Bandura Cognitive Development

Gender roles put an idea into children’s brains about the way society dictates how men and women should or should not act. These stereotypes can be harmful, as they often lead to sexism and misogyny. While gender roles may deem what is appropriate for each gender, they can also set expectations of people in society, some of which can be unachievable. This can put a pressure on young children that can follow them through their education and career. Gender-based stereotypes are also dangerous in the sense that if someone refuses to conform to traditional gender ideals, most of the time, they are ridiculed and harassed.

he explains that gender roles are set from a very young age. Society categorizes individuals into those

Brinkman, B. G., K. L. Rabenstein, L. A. Rosen, and T. S. Zimmerman. “Children 's Gender

Gender is one of the most prominent features of a human being and not enough people pay attention to the development of such delicate trait. Our gender contributes a lot to our daily lives. Whether we are shopping or talking to somebody, people act differently based on your gender. Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet wrote just about this peculiarity in their article “Learning to be Gendered”. Penelope Eckert’s and Sally McConnell-Ginet’s article exposes some things that define a boy as a boy and a girl as a girl.

Slaby and Frey also found that boys tend to reach gender consistency before girls. This difference can't be explained by Kohlberg, since the rate of cognitive maturation is the same for both sexes. This suggests that other factors, apart from cognitive changes, must be taken into account when explaining gender

While in fact, in today's society, more often than not, these gender roles have switched. I believe that in order to create a change we need to start to teach children more flexibility in applying gender-role

An eclectic use of both of these theories would enhance our understanding of gender development because it is important to understand that biology and socialization play a part in gender development. Hormones, sexual organs, culture, and society intertwine and make a child aware of his or her gender. A cognitive understanding does not suffice. For example, for parents who believe that culture, school, peers, and media influence their son or daughter to be transgender are incorrect. Both of these theories demonstrate that biologically their child was born with the awareness that they belong to a different sex; it is embedded in their chromosomes. Meanwhile, society simply enabled them to observe the gender roles and determine which gender they felt most comfortable in.

Gender is complex; it changes over time. Figure 1.1 fleshes out this assertion by tracing several tracks of gender development, which proceed in tandem over an individual's life. These tracks include cascades of biological influences, family influences, peer influences, cultural and social influences, and influences originating from the individual's own ongoing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Secondly, humans have the same genetic makeup yet in different cultures/societies gender roles vary indicating greatly that these roles are socially constructed. Lastly, Bandura’s Social Learning Theory is the main driving force for gender roles being socially constructed, as gender roles are learnt from one another. Gender roles are usually constructed through the application of the two sex qualities, masculinity and femininity (masculinity being the qualities associated with men and femininity being the qualities associated with women). These two sex qualities are usually taught to children directly and indirectly through family, friends and other members of society. One direct way masculinity and femininity are taught to children is through schooling.

Gender roles are defined as "socially and culturally defined prescriptions and beliefs about the behavior and emotions of men and women" (Anselmi & Law, 1998). Gender roles are not biological. They are learned through social interaction (Baur & Crooks, 2014). They are the behaviors that society deems appropriate and acceptable for men and women in a society; and from a young age, people are taught by everything and everyone around them how they are supposed and expected to act (Baur & Crooks, 2014).

As children grow up and learn their societies contents of gender schema, they learn which attributes are linked to their sex (Crawford). The book goes on by saying that a difference between people who are highly gender typed and those who are not is that gender typed people have a well-developed gender schema and rely on it spontaneously in making sense of the world therefore known as gender-schematic (Crawford). Less gender typed people have less developed gender schemas and rely more on other schemas known as gender-aschematic

Current priorities in the education of boys and girls are not hard to consolidate standards of masculinity and femininity, but is to explore potential partnerships between boys and girls. Author of “Becoming Members of Society,” Aaron Devor say, “We acquire gender roles so early in life and so thoroughly that it’s hard to see them as the result of

Although there is an increasing trend for women towards participating in non-traditional occupational areas, the options and choices at entry level are to a large extent influenced by a wide assortment of socio-cultural and environmental factors. Children in their formative years tend to learn sex role stereotypes from parents, teachers, and the media. During early childhood, parents play the role of being the primary agents of socialisation to the child, communicating and reinforcing behaviours based on appropriate sex role stereotypes. The social-role theory (Eagley, 1987) proposes that boys are encouraged to develop agentic traits such as ambition, control, dominance and independence whereas girls are encouraged to develop communal beliefs and behaviours such as gentleness and interpersonal sensitivity and emotional expressiveness. In reinforcing activities and belief associated with appropriate sex stereotypes, parents create a household environment that contributes to the arousal of different interests and the development of different abilities in their children. Thereby conveying and strengthen the message that girls and boys are different. Unconsciously, teachers tend to give boys more of both negative

Children learn from their parents and from society the concept of what gender is and how to identify a male and female. Many of these learned concepts are cultural. Gender roles are the characteristics, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that society expects of males and females. Gender roles in our society have changed significantly in current times, for example more woman working in various fields, especially those that were once held exclusively by men and a lot more men deciding to stay at home taking care of their children, while their significant other works outside of the home. In response to Eckert and Ginet's assertion that "Being a girl or being a boy is not a stable state but an ongoing accomplishment, something that is actively done both by the individual...and by those...in the various communities to which it belongs, " I believe that being a boy or a girl is a self-discovery. There are plenty of other qualities one can find about themselves, more beyond than just being a male or being a female. An example would be a female who enjoys doing masculine things and is good at sports or a male who enjoys doing hair and makeup. I believe it is never a stable state because not everyone is a society norm of a male or a female and I personally feel like it affects children and teenagers negatively because it puts pressure on them.

In the society we live in today there is a strong difference between what is considered “boy” and what is considered “girl”. This is because from the time we are born, to the time we die we are expected to conform to a gender role. Gender socialisation is the development for boys and girls to be socialised differently. Boys are raised to conform to the male gender role, and girls are raised to conform to the female gender role. “Behaviors, attitudes, and personality characteristics are gender roles, which are expected and encouraged of a person based on his or her sex”. (Spark Notes, 2017) “Today it is essentially believed that most gender differences are attributed to differences in socialisation, rather than genetic and biological factors”. (Boundless, 2017). By gender socialisation, the simplest explanation is the process of learning what it means to be a male or female in the society, in which gender stereotypes and bias are usually involved. For example, boys should be tough, brave, strong, sporty, while girls on the other hand are soft, moody, passive, and allowed to cry. And another example girls are expected to be clean and quiet, while boys are messy and loud.