Ideal Biological Age to Have a Baby for Men

Biological Theories of Gender

By Dr. Saul McLeod, published


People frequently get confused between the terms sex and gender. Sex refers to biological differences between males and females. For example, chromosomes (female person XX, male XY), reproductive organs (ovaries, testes), hormones (oestrogen, testosterone).

Gender refers to the cultural differences expected (past lodge / culture) of men and women according to their sex activity. A person's sex does non change from nascence, only their gender tin.

In the past people tend to have very articulate ideas about what was appropriate to each sex and anyone behaving differently was regarded every bit deviant.

Today we accept a lot more diversity and come across gender as a continuum (i.eastward. scale) rather than two categories. Then men are free to evidence their "feminine side" and women are complimentary to bear witness their "masculine traits".

The biological approach suggests there is no distinction betwixt sex & gender, thus biological sexual activity creates gendered behavior. Gender is determined past two biological factors: hormones and chromosomes.


Hormones

Hormones are chemical substances secreted past glands throughout the body and carried in the bloodstream. The same sexual practice hormones occur in both men and women, but differ in amounts and in the effect that they accept upon dissimilar parts of the trunk.

Testosterone is a sex hormone, which is more nowadays in males than females, and affects development and behavior both before and after birth.

Testosterone, when released in the womb, causes the development of male sex organs (at 7 weeks) and acts upon the hypothalamus which results in the masculinization of the brain.

Testosterone tin cause typically male person behaviors such as assailment, competitiveness, Visuospatial abilities, higher sexual drive etc. An expanse of the hypothalamus at the base of the brain called the sexually dimorphic nucleus is much larger in male person than in females.

At the same time testosterone acts on the developing brain. The brain is divided into two hemispheres, left and right. In all humans the left side of the brain is more specialised for language skills and the correct for non-verbal and spatial skills.

Shaywitz et al (1995) used MRI scans to examine brain whilst men and women carried out language tasks and found that women used both hemispheres, left only used by men.

It appears that in males brain hemispheres work more than independently than in females, and testosterone influences this encephalon lateralization.

Empirical Evidence

The effects of testosterone have been confirmed in animal studies.

Quadango et al. (1977) found that female person monkeys who were deliberately exposed to testosterone during prenatal development later on engaged in more than rough and tumble play than other females.

Immature (1966) inverse the sexual behavior of both male person and female person rats past manipulating the amount of male person and female person hormones that the rats received during their early on development.

rats after being injected with testosterone

They displayed "reversed" sexual behavior and the furnishings were unchangeable. A number of non-reproductive behaviors in rats are also effected by testosterone exposure around birth. These included exploratory behavior, assailment and play.

Young believed that the exposure had changed the sexually dimorphic nucleus (SDN) in the brain, as male rats had a larger SDN than females. The results have proven to be highly replicable.

Critical Evaluation

Because this study was conducted in a lab it has low ecological validity. For example, in the lab hormones are injected in one single high dose. Whereas in existent life, hormones tend to be released by the body in pulses, in a graduated fashion. Therefore, the results might not be generalizable outside of the lab, to a more naturalistic setting.

This study also raises the issue of whether information technology'southward morally and/or scientifically right to utilise animals in research.

Ultimately psychologists must enquire themselves whether in their research the ends justify the means. By this we mean that all research using human or non-human animals must be considered in terms of the value of the results when compared to the toll (both moral and financial) of carrying out the work. The primary criterion is that benefits must outweigh costs. But benefits are well-nigh always to humans and costs to animals.

We should be cautious when extrapolating the results of creature research to a homo population. This is because the physiologies (due east.g. brains) of humans and animals species are non identical. Also, the social and cultural variables within a human population are more complex when compared to social interactions betwixt rats.

The consequence of this means the external validity of the research is uncertain. However, a report by Hines (1982) suggests it might be possible to generalize the results to humans.

Hines (1982) studied female babies built-in to mothers who had been given injections of male person hormones during pregnancy to forbid miscarriage. They were establish to be more than aggressive than normal female children. Hines concluded that the actress testosterone in the womb had affected later on behavior.


Chromosomes

The normal human trunk contains 23 pairs of chromosomes. A chromosome is a long thin structure containing thousands of genes, which are biochemical units of heredity and govern the development of every human being.

Each pair of chromosomes controls different aspects of development, and biological sexual activity is determined by the 23rd chromosome pair. Chromosomes physically resemble the letters X and Y.

  • Males = XY
  • Females = XX

23 Pairs of Chromosomes of the human body

SRY Cistron (Sex activity-determining Region Y gene)

At near six weeks, the SRY gene on the Y chromosome causes the gonads (sex activity organs) of the embryo to develop equally testes.

embryo

If the embryo has no Y chromosome, information technology will not have the SRY gene, without the SRY cistron, the gonads will develop equally ovaries.

Sometimes the SRY cistron is missing from the Y chromosome, or doesn't activate. The foetus grows, is born, and lives as a little daughter, and later as a woman, just her chromosomes are XY. Such people are, commonly, clearly women to themselves and everyone else.

Koopman et al. (1991) found that mice that were genetically female adult into male mice if the SRY gene was implanted.

One of the most controversial uses of this discovery was as a means for gender verification at the Olympic Games, under a system implemented by the International Olympic Commission in 1992. Athletes with a SRY factor were not permitted to participate as females.

Atypical Chromosomes

Individuals with atypical chromosomes develop differently than individuals with typical chromosomes - socially, physically and cognitively.

Studying people with Turner'southward syndrome and Klinefelter's syndrome might help our understanding of gender because past studying people with atypical sex chromosomes and comparing their evolution with that of people with typical sex chromosomes, psychologists are able to establish which types of beliefs are genetic (e.g. determined by chromosomes).

Turner's Syndrome

Turner's syndrome (XO) occurs when females develop with only one Ten chromosome on chromosome 23 (1 in 5000 chance).

Turner's syndrome

The absence of the 2nd X chromosome results in a child with a female external appearance simply whose ovaries take failed to develop.

The physical characteristics of individuals with Turner'south syndrome include lack of maturation at puberty and webbing of the cervix.

In addition to physical differences, there are differences in cognitive skills and behavior compared with typical chromosome patterns.

The affected individuals have college than average verbal power simply lower than average spatial ability, visual memory and mathematical skills. They too accept difficulty in social adjustment at school and mostly take poor relationships with their peers.

Klinefelter's Syndrome

Klinefelter's syndrome (XXY) affects i in every 750 males. In add-on to having a Y chromosome, these men also have an additional X on the 23rd chromosome, leading to the organisation XXY.

Klinefelter's  syndrome

Physically they appear male, though the result of the additional Ten chromosome causes less body hair and under-developed genitals. The syndrome becomes noticeable in childhood, every bit the boy has poor language skills. At three years of age, the kid may nonetheless not talk. At schoolhouse, their poor language skills bear upon reading ability.

When they are babies, their temperament is described as passive and co-operative. This calmness and shyness remains with them throughout their lives.

This suggests that level of aggression have a biological rather than environmental component.


Evolutionary Explanations of Gender

Every bit the evolutionary approach is a biological ane, information technology suggests that aspects of man behavior accept been coded past our genes because they were or are adaptive.

A central claim of evolutionary psychology is that the encephalon (and therefore the mind) evolved to solve problems encountered by our hunter-gatherer ancestors during the upper Pleistocene menstruum over ten,000 years ago.

The evolutionary approach argues that gender part partitioning appears as an adaptation to the challenges faced by the ancestral humans in the EEA (the environment of evolutionary adaptation).

the environment of evolutionary adaptation

The mind is therefore equipped with 'instincts' that enabled our ancestors to survive and reproduce.

The ii sexes developed unlike strategies to ensure their survival and reproductive success. This explains why men and women differ psychologically: They tend to occupy different social roles.

To support the evolutionary perspective, the partition of labour was shown to be an reward. 10,000 years agone at that place was sectionalisation of labour between males and females. Men were the hunter gathers, breadwinners, while the mother was at domicile interim as the 'affections of the business firm' and looking after the children.

Hunting for food required speed, agility, skillful visual perception. So men developed this skill.

If a women was to hunt, this would reduce the group'south reproductive success, every bit the adult female was the ane who was meaning or producing milk. Although, the women could contribute to the important business organization of growing food, making clothing and shelter so on.

This enhances reproductive success but it also important in avoiding starvation – an additional adaptive advantage.

Critical Evaluation

Deterministic approach which implies that men and women have petty option or control over their behaviors: women are natural 'nurturers' and men are naturally aggressive and competitive.

The consequence are that in modernistic society equal opportunities policies are doomed to fail as men are 'naturally' more competitive, take a chance taking and likely to progress up the career ladder.


Biosocial Approach to Gender

The biosocial arroyo (Coin & Ehrhardt, 1972) is an interactionist approach where by nature and nurture both play a role in gender development.

John Money's (1972) theory was that in one case a biological male or female is built-in, social labeling and differential treatment of boys and girls interact with biological factors to steer development. This theory was an try to integrate the influences of nature and nurture.

Gender role preferences determined past a series of critical events:

biosocial theory of gender

Prenatal: exposure to hormones on the womb (determined past chromosomes). It states that biology acquired by genetics, XY for a boy and XX for a daughter will give them a physical sexual practice.

Postnatal: Parents and others label and react towards a child on the footing of his or her genitals.

  • Parents and other people label and begin to react to the child based on his or her genitals. Information technology is when their sex activity has been labelled through external genitals, they gender development volition brainstorm.
  • The social labeling of a baby as a male child or girl leads to different handling which produce the child\s sense of gender identity.
  • Western Societies view gender as having ii categories, masculine and feminine, and meet man and women as different species.

The way they are treated socially in combination with their biological sex will decide the kid's gender.

The arroyo assumes that gender identity is neutral earlier the historic period of 3, and tin exist changed, due east.chiliad. a biological boy raised as a girl will develop the gender identity of a girl. This is known as the theory of neutrality.

Empirical Show

Rubin et al, 1974, interviewed thirty parents and asked them to apply adjective pairs to draw their babies. Although at that place were no measurable differences in size between the babies, parents consistently described boy babies as amend coordinated, stronger and more alarm than daughters. This shows that parents label their babies.

APA Fashion References

Feder, H. H., Phoenix, C. H., & Young, W. C. (1966). Suppression of feminine beliefs by administration of testosterone propionate to neonatal rats. Journal of Endocrinology, 34(i), 131-132.

Hines, M. (1982). Prenatal gonadal hormones and sexual practice differences in human beliefs. Psychological Bulletin, 92(1), 56.

Koopman, P., Gubbay, J., Vivian, N., Goodfellow, P., & Lovell-Badge, R. (1991). Male development of chromosomally female mice transgenic for Sry. Nature, 351(6322), 117-121.

Money, J., & Ehrhardt, A. A. (1972). Man and woman, boy and daughter: Differentiation and dimorphism of gender identity from conception to maturity.

Quadagno, D. M., Briscoe, R., & Quadagno, J. S. (1977). Effect of perinatal gonadal hormones on selected nonsexual behavior patterns: a critical cess of the nonhuman and human literature. Psychological Bulletin, 84(1), 62.

Shaywitz, B. A., Shaywltz, South. E., Pugh, G. R., Constable, R. T., Skudlarski, P., Fulbright, R. K., ... & Gore, J. C. (1995). Sex differences in the functional system of the brain for linguistic communication.

How to reference this commodity:

McLeod, Southward. A. (2014, December 14). Biological theories of gender. Merely Psychology. www.simplypsychology.org/gender-biology.html

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