Gender Roles

In honor of Halloween and the grand tradition of dressing up as whatever or whoever we want--

 *ehem*

--I'd like to--

*ehem*

What? You mean we can't do that? Even on a day where we pretend to be something we're not, gender roles (for the purpose of this entry, gender is between your ears and sex is between your legs, right? Right! Good.) still hold sway?

Bummer. For this little boy, the expectations tied to his gender (a socially constructed term tied to biological expression of sex. Well... generally. Disgendered individuals and gender roles is a whole different ballgame) trump his personal desire to the extent that he and his mother were heaped with both derision and acclaim for their choice of Halloween attire.And the worst part is that we do it to our kids from the very beginning. Gender neutral clothing is often difficult to find or overly plain, and the pressure to find out sex while pregnant is fierce.

--As an aside, did you know that originally, pink was for boys and blue was for girls? Pink was seen as a form of red and as such too potent for females while blue was heavily associated with the Virgin Mary. The painting above is King Louis XV. 

Traditionally, men were believed to possess one set of attributes and attitudes and women were believed to have another separate set. The two were supposed to be complimentary, but not the same and individuals that violated them often experienced significant social pressure to conform.

Today, when you think about what makes a man versus what makes a woman, there are still characteristics that are seen as predominantly male and predominantly female. Even some insults continue the trend of clearly delineating good and bad along what is perceived as male/female. When someone gets too emotional, they're sometimes told to 'man up', implying that they're acting too female and female=bad. 'Throwing like a girl' is still largely negative even though female athletes are becoming more and more common. If you stop and think about it, a large number of insults are specifically tied to the female anatomy. I could list some, but I'm pretty sure you know what I'm talking about.

As we evolve as a culture, gender roles (the set of behavioral norms determined by a persons gender) still hold sway even as roles have to change to keep pace. That is not to say that they haven't changed, but they definitely haven't gotten anywhere close to a true equality. Today, it is nearly impossible to live comfortably on a single income, necessitating that both parents work.

Even when a woman works outside of the home, the idea of the mother as caretaker is still prevalent. The Kelly Ripa Electrolux ads even reinforces this idea by insinuating that even as a financial provider, it remains the woman's responsibility to act as hostess, maintain a clean home and provide healthy fresh meals for her family.

 

 


Look,  I realize that the bulk of this post makes it sound like I'm some kind of bitter man hating feminist, but that's not what I'm going for. I'm not saying that men aren't held back from certain experiences by virtue of their gender, that was the entire point of the Daphne article, but my own personal experience is as a woman and heavily influenced as such.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Explaining why people do what they do is the central focus of Social Psychology. These explanations are referred to as Attributions and tend to fall into two categories: Internal and External.

Internal Attributions are those that are explained by invoking core characteristics of a person.

External Attributions are those that can be explained by examining the situation in which (or after which in some cases) they occur.

One way of examining attribution is the Covariation model created by Harold Kelley. In this model, deciding whether attributions are internal or external is generally determined by examining three aspects of the behavior.  These aspects are:

• Consistency (Do they act this way frequently?)
• Distinctiveness (Do they act this way in other situations?)
• Consensus (Do others act this way?)

 So if you have a situation (ie: Sam is an hour late to meet his tutor.) you could use the Covariation model to make a clear attribution as to cause. 

So, Sam is an hour late. 

• Is he frequently late to tutoring ? 
• Yes: High Consistency 
• No: Low Consistency
• Does Sam tend to be late to other meetings? 
• Yes: Low Distinctiveness 
• No: High Distinctiveness
• Do other people tend to be an hour late to tutoring? 
• Yes: High Consensus 
• No: Low Consensus

So, in this example, Sam's behavior could be explained as internal or external depending on how these questions were answered. If he was frequently late to tutoring and other meetings while most people were not late, it would suggest that the reason for his lateness is internal (he's bad at time management). If he was frequently late to tutoring, rarely late to other meetings and others tended to be an hour late to tutoring with this person, it could be assumed that the situation or target was at fault (perhaps the tutor was difficult to find). If he wasn't frequently late to tutoring and rarely late to other meetings and most others were also on time, it could be inferred that the reason for his lateness is a combination of actor and situation (he had car trouble or forgot his books and had to return home for them).

So... 

I actually did have a reason for laying all of that out first. 

All of the previous information is how to make good sound judgements about situations and people, but unfortunately, it also takes a fair amount of practice to keep it straight in your brain and it also tends to require that people keep an open mind until they have enough data to make a good call as to the reason that something happened. That generally doesn't happen. Instead, people tend to take the easy route and blame the actor. This is Fundamental Attribution Error, or the tendency of observers to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences on others behavior.

This video provides a fairly good breakdown of the thought process, but unfortunately, I can't embed it on here.

Deindividuation

Deindividuation is the idea that crowds of people temporarily lose identity and sense of self become more responsive to croup norms. This is often fostered by anonymity and tends to weaken ones sense of self restraint.

This may be a positive force as seen in the Where's Matt videos. In them, it becomes apparent that the theory of deindividuation goes far beyond Western society reaching into all socioeconomic classes and ethnic groups and beyond language barriers.

I'm a less positive light this same idea may be the spark that spawns riots and lynching. The negative manifestation can be seen on the riots that took place during the Arab spring.


The same thing is seen in Beauty and the Beast (the Disney version) when Gaston is attempting to rile up a mob to go after Beast.

 In the lyrics, it's possible to follow the process of deindividuation as Gaston as ringleader plays on fears to enough of an extent that they cease to be individuals and become a mob.

Belle:
He's no monster, Gaston. You are!
Gaston:
She's as crazy as the old man.
She says this creature is her friend.
Well, I've hunted wild beasts and I've seen what they can do.
The Beast will make off with your children.
Crowd:
(gasp)
Gaston:
He'll come after them in the night.
Belle:
He will never!
Gaston:
Forget the old man, I say we kill the Beast!
Man 1:
We're not safe until he's dead
Man 2:
He'll come stalking us at night
Woman:
Set to sacrifice our children to his monstrous appetite
Man 3:
He'll wreak havoc on our village if we let him wander free

Gaston:
So it's time to take some action, boys
It's time to follow me
Through the mist, through the woods
Through the darkness and the shadows
It's a nightmare but it's one exciting ride
Say a prayer, then we're there
At the drawbridge of a castle
And there's something truly terrible inside
It's a beast! He's got fangs
Razor sharp ones!
Massive paws, killer claws for the feast
Hear him roar! See him foam!
But we're not coming home 'til he's dead--
Good and dead!
Kill the Beast!

Gaston:
We'll rid the village of this Beast.
Who's with me?
Mob:
I am! I am! I am!
Mob:
Light your torch! Mount your horse!
Gaston:
Screw your courage to the sticking place!
Mob:
We're counting on Gaston to lead the way!

Gaston is able to use persuasion to convince the individual members that they must act,m but it takes a specific concentration of committed individuals to tip the gathering from concerned villagers into an actual mob. 

In this example the effect of self fulfilling prophesy can be seen. The villagers believe something specific about the Beast and act in such a way as to make it most likely to be proven true. When attempting to defuse these sorts of situation sometimes the solution can be as simple as reminding the Participants of their individuality.

Confirmation Bias

If you haven't seen the video, go ahead and watch it.

No really, I'll wait.

Done? Good. That, right there is a pretty good example of confirmation bias in action. The woman in the video chooses to believe that everything that she reads on the internet is true because of information she found on... The Internet!! Amazing, right? Even when faced with contradictory information (the man using the State Farm app) she chooses to continue to believe in her initial conceit. In spite of evidence to the contrary, she refuses to believe that her faith in the total honesty of the internet is mistaken. She even chooses to believe that the person who shows up to take her out is actually a French model in spite of the fact that he doesn't seem very attractive (but maybe he has a great personality) and he doesn't seem to remember much French outside of the basic Bonjour (and apparently his pronunciation is horrible, but I can't be sure as I don't speak French and have only the word of a friend who does).

Things like this also kind of utilize confirmation bias since everyone lets their attitudes impact how information is interpreted. If you follow the methodology, there will end up being people who self diagnose as negative things, but more often than not, they'll end up going back and rationalizing themselves into more positive positions with the assertion that the circumstances they were thinking of are an exception and not a rule and thus shouldn't count.Because they choose to ignore information that contradicts their desired outcome, it becomes an instance of confirmation bias.

*shifty eyes*

Not that I would do that.

*em...*

Right.

Illusory Correlation

Illusory correlation exists when a person over exaggerates a relationship between two things when no true relationship exists.

One example is the increase in assaults and ice cream consumption during the summer. It could be claimed that ice cream consumption causes more assaults or assaults cause ice cream consumption, but the more likely tie is probably the increased temperatures.

Another commonly made illusory correlation is the idea that it only rains after you wash your car. I had someone share that sentiment on the rear gate of my car not too long ago.

The writing is a little hard to see, but it says "Wash me please. We need the rain." Cute. Not true, but pretty darn common.

One of the more unfortunate results of this is that people begin to project these perceived patterns on large groups of people.

 Here, you can see how the illusory correlation can work to foster prejudice. Because of illusory correlation, Peter makes assumptions based on the appearance of the tutors without waiting for more information. This also ties into the representativeness heuristic and contributes to the development of stereotyping.