brain lateralization might be linked to gender differences is found in evidence that

A) by 6 months of age, female infants show stronger brain-wave reaction to left-hemisphere presentations of language whereas males show stronger reactions to right-hemisphere presentations.
B) males with left-hemisphere damage are far more impaired than females with a comparable amount of damage.
C) boys show better right-hemisphere performance on haptic tasks while the performances of girls are not affected by the hemisphere involved.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 67

The case of David, the identical twin boy who was raised as a girl because of a surgical accident to his penis at age 7 months, provides support for

A) the idea that sexual orientation is primarily the result of socialization.
B) the idea that sex-typed behaviour is primarily the result of socialization.
C) the role of biology in sexual orientation and sex-typed behaviour.
D) Dr. John Money's research.

Question 68

Which of the following is NOT consistent with the information in your text about the differential treatment of boys and girls?

A) Teachers tend to give boys more negative, as opposed to positive, attention than girls
B) Girls tend to receive more disapproval and scolding from teachers than do boys
C) Boys tend to volunteer to answer questions in class more often than girls
D) Teachers tend to attribute a greater ability in math and science to boys

Question 69

Mrs. O'Neill wants to make a conscious effort to treat the students in her science classes equitably. She should thus be aware that

A) teachers often criticize male students more often than female students.
B) teachers usually pay more attention to girls than boys.
C) girls actively elicit their teachers' attention more often than boys do.
D) girls prefer physics and boys prefer biology, and the two sexes will be more animated in topics that interest them.

Question 70

Now that more attention is being paid to the extent to which girls might be discouraged in stereotypically male domains like math and science, a growing concern is that schools are failing to address

A) girls' social needs.
B) girls' reading achievement.
C) boys' social needs.
D) boys' reading achievement.

Question 71

Investigations of parent-infant interaction suggest that

A) boys receive more physical stimulation than girls.
B) mothers vocalize more to daughters than sons.
C) parents avoid presenting toys to babies that are viewed as appropriate for the opposite sex.
D) All of the alternatives are correct.

Question 72

In which of the following families would children be more likely to develop rigid gender stereotypes?

A) In alternative-living arrangements (communes)
B) In families with lesbian parents
C) Families where the father is the primary caregiver
D) None of the alternatives are correct

Question 73

Preference for same-sex toys appears

A) during the first year of life.
B) between age one and two years.
C) when children enter preschool at age 3 or 4.
D) during the elementary school years.

Question 74

Which of the following statements about the socialization of sex-typed behaviour after age 2 is true?

A) Parents do not discourage cross-sex interests or behaviours of either sons or daughters.
B) Teachers are more likely to criticize girls for engaging in cross-sex activities than boys.
C) Children appear oblivious to gender-role violations of their peers.
D) The range of gender-appropriate behaviours is more restricted for boys than for girls.

Question 75

What of the following is true of the way that parents play with their children?

A) Fathers emphasize physical play with their sons and pretend play with their daughters.
B) Mothers emphasize physical play with their sons and pretend play with their daughters.
C) Fathers emphasize physical play with their sons more than do mothers, and mothers emphasize pretend play with their daughters more than do fathers.
D) both a and b

Question 76

Comparisons of the behaviours and attitudes of mothers and fathers toward the gender-role development of their children suggest

A) few differences between parents in either what they believe about gender roles or how they treat their sons and daughters.
B) that fathers have little impact on the gender-role development of their sons or daughters.
C) mothers tend to treat their sons and daughters more similarly, while fathers are more concerned that their sons be "masculine" and their daughters "feminine."
D) fathers tend to express beliefs that it is important for sons to be "masculine" and daughters to be "feminine," but they show no differences in how they treat their sons and daughters.

Question 77

A couple who just had their first child, a boy, is shopping for some toys. Which of the following is true?

A) The mother is likely to focus on such toys as blocks, trucks and balls.
B) The mother and father will both choose a range of toys, including dolls, trucks and soft animals.
C) The father will be most likely to focus on trucks, cars, and toy soldiers.
D) Both mother and father are equally likely to focus on stereotypically "boy" toys.

Question 78

Which of the following statements would you expect a parent to say about her/his daughter?

A) "She's such a strong, firm baby!"
B) "She has great crawling abilities; much better than my son's!"
C) "She's an excellent athlete because she works so hard at it!"
D) "I really expect that she'll be much better at math and science than her brother."

Question 79

Parents' gender-typed expectations regarding children's abilities and interests contributes to children's gender-role development by

A) providing girls and boys with different opportunities to develop specific skills.
B) influencing their children's sense of competence in different domains
C) both a and b
D) neither a nor b

Question 80

"Cooties" have to do with

A) gender segregation that is orchestrated by adults.
B) gender segregation that naturally occurs without adult intervention.
C) the culture of girls but not the culture of boys.
D) social rules that are adhered to by unpopular, socially incompetent children.