Social Psychology: Genes, Culture, and Gender PDF

CHAPTER 5 Genes, Culture, and Gender “By birth, the same; by custom, different.” —Confucius, The Analects How are we influenced by human nature and cultural diversity? How are gender similarities and differences explained? Evolution and gender: Doing what comes naturally? Culture and gender: Doing as the culture says? What can we conclude about genes, culture, and gender? A pproaching Earth from light-years away, alien scientists assigned to study the species Homo sapiens feel their excitement rising. Their plan: to observe two randomly sampled humans. Their first subject, Jan, is a verbally combative trial lawyer who grew up in Nashville but moved west seeking the “California lifestyle.” After an affair and a divorce, Jan is enjoying a second marriage. Friends describe Jan as an independent thinker who is self-confident, competitive, and somewhat domineering. Their second subject, Tomoko, lives with a spouse and their two children in a rural Japanese village, a walk from the homes of both their parents. Tomoko is proud of being a good child, a loyal spouse, and a protective parent. Friends describe Tomoko as kind, gentle, respectful, sensitive, and supportive of extended family. From their small sample of two people of different genders and cultures, what might our alien scientists conclude about human nature? Would they wonder whether the two are from different subspecies? Or would they be struck by deeper similarities beneath the surface differences? The questions faced by our alien scientists are those faced by today’s earthbound scientists: How do we humans differ? How are we alike? Those questions are central to a world where social diversity has Postscript: Should we view ourselves as products or architects of our social worlds? 158 Part Two Social Influence become, as historian Arthur Schlesinger (1991) said, “the explosive problem of our times.” In a world struggling with cultural differences, can we learn to accept our diversity, value our cultural identities, and recognize our human kinship? I believe we can. To see why, let’s consider the evolutionary, cultural, and social roots of our humanity. Then let’s see how each might help us understand gender similarities and differences. How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? Two perspectives dominate current thinking about human similarities and differences: an evolutionary perspective, emphasizing human kinship, and a cultural perspective, emphasizing human diversity. Nearly everyone agrees that we need both: Our genes enable an adaptive human brain—a cerebral hard drive that receives the culture’s software. In many important ways, Jan and Tomoko are more alike than different. As members of one great family with common ancestors, they share not only a common biology but also common behavior tendencies. Each of them sleeps and wakes, feels hunger and thirst, and develops language through identical mechanisms. Jan and Tomoko both prefer sweet tastes to sour, and they divide the visual spectrum into similar colors. They and their kin across the globe all know how to read one another’s frowns and smiles. Jan and Tomoko—and all of us everywhere—are intensely social. We join groups, conform, and recognize distinctions of social status. We return favors, punish offenses, and grieve a child’s death. As children, beginning at about 8 months of age, we displayed fear of strangers, and as adults we favor members of our own groups. Confronted by those with dissimilar attitudes or attributes, we react warily or negatively. Anthropologist Donald Brown (1991, 2000) identified several hundred such universal behavior and language patterns. To sample among just those beginning with “v,” all human societies have verbs, violence, visiting, and vowels. Our alien scientists could drop in anywhere and find humans conversing and arguing, laughing and crying, feasting and dancing, singing and worshiping. Everywhere, humans prefer living with others—in families and communal groups—to living alone. Everywhere, the family dramas that entertain us—from Greek tragedies to Chinese fiction to Mexican soap operas—portray similar plots (Dutton, 2006). Ditto adventure stories in which strong and courageous men, supported by wise old people, overcome evil to the delight of beautiful women or threatened children. Such commonalities define our shared human nature. We’re all kin beneath the skin. Genes, Evolution, and Behavior The universal behaviors that define human nature arise from our biological similarity. We may say “My ancestors came from Ireland” or “My roots are in China” or “I’m Italian,” but anthropologists tell us that if we could trace our ancestors back 100,000 or more years, we would see that we are all Africans (Shipman, 2003). In response to climate change and the availability of food, those early hominids migrated across Africa into Asia, Europe, the Australian subcontinent and, eventually, the Americas. As they adapted to their new environments, early humans Genes, Culture, and Gender developed differences that, measured on anthropological scales, are recent and superficial. For example, those who stayed in Africa had darker skin pigment—what Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker (2002) calls “sunscreen for the tropics”—and those who went far north of the equator evolved lighter skins capable of synthesizing vitamin D in less direct sunlight. Still, historically, we all are Africans. We were Africans recently enough that “there has not been much time to accumulate many new versions of the genes,” notes Pinker (2002, p. 143). And, indeed, biologists who study our genes have found that we humans—even humans as seemingly different as Jan and Tomoko—are strikingly similar, like members of one tribe. We may be more numerous than chimpanzees, but chimps are more genetically varied. To explain the traits of our species, and all species, the British naturalist Charles Darwin (1859) proposed an evolutionary process. Follow the genes, he advised. Darwin’s idea, to which philosopher Daniel Dennett (2005) would give “the gold medal for the best idea anybody ever had,” was that natural selection enables evolution. The idea, simplified, is this: Organisms have many and varied offspring. Those offspring compete for survival in their environment. Certain biological and behavioral variations increase their chances of reproduction and survival in that environment. Those offspring that do survive are more likely to pass their genes to ensuing generations. Thus, over time, population characteristics may change. Natural selection implies that certain genes—those that predisposed traits that increased the odds of surviving long enough to reproduce and nurture descendants—became more abundant. In the snowy Arctic environment, for example, genes programming a thick coat of camouflaging white fur have won the genetic competition in polar bears. Natural selection, long an organizing principle of biology, has recently become an important principle for psychology as well. Evolutionary psychology studies how natural selection predisposes not just physical traits suited to particular contexts—polar bears’ coats, bats’ sonar, humans’ color vision—but also psychological traits and social behaviors that enhance the preservation and spread of one’s genes (Buss, 2005, 2007). We humans are the way we are, say evolutionary psychologists, because nature selected those who had our traits—those who, for example, preferred the sweet taste of nutritious, energy-providing foods and who disliked the bitter or sour flavors of foods that are toxic. Those lacking such preferences were less likely to survive to contribute their genes to posterity. As mobile gene machines, we carry not only the physical legacy but also the psychological legacy of our ancestors’ adaptive preferences. We long for whatever helped them survive, reproduce, and nurture their offspring to survive and reproduce. “The purpose of the heart is to pump blood,” notes evolutionary psychologist David Barash (2003). “The brain’s purpose,” he adds, is to direct our organs and our behavior “in a way that maximizes our evolutionary success. That’s it.” The evolutionary perspective highlights our universal human nature. We not only share certain food preferences but we also share answers to social questions such as, Whom should I trust, and fear? Whom should I help? When, and with whom, should I mate? Who may dominate me, and whom may I control? Evolutionary psychologists contend that our emotional and behavioral answers to those questions are the same answers that worked for our ancestors. Because these social tasks are common to people everywhere, humans everywhere tend to agree on the answers. For example, all humans rank others by authority and status. And all have ideas about economic justice (Fiske, 1992). Evolutionary Chapter 5 159 natural selection The evolutionary process by which heritable traits that best enable organisms to survive and reproduce in particular environments are passed to ensuing generations. “The exciting thing about evolution is not that our understanding is perfect or complete but that it is the foundation stone for the rest of biology.” —DONALD KENNEDY, EDITORIN-CHIEF, SCIENCE, 2005 evolutionary psychology The study of the evolution of cognition and behavior using principles of natural selection. “Psychology will be based on a new foundation.” —CHARLES DARWIN, THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, 1859 160 Part Two Social Influence psychologists highlight these universal characteristics that have evolved through natural selection. Cultures, however, provide the specific rules for working out these elements of social life. Culture and Behavior “Stand tall, Bipedal Ape. The shark may outswim you, the cheetah outrun you, the swift outfly you, the redwood outlast you. But you have the biggest gifts of all.” —RICHARD DAWKINS, THE DEVIL’S CHAPLAIN, 2003 culture The enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next. “Somehow the adherents of the ‘nurture’ side of the arguments have scared themselves silly at the power and inevitability of genes and missed the greatest lesson Perhaps our most important similarity, the hallmark of our species, is our capacity to learn and adapt. Evolution has prepared us to live creatively in a changing world and to adapt to environments from equatorial jungles to arctic icefields. Compared with bees, birds, and bulldogs, nature has humans on a looser genetic leash. Ironically, it is our shared human biology that enables our cultural diversity. It enables those in one culture to value promptness, welcome frankness, or accept premarital sex, whereas those in another culture do not. As social psychologist Roy Baumeister (2005, p. 29) observes, “Evolution made us for culture.” (See “Focus On: The Cultural Animal.”) Evolutionary psychology incorporates environmental influences. It recognizes that nature and nurture interact in forming us. Genes are not fixed blueprints; their expression depends on the environment, much as the tea I am now drinking was not expressed until meeting a hot water environment. One study of New Zealand young adults revealed a gene variation that put people at risk for depression, but only if they had also experienced major life stresses such as a marital breakup (Caspi & others, 2003). Neither the stress nor the gene alone produced depression, but the two interacting did. We humans have been selected not only for big brains and biceps but also for culture. We come prepared to learn language and to bond and cooperate with others in securing food, caring for young, and protecting ourselves. Nature therefore predisposes us to learn whatever culture we are born into (Fiske & others, 1998). The cultural perspective highlights human adaptability. People’s “natures are alike,” said Confucius; “it is their habits that carry them far apart.” And far apart we still are, note world culture researchers Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel (2005). Despite increasing education, “we are not moving toward a uniform global culture: cultural convergence is not taking place. A society’s cultural heritage is remarkably enduring” (p. 46). of all: the genes are on their side.” —MATT RIDLEY, NATURE VIA NURTURE, 2003 CULTURAL DIVERSITY The diversity of our languages, customs, and expressive behaviors confirms that much of our behavior is socially programmed, not hardwired. The genetic leash is long. As sociologist Ian Robertson (1987) has noted: Americans eat oysters but not snails. The French eat snails but not locusts. The Zulus eat locusts but not fish. The Jews eat fish but not pork. The Hindus eat pork but not beef. The Russians eat beef but not snakes. The Chinese eat snakes but not people. The Jalé of New Guinea find people delicious. (p. 67) If we all lived as homogeneous ethnic groups in separate regions of the world, as some people still do, cultural diversity would be less relevant to our daily living. In Japan, where there are 127 million people, of whom 125 million are Japanese, internal cultural differences are minimal. In contrast, these differences are encountered many times each day by most residents of New York City, where more than one-third of the 8 million residents are foreign-born and where no ethnic group constitutes more than 37 percent of the population. Increasingly, cultural diversity surrounds us. More and more we live in a global village, connected to our fellow villagers by e-mail, jumbo jets, and international trade. The mingling of cultures is nothing new. “American” jeans were invented in 1872 by German immigrant Levi Strauss by combining Genes, the trouser style of Genoese sailors, with denim cloth from a French town (Legrain, 2003). From Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra to Verdi’s Aïda to Forster’s A Passage to Genes, Culture, and Gender focusON Chapter 5 161 The Cultural Animal We are, said Aristotle, the social animal. We humans have at least one thing in common with wolves and bees: We flourish by organizing ourselves into groups and working together. But more than that, notes Roy Baumeister, we are—as he labels us in the title of his 2005 book—The Cultural Animal. Humans more than other animals harness the power of culture to make life better. “Culture is a better way of being social,” he writes. We have culture to thank for our communication through language, our driving safely on one side of the road, our eating fruit in winter, and our use of money to pay for our cars and fruit. Culture facilitates our survival and reproduction, and nature has blessed us with a brain that, like no other, enables culture. Other animals show the rudiments of culture and language. Monkeys have been observed to learn new food-washing techniques, which then are passed across future generations. And chimps exhibit a modest capacity for language. But no species can accumulate progress across generations as smartly as humans. Your nineteenth-century ancestors had no cars, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no air conditioning, no Internet, India, the arts and literature have reflected the fascinating interplay of cultures. In our own day, an unknown pundit has said that nothing typifies globalization like the death of Princess Diana: “An English princess with an Egyptian boyfriend crashes in a French tunnel, riding in a German car with a Dutch engine, driven by a Belgian who was high on Scotch whiskey, followed closely by Italian paparazzi on Japanese motorcycles, and is treated by an American doctor using medicines from Brazil.” Confronting another culture is sometimes a startling experience. American males may feel uncomfortable when Middle Eastern heads of state greet the U.S. president with a kiss on the cheek. A German student, accustomed to speaking to “Herr Professor” only no iPods, and no Post-It notes—all things for which you can thank culture. Intelligence enables innovation, and culture enables dissemination—the transmission of information and innovation across time and place. The division of labor is “another huge and powerful advantage of culture,” notes Baumeister. Few of us grow food or build shelter, yet nearly everyone reading this book enjoys food and shelter. Indeed, books themselves are a tribute to the division of labor enabled by culture. Although only one lucky person gets his name on this book’s cover, the product is actually the work of a coordinated team of researchers, reviewers, assistants, and editors. Books and other media disseminate knowledge, providing the engine of progress. “Culture is what is special about human beings,” concludes Baumeister. “Culture helps us to become something much more than the sum of our talents, efforts, and other individual blessings. In that sense, culture is the greatest blessing of all.... Alone we would be but cunning brutes, at the mercy of our surroundings. Together, we can sustain a system that enables us to make life progressively better for ourselves, our children, and those who come after.” Although some norms are universal, every culture has its own norms—rules for accepted and expected social behavior. “Women kiss women good night. Men kiss women good night. But men do not kiss men good night—especially in Armonk." © The New Yorker Collection, 1979, J. B. Handelsman, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. 162 Part Two Social Influence Cultures mixing. As these London schoolmates illustrate (one of Muslim heritage, the other Anglo Saxon), immigration and globalization are bringing once-distant cultures together. on rare occasions, considers it strange that at my institution most faculty office doors are open and students stop by freely. An Iranian student on her first visit to an American McDonald’s restaurant fumbles around in her paper bag looking for the eating utensils until she sees the other customers eating their french fries with, of all things, their hands. In many areas of the globe, your best manners and mine are serious breaches of etiquette. Foreigners visiting Japan often struggle to master the rules of the social game—when to take off their shoes, how to pour the tea, when to give and open gifts, how to act toward someone higher or lower in the social hierarchy. Migration and refugee evacuations are mixing cultures more than ever. “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” wrote the nineteenthcentury British author Rudyard Kipling. But today, East and West, and North and South, meet all the time. Italy is home to many Albanians, Germany to Turks, England to Pakistanis, and the result is both friendship and conflict. One in 5 Canadians and 1 in 10 Americans is an immigrant. As we work, play, and live with people from diverse cultural backgrounds, it helps to understand how our cultures influence us and how our cultures differ. In a conflict-laden world, achieving peace requires a genuine appreciation for differences as well as similarities. NORMS: EXPECTED BEHAVIOR norms Standards for accepted and expected behavior. Norms prescribe “proper” behavior. (In a different sense of the word, norms also describe what most others do—what is normal.) As etiquette rules illustrate, all cultures have their accepted ideas about appropriate behavior. We often view these social expectations, or norms, as a negative force that imprisons people in a blind effort to perpetuate tradition. Norms do restrain and control us—so successfully and so subtly that we hardly sense their existence. Like fish in the ocean, we are all so immersed in our cultures that we must leap out of them to understand their influence. “When we see other Dutch people behaving in what foreigners would call a Dutch way,” note Dutch psychologists Willem Koomen and Anton Dijker (1997), “we often do not realize that the behavior is typically Dutch.” There is no better way to learn the norms of our culture than to visit another culture and see that its members do things that way, whereas we do them this way. When living in Scotland, I acknowledged to my children that, yes, Europeans eat meat with the fork facing down in the left hand. “But we Americans consider it good manners to cut the meat and then transfer the fork to the right hand. I admit it’s inefficient. But it’s the way we do it.” To those who don’t accept them, such norms may seem arbitrary and confining. To most in the Western world, the Muslim woman’s veil seems arbitrary and confining, but not to most in Muslim cultures. Just as a stage play moves smoothly when the actors know their lines, so social behavior occurs smoothly when people know what to expect. Norms grease the social machinery. In unfamiliar situations, when the norms may be unclear, we monitor others’ behavior and adjust our own accordingly. Cultures vary in their norms for expressiveness, punctuality, rule-breaking, and personal space. Consider: Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 163 FIGURE :: 5.1 EXPRESSIVENESS To someone from a relatively formal northern European culture, a person whose roots are in an expressive Mediterranean culture may seem “warm, charming, inefficient, and time-wasting.” To the Mediterranean person, the northern European may seem “efficient, cold, and overconcerned with time” (Beaulieu, 2004; Triandis, 1981). PUNCTUALITY Latin American business executives who arrive late for a dinner engagement may be mystified by how obsessed their North American counterparts are with punctuality. North American tourists in Japan may wonder about the lack of eye contact from passing pedestrians. (See “Research Close-Up: Passing Encounters, East and West.”) Degraded Surroundings Can Degrade Behavior. In a University of Groningen study, people mostly did not litter the ground with an unwanted flyer when an adjacent wall was clean, but did litter when the wall was graffiti-laden. RULE-BREAKING When people see social norms being violated, such as banned graffiti on a wall, they become more likely to follow the rule-breaking norm by violating other rules, such as littering. In six experiments, a Dutch research team led by Kees Keizer (2008) found people more than doubly likely to disobey social rules when it appeared that others were doing so. For example, when useless flyers were put on bike handles, one-third of cyclists tossed the flyer on the ground as litter when there was no graffiti on the adjacent wall. But more than two-thirds did so when the wall was covered with graffiti (Figure 5.1). PERSONAL SPACE Personal space is a sort of portable bubble or buffer zone that we like to maintain between ourselves and others. As the situation changes, the bubble varies in size. With strangers, most Americans maintain a fairly large personal space, keeping 4 feet or more between us. On uncrowded buses, or in restrooms or libraries, we protect our space and respect others’ space. We let friends come closer, often within 2 or 3 feet. Individuals differ: Some people prefer more personal space than others (Smith, 1981; Sommer, 1969; Stockdale, 1978). Groups differ, too: Adults maintain more distance than children. Men keep more distance from one another than do women. For reasons unknown, cultures near the equator prefer less space and more touching and hugging. Thus, the British and the Scandinavians prefer more distance than the French and the Arabs; North Americans prefer more space than Latin Americans. To see the effect of encroaching on another’s personal space, play space invader. Stand or sit a foot or so from a friend and strike up a conversation. Does the person fidget, look away, back off, show other signs of discomfort? These are the signs of arousal noted by space-invading researchers (Altman & Vinsel, 1978). personal space The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. Its size depends on our familiarity with whoever is near us. “Some 30 inches from my nose, the frontier of my person goes.” —W. H. AUDEN, 1907–1973 164 Part Two Social Influence research CLOSE-UP Passing Encounters, East and West On my midwestern American campus and in my town, sidewalk passersby routinely glance and smile at one another. In Britain, where I have spent two years, such microinteractions are visibly less common. To a European, our greeting passing strangers might seem a bit silly and disrespectful of privacy; to a midwesterner, avoiding eye contact—what sociologists have called “civil inattention”—might seem aloof. To quantify the culture difference in pedestrian interactions, an international team led by Miles Patterson and Yuichi Iizuka (2007) conducted a simple field experiment both in the United States and in Japan with the unwitting participation of more than 1,000 American and Japanese pedestrians. Their procedure illustrates how social psychologists sometimes conduct unobtrusive research in natural settings (Patterson, 2008). As Figure 5.2 depicts, a confederate (an accomplice of the experimenter) would initiate one of three behaviors when within about 12 feet of an approaching pedestrian on an uncrowded sidewalk: (1) avoidance Participant: Solitary pedestrian with no one close in front or behind. (looking straight ahead), (2) glancing at the person for less than a second, and (3) looking at the person and smiling. A trailing observer would then record the pedestrian’s reaction. Did the pedestrian glance at the confederate? smile? nod? verbally greet the confederate? (The order of the three conditions was randomized and unknown to the trailing observer, ensuring that the person recording the data was “blind” to the experimental condition.) As you might expect, the pedestrians, were more likely to look back at someone who looked at them, and to smile at, nod to, or greet someone who also smiled at them, especially when that someone was female rather than male. But as Figure 5.3 shows, the culture differences were nevertheless striking. As the research team expected, in view of Japan’s greater respect for privacy and cultural reserve when interacting with outgroups, Americans were much more likely to smile at, nod to, or greet the confederate. In Japan, they conclude, “there is little pressure to reciprocate the smile of the confederate because there is no relationship with the confederate and no obligation to respond.” By contrast, the American norm is to reciprocate a friendly gesture. % Smiles 50 Confederate: Initiates the condition at approximately 12 ft. from the participant. 45 US Japan 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 Observer: Approximately 30 ft. behind the confederate. Observer monitors the participant once the confederate makes a hand signal to start the condition. FIGURE :: 5.2 5 0 Avoid Glance Look & Smile Condition FIGURE :: 5.3 Illustration of Passing Encounter American and Japanese Pedestrian Responses, by Condition Source: Patterson & others (2006). Source: Adapted from Patterson & others (2006). Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 165 CULTURAL SIMILARITY Thanks to human adaptability, cultures differ. Yet beneath the veneer of cultural differences, cross-cultural psychologists see “an essential universality” (Lonner, 1980). As members of one species, we find that the processes that underlie our differing behaviors are much the same everywhere. At ages 4 to 5, for example, children across the world begin to exhibit a “theory of mind” that enables them to infer what others are thinking (Norenzayan & Heine, 2005). If they witness a toy being moved while another child isn’t looking, they become able—no matter their culture—to infer that the other child will think it still is where it was. President Bush honored Saudi friendship norms when strolling with Crown Prince Abdullah in 2005. Many heterosexual North American men were, however, startled by the violation of their own norm of distance from other men. UNIVERSAL FRIENDSHIP NORMS People everywhere have some common norms for friendship. From studies conducted in Britain, Italy, Hong Kong, and Japan, Michael Argyle and Monika Henderson (1985) noted several cultural variations in the norms that define the role of friend. For example, in Japan it’s especially important not to embarrass a friend with public criticism. But there are also some apparently universal norms: Respect the friend’s privacy; make eye contact while talking; don’t divulge things said in confidence. UNIVERSAL TRAIT DIMENSIONS Around the world, people tend to describe others as more or less stable, outgoing, open, agreeable, and conscientious (John & Srivastava, 1999; McCrae & Costa, 1999). If a test specifies where you stand on these “Big Five” personality dimensions, it pretty well describes your personality, no matter where you live. Moreover, a recent 49-country study revealed that nationto-nation differences in people’s scores on Big Five traits such as conscientiousness Despite enormous cultural variation, we humans do hold some things in common. “Look, everyone here loves vanilla, right? So let's start there." © The New Yorker Collection, 1980, Peter Steiner, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. 166 Part Two Social Influence FIGURE :: 5.4 Leung and Bond’s Universal Social Belief Dimensions The Big Five Social Beliefs Sample Questionnaire Item Cynicism ”Powerful people tend to exploit others.“ Social complexity ”One has to deal with matters according to the specific circumstances.“ Reward for application ”One will succeed if he/she really tries.“ Spirituality ”Religious faith contributes to good mental health.“ Fate control ”Fate determines one‘s success and failures.“ and extraversion are smaller than most people suppose (Terracciano & others, 2005). Australians see themselves as unusually outgoing. The German-speaking Swiss see themselves as strikingly conscientious. And Canadians describe themselves as distinctly agreeable. Actually, however, these national stereotypes exaggerate real differences that are quite modest. UNIVERSAL SOCIAL BELIEF DIMENSIONS Likewise, say Hong Kong social psychologists Kwok Leung and Michael Harris Bond (2004), there are five universal dimensions of social beliefs. In each of the 38 countries they studied, people vary in the extent to which they endorse and apply these social understandings in their daily lives: cynicism, social complexity, reward for application, spirituality, and fate control (Figure 5.4). People’s adherence to these social beliefs appears to guide their living. Those who espouse cynicism express lower life satisfaction and favor assertive influence tactics and right-wing politics. Those who espouse reward for application are inclined to invest themselves in study, planning, and competing. In The Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer notes how the language of affection reduces women to foods and baby animals—honey, lamb, sugar, sweetie-pie, kitten, chick. UNIVERSAL STATUS NORMS Roger Brown (1965, 1987; Kroger & Wood, 1992) has studied another universal norm. Wherever people form status hierarchies, they also talk to higher-status people in the respectful way they often talk to strangers. And they talk to lower-status people in the more familiar, first-name way they speak to friends. Patients call their physician “Dr. So and So”; the physician may reply using the patients’ first names. Students and professors typically address one another in a similarly nonmutual way. Most languages have two forms of the English pronoun “you”: a respectful form and a familiar form (for example, Sie and du in German, vous and tu in French, usted and tu in Spanish). People typically use the familiar form with intimates and subordinates—with close friends and family members but also in speaking to children and pets. A German adolescent receives a boost when strangers begin addressing him or her as “Sie” instead of “du.” This first aspect of Brown’s universal norm—that forms of address communicate not only social distance but also social status—correlates with a second aspect: Advances in intimacy are usually suggested by the higher-status person. In Europe, where most twosomes begin a relationship with the polite, formal “you” and may eventually progress to the more intimate “you,” someone obviously has to initiate the increased intimacy. Who do you suppose does so? On some congenial occasion, the elder or richer or more distinguished of the two is the one to say, “Let’s say du to each other.” This norm extends beyond language to every type of advance in intimacy. It is more acceptable to borrow a pen from or put a hand on the shoulder of one’s intimates and subordinates than to behave in such a casual way with strangers or superiors. Similarly, the president of my college invites faculty to his home before Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 167 Norms—rules for accepted and expected behavior—vary by culture. they invite him to theirs. In the progression toward intimacy, the higher-status person is typically the pacesetter. THE INCEST TABOO The best-known universal norm is the taboo against incest: Parents are not to have sexual relations with their children, nor siblings with one another. Although the taboo apparently is violated more often than psychologists once believed, the norm is still universal. Every society disapproves of incest. Given the biological penalties for inbreeding (through the emergence of disorders linked to recessive genes), evolutionary psychologists can easily understand why people everywhere are predisposed against incest. NORMS OF WAR Humans even have cross-cultural norms for conducting war. In the midst of killing one’s enemy, there are agreed-upon rules that have been honored for centuries. You are to wear identifiable uniforms, surrender with a gesture of submission, and treat prisoners humanely. (If you can’t kill them before they surrender, you should feed them thereafter.) These norms, though cross-cultural, are not universal. When Iraqi forces violated them by showing surrender flags and then attacking, and by dressing soldiers as liberated civilians to set up ambushes, a U.S. military spokesperson complained that “both of these actions are among the most serious violations of the laws of war” (Clarke, 2003). So, some norms are culture-specific, others are universal. The force of culture appears in varying norms, whereas it is largely our genetic predispositions—our human nature—that account for the universality of some norms. Thus, we might think of nature as universal and nurture as culture-specific. So far in this chapter, we have affirmed our biological kinship as members of one human family. We have acknowledged our cultural diversity. And we have noted how norms vary within and across cultures. Remember that our quest in social psychology is not just to catalog differences but also to identify universal principles of behavior. Our aim is what cross-cultural psychologist Walter Lonner (1989) has called “a universalistic psychology—a psychology that is as valid and meaningful in Omaha and Osaka as it is in Rome and Botswana.” Attitudes and behaviors will always vary with culture, but the processes by which attitudes influence behavior vary much less. People in Nigeria and Japan define teen roles differently from people in Europe and North America, but in all cultures role expectations guide social relations. G. K. Chesterton had the idea nearly a century ago: When someone “has discovered why men in Bond Street wear black hats he will at the same moment have discovered why men in Timbuctoo wear red feathers.” “I am confident that [if] modern psychology had developed in, let us say, India, the psychologists there would have discovered most of the principles discovered by the Westerners.” —CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGIST JOHN E. WILLIAMS (1993) 168 Part Two Social Influence Summing Up: How Are We Influenced by Human Nature and Cultural Diversity? How are we humans alike, how do we differ—and why? Evolutionary psychologists study how natural selection favors behavioral traits that promote the perpetuation of one’s genes. Although part of evolution’s legacy is our human capacity to learn and adapt (and therefore to differ from one another), the evolutionary perspective highlights the kinship that results from our shared human nature. The cultural perspective highlights human diversity— the behaviors and ideas that define a group and that are transmitted across generations. The differences in attitudes and behaviors from one culture to another indicate the extent to which we are the products of cultural norms and roles. Yet crosscultural psychologists also examine the “essential universality” of all people. For example, despite their differences, cultures have a number of norms in common, such as respecting privacy in friendships and disapproving of incest. How Are Gender Similarities and Differences Explained? Both evolutionary psychologists and psychologists working from a cultural perspective have sought to explain gender variations. Before considering their views, let’s look at the basic issues: As males and females, how are we alike? How do we differ? And why? gender In psychology, the characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced, by which people define male and female. Even in physical traits, individual differences among men and among women far exceed the average differences between the sexes. Don Schollander’s world-recordsetting 4 minutes, 12 seconds in the 400-meter freestyle swim at the 1964 Olympics trailed the times of all eight women racing in the 2008 Olympic finals for that event. There are many obvious dimensions of human diversity—height, weight, hair color, to name just a few. But for people’s self-concepts and social relationships, the two dimensions that matter most, and that people first attune to, are race and, especially, gender (Stangor & others, 1992). When you were born, the first thing people wanted to know about you was, “Is it a boy or a girl?” When an intersex child is born with a combination of male and female sex organs, physicians and family traditionally have felt compelled to assign the child a gender (because they didn’t have an approved category of transgendered persons) and to diminish the ambiguity surgically. The simple message: Everyone must be assigned a gender. Between day and night there is dusk. But between male and female there has been, socially speaking, essentially nothing. In Chapter 9, we will consider how race and sex affect the way others regard and treat us. For now, let’s consider gender—the characteristics people associate with male and female. What behaviors are universally characteristic and expected of males? of females? “Of the 46 chromosomes in the human genome, 45 are unisex,” notes Judith Rich Harris (1998). Females and males are therefore similar in many physical traits and developmental milestones, such as the age of sitting up, teething, and walking. They also are alike in many psychological traits, such as overall vocabulary, creativity, intelligence, self-esteem, and happiness. Women and men feel the same emotions and longings, both dote on their children, and they have similar-appearing brains (although, on average, men have more neurons and women have more neural connections). Indeed, notes Janet Shibley Hyde (2005) from her review of 46 meta-analyses (each a statistical digest of dozens of studies), the common result for most variables studied is gender similarity. Your “opposite sex” is actually your nearly identical sex. So shall we conclude that men and women are essentially the same, except for a few anatomical oddities that hardly matter apart from special occasions? Actually, there are some differences, and it is these differences, not the many similarities, that capture attention and make news. In both science and everyday life, differences excite interest. Compared with males, the average female Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 169 has 70 percent more fat, has 40 percent less muscle, is 5 inches shorter, and weighs 40 pounds less. is more sensitive to smells and sounds. is doubly vulnerable to anxiety disorders and depression. Compared with females, the average male is slower to enter puberty (by about two years) but quicker to die (by four years, worldwide). three times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder), four times more likely to commit suicide, and five times more likely to be killed by lightning. more capable of wiggling the ears. During the 1970s, many scholars worried that studies of such gender differences might reinforce stereotypes. Would gender differences be construed as women’s deficits? Although the findings confirm some stereotypes of women—as less physically aggressive, more nurturant, and more socially sensitive—those traits are not only celebrated by many feminists but also preferred by most people, whether male or female (Prentice & Carranza, 2002; Swim, 1994). Small wonder, then, that most people rate their beliefs and feelings regarding women as more favorable than their feelings regarding men (Eagly, 1994; Haddock & Zanna, 1994). Let’s compare men’s and women’s social connections, dominance, aggressiveness, and sexuality. Once we have described these few differences, we can then consider how the evolutionary and cultural perspectives might explain them. Do gender differences reflect natural selection? Are they culturally constructed—a reflection of the roles that men and women often play and the situations in which they act? Or do genes and culture both bend the genders? Independence versus Connectedness “There should be no qualms about the forthright study of racial and gender differences; science is in desperate need of good studies that... inform us of what we need to do to help underrepresented people to succeed in this society. Unlike the ostrich, we cannot afford to hide our heads for fear of socially uncomfortable discoveries.” —DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGIST SANDRA SCARR (1988) Individual men display outlooks and behavior that vary from fierce competitiveness to caring nurturance. So do individual women. Without denying that, psychologists Nancy Chodorow (1978, 1989), Jean Baker Miller (1986), and Carol Gilligan and her colleagues (1982, 1990) have contended that women more than men give priority to close, intimate relationships. PLAY Compared with boys, girls talk more intimately and play less aggressively, notes Eleanor Maccoby (2002) from her decades of research on gender development. They also play in smaller groups, often talking with one friend, while boys more often do larger group activities (Rose & Rudolph, 2006). And as they each interact with their own gender, their differences grow. FRIENDSHIP As adults, women in individualist cultures describe themselves in more relational terms, welcome more help, experience more relationship-linked emotions, and are more attuned to others’ relationships (Addis & Mahalik, 2003; Gabriel & Gardner, 1999; Tamres & others, 2002; Watkins & others, 1998, 2003). In conversation, men more often focus on tasks and on connections with large groups, women on personal relationships (Tannen, 1990). When on the phone, women’s conversations with friends last longer (Smoreda & Licoppe, 2000). When on the computer, women spend more time sending e-mails, in which they express more emotion (Crabtree, 2002; Thomson & Murachver, 2001). When in groups, women share more of their lives, and offer more support (Dindia & Allen, 1992; Eagly, 1987). When facing stress, men tend to respond with “fight or flight”; often, their response to a threat is combat. In nearly all studies, notes Shelley Taylor (2002), women who are under stress more often “tend and befriend”; they turn to friends and family for support. Among first-year college students, 5 in 10 males and 7 in 10 females say it is very important to “help others who are in difficulty” (Sax & others, 2002). “In the different voice of women lies the truth of an ethic of care.” —CAROL GILLIGAN, IN A DIFFERENT VOICE, 1982 170 Part Two Social Influence Girls’ play is often in small groups and imitates relationships. Boys’ play is more often competitive or aggressive. VOCATIONS In general, report Felicia Pratto and her colleagues (1997), men gravitate disproportionately to jobs that enhance inequalities (prosecuting attorney, corporate advertising); women gravitate to jobs that reduce inequalities (public defender, advertising work for a charity). Studies of 640,000 people’s job preferences reveal that men more than women value earnings, promotion, challenge, and power; women more than men value good hours, personal relationships, and opportunities to help others (Konrad & others, 2000; Pinker, 2008). Indeed, in most of the North American caregiving professions, such as social worker, teacher, and nurse, women outnumber men. And worldwide, women’s vocational interests, compared with men’s, usually relate more to people and less to things (Lippa, 2008a). “Contrary to what many FAMILY RELATIONS Women’s connections as mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers bind families (Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Women spend more time caring for both preschoolers and aging parents (Eagly & Crowley, 1986). Compared with men, they buy three times as many gifts and greeting cards, write two to four times as many personal letters, and make 10 to 20 percent more long-distance calls to friends and family (Putnam, 2000). Asked to provide photos that portray who they are, women include more photos of parents and of themselves with others (Clancy & Dollinger, 1993). For women, especially, a sense of mutual support is crucial to marital satisfaction (Acitelli & Antonucci, 1994). women believe, it’s fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever.” —DAVE BARRY, DAVE BARRY’S COMPLETE GUIDE TO GUYS, 1995 empathy The vicarious experience of another’s feelings; putting oneself in another’s shoes. SMILING Smiling, of course, varies with situations. Yet across more than 400 studies, women’s greater connectedness has been expressed in their generally higher rate of smiling (LaFrance & others, 2003). For example, when Marianne LaFrance (1985) analyzed 9,000 college yearbook photos and when Amy Halberstadt and Martha Saitta (1987) studied 1,100 magazine and newspaper photos and 1,300 people in shopping malls, parks, and streets, they consistently found that females were more likely to smile. EMPATHY When surveyed, women are far more likely to describe themselves as having empathy, or being able to feel what another feels—to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. To a lesser extent, the empathy difference extends to laboratory studies. Shown slides or told stories, girls react with more empathy (Hunt, 1990). Given upsetting experiences in the laboratory or in real life, women more than men express empathy for others enduring similar experiences (Batson & others, 1996). Observing another receiving pain after misbehaving, women’s empathy-related brain circuits display elevated activity even when men’s do not—after the other had misbehaved (Singer & others, 2006). Women are more likely to cry or report feeling distressed at another’s distress (Eisenberg & Lennon, 1983). In a 2003 Gallup poll, 12 percent of American men, and 43 percent of women, reported having cried as a result of the war in Iraq. Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 171 © Michael Jantze. With permission of TheNorm.com Publishing. All of these differences help to explain why, compared with friendships with men, both men and women report friendships with women to be more intimate, enjoyable, and nurturing (Rubin, 1985; Sapadin, 1988). When you want empathy and understanding, someone to whom you can disclose your joys and hurts, to whom do you turn? Most men and women usually turn to women. One explanation for this male-female empathy difference is that women tend to outperform men at reading others’ emotions. In her analysis of 125 studies of men’s and women’s sensitivity to nonverbal cues, Judith Hall (1984) discerned that women are generally superior at decoding others’ emotional messages. For example, shown a 2-second silent film clip of the face of an upset woman, women guess more accurately whether she is criticizing someone or discussing her divorce. Women also are more often strikingly better than men at recalling others’ appearance, report Marianne Schmid Mast and Judith Hall (2006). Finally, women are more skilled at expressing emotions nonverbally, says Hall. This is especially so for positive emotion, report Erick Coats and Robert Feldman (1996). They had people talk about times they had been happy, sad, and angry. When shown 5-second silent video clips of those reports, observers could much more accurately discern women’s than men’s emotions when recalling happiness. Men, however, were slightly more successful in conveying anger. Social Dominance Imagine two people: One is “adventurous, autocratic, coarse, dominant, forceful, independent, and strong.” The other is “affectionate, dependent, dreamy, emotional, submissive, and weak.” If the first person sounds more to you like a man and the second like a woman, you are not alone, report John Williams and Deborah Best (1990, p. 15). From Asia to Africa and Europe to Australia, people rate men as more dominant, driven, and aggressive. Moreover, studies of nearly 80,000 people across 70 countries show that men more than women rate power and achievement as important (Schwartz & Rubel, 2005). These perceptions and expectations correlate with reality. In essentially every society, men are socially dominant. In no known societies do women usually dominate men (Pratto, 1996). As we will see, gender differences vary greatly by culture, and gender differences are shrinking in many industrialized societies as women assume more managerial and leadership positions. Yet consider: Women in 2008 were but 18 percent of the world’s legislators (IPU, 2008). Men more than women are concerned with social dominance and are more likely to favor conservative political candidates and programs that preserve group inequality (Eagly & others, 2004; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). In 2005, American men, by wide margins, were more supportive of capital punishment and the Iraq war (Gallup, 2005; Newport, 2007a). What do you think: Should Western women become more self-reliant and more attuned to their culture’s individualism? Or might women’s relational approach to life help transform poweroriented Western societies (marked by high levels of child neglect, loneliness, and depression) into more caring communities? Because they are generally empathic and skilled at reading others’ emotions, girls are less vulnerable to autism, which to Simon Baron-Cohen (2004, 2005) represents an “extreme male brain.” 172 Part Two Social Influence Men are half of all jurors but have been 90 percent of elected jury leaders; men are also the leaders of most ad hoc laboratory groups (Colarelli & others, 2006; Davis & Gilbert, 1989; Kerr & others, 1982). Women’s wages in industrial countries average 77 percent of men’s. Only about one-fifth of this wage gap is attributable to gender differences in education, work experience, or job characteristics (World Bank, 2003). As is typical of those in higher-status positions, men initiate most of the inviting for first dates, do most of the driving, and pick up most of the tabs (Laner & Ventrone, 1998, 2000). Men’s style of communicating undergirds their social power. In situations where roles aren’t rigidly scripted, men tend to be more autocratic, women more democratic (Eagly & Carli, 2007). In leadership © The New Yorker Collection, 1995, J. B. Handelsman, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. roles, men tend to excel as directive, taskfocused leaders; women excel more often in the “transformational” leadership that is favored by more and more organizations, with inspirational and social skills that build team spirit. Men more than women place priority on winning, getting ahead, and dominating others (Sidanius & others, 1994). This may explain why people’s preference for a male leader is greater for competitions between groups, such as when countries are at war, than when conflicts occur within a group (Van Vugt & Spisak, 2008). Men also take more risks (Byrnes & others, 1999). One study of data from 35,000 stock broker accounts found that “men are more overconfident than women” and therefore made 45 percent more stock trades (Barber & Odean, 2001). Because trading costs money, and because men’s trades proved no more successful, their results underperformed the stock market by 2.65 percent, compared with women’s 1.72 percent underperformance. The men’s trades were riskier—and the men were the poorer for it. In writing, women tend to use more communal prepositions (“with”), fewer quantitative words, and more present tense. One computer program, which taught itself to recognize gender differences in word usage and sentence structure, successfully identified the author’s gender in 80 percent of 920 British fiction and nonfiction works (Koppel & others, 2002). In conversation, men’s style reflects their concern for independence, women’s for connectedness. Men are more likely to act as powerful people often do—talking assertively, interrupting intrusively, touching with the hand, staring more, smiling less (Leaper & Ayres, 2007). Stating the results from a female perspective, women’s Some gender differences do not correlate with status and influence style tends to be more indirect—less interruptive, more sensitive, more power. For example, women polite, less cocky. at all status levels tend to So is it right to declare (in the title words of one 1990s best seller), Men Are from smile more (Hall & others, Mars, Women Are from Venus? Actually, note Kay Deaux and Marianne LaFrance 2005). (1998), men’s and women’s conversational styles vary with the social context. Much of the style we attribute to men is typical of people (men and women) in positions of status and power (Hall & others, 2006). For example, students nod more when speaking with professors than when speaking with peers, and women nod more than men (Helweg-Larsen & others, 2004). Men—and people in high-status Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 173 roles—tend to talk louder and to interrupt more (Hall & others, 2005). Moreover, individuals vary; some men are characteristically hesitant and deferential, some women direct and assertive. To suggest that women and men are from different emotional planets greatly oversimplifies. Aggression By aggression, psychologists mean behavior intended to hurt. Throughout the world, hunting, fighting, and warring are primarily male activities (Wood & Eagly, 2007). In surveys, men admit to more aggression than do women. In laboratory experiments, men indeed exhibit more physical aggression, for example, by administering what they believe are hurtful electric shocks (Knight & others, 1996). In Canada, the maleto-female arrest ratio is 9 to 1 for murder (Statistics Canada, 2008). In the United States, where 92 percent of prisoners are male, it is 9 to 1 (FBI, 2008). Almost all suicide terrorists have been young men (Kruglanski & Golec de Zavala, 2005). So also are nearly all battlefield deaths and death row inmates. But once again the gender difference fluctuates with the context. When there is provocation, the gender gap shrinks (Bettencourt & Kernahan, 1997; Richardson, 2005). And within less assaultive forms of aggression—say, slapping a family member, throwing © The New Yorker Collection, 1995, Donald Reilly, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. something, or verbally attacking someone—women are no less aggressive than men (Björkqvist, 1994; White & Kowalski, 1994). Indeed, says John Archer aggression (2000, 2004, 2007) from his statistical digests of dozens of studies, women may be Physical or verbal behavior slightly more likely to commit indirect aggressive acts, such as spreading malicious intended to hurt someone. gossip. But all across the world and at all ages, men much more often injure others In laboratory experiments, with physical aggression. Sexuality There is also a gender gap in sexual attitudes and assertiveness. It’s true that in their physiological and subjective responses to sexual stimuli, women and men are “more similar than different” (Griffitt, 1987). Yet consider: “I can imagine myself being comfortable and enjoying ‘casual’ sex with different partners,” agreed 48 percent of men and 12 percent of women in an Australian survey (Bailey & others, 2000). One 48-nation study showed country-by-country variation in acceptance of unrestricted sexuality, ranging from relatively promiscuous Finland to relatively monogamous Taiwan (Schmitt, 2005). But in every one of the 48 countries studied, it was the men who expressed more desire for unrestricted sex. Likewise, when the BBC surveyed more than 200,000 people in 53 nations, men everywhere more strongly agreed that “I have a strong sex drive” (Lippa, 2008b). The American Council on Education’s recent survey of a quarter million firstyear college students offers a similar finding. “If two people really like each other, it’s all right for them to have sex even if they’ve known each other for only a very short time,” agreed 58 percent of men but only 34 percent of women (Pryor & others, 2005). this might mean delivering electric shocks or saying something likely to hurt another’s feelings. 174 Part Two Social Influence In a survey of 3,400 randomly selected 18- to 59-year-old Americans, half as many men (25 percent) as women (48 percent) cited affection for the partner as a reason for first intercourse. How often do they think about sex? “Every day” or “several times a day,” said 19 percent of women and 54 percent of men (Laumann & others, 1994). Ditto Canadians, with 11 percent of women and 46 percent of men saying “several times a day” (Fischstein & others, 2007). The gender difference in sexual attitudes carries over to behavior. “With few exceptions anywhere in the world,” reported cross-cultural psychologist Marshall Segall and his colleagues (1990, p. 244), “males are more likely than females to initiate sexual activity.” Compared with lesbians, gay men also report more interest in uncommitted sex, more frequent sex, more responsiveness to visual stimuli, and more concern with partner attractiveness (Bailey & others, 1994; Peplau & Fingerhut, 2007; Schmitt, 2007). The 47 percent of coupled American lesbians is double the 24 percent of gay men who are coupled (Doyle, 2005). Among those electing civil unions in Vermont and same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, two-thirds have been female couples (Belluck, 2008; Rothblum, 2007). “It’s not that gay men are oversexed,” observes Steven Pinker (1997). “They are simply men whose male desires bounce off other male desires rather than off female desires.” Indeed, observe Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs (2004; Baumeister & others, 2001), not only do men fantasize more about sex, have more permissive attitudes, and seek more partners, they also are more quickly aroused, desire sex more often, masturbate more frequently, are less successful at celibacy, refuse sex less often, take more risks, expend more resources to gain sex, and prefer more sexual variety. One survey asked 16,288 people from 52 nations how many sexual partners they desired in the next month. Among those unattached, 29 percent of men and 6 percent of women wanted more than one partner (Schmitt, 2003, 2005). These results were identical for straight and gay people (29 percent of gay men and 6 percent of lesbians desired more than one partner). “Everywhere sex is understood to be something females have that males want,” offered anthropologist Donald Symons (1979, p. 253). Small wonder, say Baumeister and Vohs, that cultures everywhere attribute greater value to female than male sexuality, as indicated in gender asymmetries in prostitution and courtship, where men generally offer money, gifts, praise, or commitment in implicit exchange for a woman’s sexual engagement. In human sexual economics, they note, women rarely if ever pay for sex. Like labor unions opposing “scab labor” as undermining the value of their own work, most women oppose other women’s offering “cheap sex,” which reduces the value of their own sexuality. Across 185 countries, the more scarce are available men, the higher is the teen pregnancy rate—because when men are scarce “women compete against each other by offering sex at a lower price in terms of commitment” (Barber, 2000; Baumeister & Vohs, 2004). When women are scarce, as is increasingly the case in China and India, the market value of their sexuality rises and they are able to command greater commitment. Sexual fantasies, too, express the gender difference (Ellis & Symons, 1990). In male-oriented erotica, women are unattached and lust driven. In romance novels, whose primary market is women, a tender male is emotionally consumed by his devoted passion for the heroine. Social scientists aren’t the only ones to have noticed. “Women can be fascinated by a four-hour movie with subtitles wherein the entire plot consists of a man and a woman yearning to have, but never actually having a relationship,” observes humorist Dave Barry (1995). “Men HATE that. Men can take maybe 45 seconds of yearning, and they want everybody to get naked. Followed by a car chase. A movie called ‘Naked People in Car Chases’ would do really well among men.” Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 175 © The New Yorker Collection, 2003, Alex Gregory, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. As detectives are more intrigued by crime than virtue, so psychological detectives are more intrigued by differences than similarities. Let us therefore remind ourselves: Individual differences far exceed gender differences. Females and males are hardly opposite (altogether different) sexes. Rather, they differ like two folded hands—similar but not the same, fitting together yet differing as they grasp each other. Summing Up: How Are Gender Similarities and Differences Explained? Boys and girls, and men and women, are in many ways alike. Yet their differences attract more attention than their similarities. on earth, men tend to have more social power and are more likely than women to engage in physical aggression. Social psychologists have explored gender differences in independence versus connectedness. Women typically do more caring, express more empathy and emotion, and define themselves more in terms of relationships. Sexuality is another area of marked gender differences. Men more often think about and initiate sex, whereas women’s sexuality tends to be inspired by emotional passion. Men and women also tend to exhibit differing social dominance and aggression. In every known culture Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes Naturally? In explaining gender differences, inquiry has focused on two influences: evolution and culture. “What do you think is the main reason men and women have different personalities, interests, and abilities?” asked the Gallup Organization (1990) in a national survey. “Is it mainly because of the way men and women are raised, or are the differences part of their biological makeup?” Among the 99 percent who answered the question (apparently without questioning its assumptions), about the same percentage answered “upbringing” as said “biology.” 176 Part Two Social Influence © The New Yorker Collection, 1991, Ed Frascino, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved. There are, of course, certain salient biological sex differences. Men’s genes predispose the muscle mass to hunt game; women’s the capability to breastfeed infants. Are biological sex differences limited to such obvious distinctions in reproduction and physique? Or do men’s and women’s genes, hormones, and brains differ in ways that also contribute to behavioral differences? Gender and Mating Preferences In species for which males provide more parental investment than females, notes evolutionary psychologist David Schmitt (2006), males have a longerterm mating strategy, are more discriminating among potential mates, and die later. Noting the worldwide persistence of gender differences in aggressiveness, dominance, and sexuality, evolutionary psychologist Douglas Kenrick (1987) suggested, as have many others since, that “we cannot change the evolutionary history of our species, and some of the differences between us are undoubtedly a function of that history.” Evolutionary psychology predicts no sex differences in all those domains in which the sexes faced similar adaptive challenges (Buss, 1995b). Both sexes regulate heat with sweat. The two have similar taste preferences to nourish their bodies. And they both grow calluses where the skin meets friction. But evolutionary psychology does predict sex differences in behaviors relevant to dating, mating, and reproduction. Consider, for example, the male’s greater sexual initiative. The average male produces many trillions of sperm in his lifetime, making sperm cheap compared with eggs. (If you happen to be an average man, you will make more than 1,000 sperm while reading this sentence.) Moreover, whereas a female brings one fetus to term and then nurses it, a male can spread his genes by fertilizing many females. Women’s investment in childbearing is, just for starters, nine months; men’s investment may be nine seconds. Thus, say evolutionary psychologists, females invest their reproductive opportunities carefully, by looking for signs of resources and commitment. Males compete with other males for chances to win the genetic sweepstakes by sending their genes into the future, and thus look for healthy, fertile soil in which to plant their seed. Women want to find men who will help them tend the garden—resourceful and monogamous dads rather than wandering cads. Women seek to reproduce wisely, men widely. Or so the theory goes. Moreover, evolutionary psychology suggests, the physically dominant males were the ones who excelled in gaining access to females, which over generations enhanced male aggression and dominance as the less aggressive males had fewer chances to reproduce. Whatever genes helped Montezuma II to become Aztec king were also given to his offspring, along with those from many of the 4,000 women in his harem (Wright, 1998). If our ancestral mothers benefited from being able to read their infants’ and suitors’ emotions, then natural selection may have similarly Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 177 FIGURE :: 5.5 Human Mating Preferences David Buss and 50 collaborators surveyed more than 10,000 people from all races, religions, and political systems on six continents and five islands. Everywhere, men preferred attractive physical features suggesting youth and health— and reproductive fitness. Everywhere, women preferred men with resources and status. Source: From Buss (1994b). favored emotion-detecting ability in females. Underlying all these presumptions is a principle: Nature selects traits that help send one’s genes into the future. Little of this process is conscious. Few people in the throes of passion stop to think, “I want to give my genes to posterity.” Rather, say evolutionary psychologists, our natural yearnings are our genes’ way of making more genes. Emotions execute evolution’s dispositions, much as hunger executes the body’s need for nutrients. Medical researcher and author Lewis Thomas (1971) captured the idea of hidden evolutionary predispositions in his fanciful description of a male moth responding to a female’s release of bombykol, a single molecule of which will tremble the hairs of any male within miles and send him driving upwind in ardor. But it is doubtful if the moth has an awareness of being caught in an aerosol of chemical attractant. On the contrary, he probably finds suddenly that it has become an excellent day, the weather remarkably bracing, the time appropriate for a bit of exercise of the old wings, a brisk turn upwind. “Humans are living fossils—collections of mechanisms produced by prior selections pressures,” says David Buss (1995a). And that, evolutionary psychologists believe, helps explain not only male aggression but also the differing sexual attitudes and behaviors of females and males. Although a man’s interpretation of a woman’s smile as sexual interest usually proves wrong, occasionally being right can have reproductive payoff. Evolutionary psychology also predicts that men will strive to offer what women will desire—external resources and physical protection. Male peacocks strut their feathers; male humans, their abs, Audis, and assets. In one experiment, teen males rated “having lots of money” as more important after they were put alone in a room with a teen female (Roney, 2003). “Male achievement is ultimately a courtship display,” says Glenn Wilson (1994). And women may balloon their breasts, Botox their wrinkles, and liposuction their fat to offer men the youthful, healthy appearance (connoting fertility) that men desire—while, in some experiments, demeaning the success and appearance of other attractive women (Agthe & others, 2008; Vukovic & others, 2008). Sure enough, note Buss (1994a) and Alan Feingold (1992a), women’s and men’s mate preferences extend these observations. Consider: Studies in 37 cultures, from Australia to Zambia, reveal that men everywhere feel attracted to women whose physical features, such as youthful faces and forms, suggest fertility. Women everywhere feel attracted to men whose wealth, power, and ambition promise resources for protecting and nurturing offspring (Figure 5.5). Men’s greater interest in physical form also makes them the consumers of most of the world’s visual pornography. But there are gender similarities, too: Whether residing on an Indonesian island or in urban São Paulo, both women and men desire kindness, love, and mutual attraction. “A hen is only an egg‘s way of making another egg.” —SAMUEL BUTLER, 1835–1901 178 Part Two Social Influence Larry King, 25 years older than seventh wife, Shawn Southwick-King. Men everywhere tend to be most attracted to women whose age and features suggest peak fertility. For teen boys, this is a woman several years older than themselves. For mid-20s men, it’s women their own age. For older men, it’s younger women, and the older the man, the greater the age difference he prefers when selecting a mate (Kenrick & others, 2009). One finds this pattern worldwide, in European singles ads, Indian marital ads, and marriage records from the Americas, Africa, and the Philippines (Singh, 1993; Singh & Randall, 2007). Women of all ages prefer men just slightly older than themselves. Once again, say the evolutionary psychologists, we see that natural selection predisposes men to feel attracted to female features associated with fertility. Reflecting on those findings, Buss (1999) reports feeling somewhat astonished “that men and women across the world differ in their mate preferences in precisely the ways predicted by the evolutionists. Just as our fears of snakes, heights, and spiders provide a window for viewing the survival hazards of our evolutionary ancestors, our mating desires provide a window for viewing the resources our ancestors needed for reproduction. We all carry with us today the desires of our successful forebearers.” Reflections on Evolutionary Psychology Outside mainstream science, other critics challenge the teaching of evolution. (See “Focus On: Evolutionary Science and Religion.”) Without disputing natural selection—nature’s process of selecting physical and behavioral traits that enhance gene survival—critics see a problem with evolutionary explanations. Evolutionary psychologists sometimes start with an effect (such as the male-female difference in sexual initiative) and then work backward to construct an explanation for it. That approach is reminiscent of functionalism, a dominant theory in psychology during the 1920s, whose logic went like this: “Why does that behavior occur? Because it serves such and such a function.” You may recognize both the evolutionary and the functionalist approaches as examples of hindsight reasoning. As biologists Paul Ehrlich and Marcus Feldman (2003) have pointed out, the evolutionary theorist can hardly lose when employing hindsight. Today’s evolutionary psychology is like yesterday’s Freudian psychology, say such critics: Either theory can be retrofitted to whatever happens. The way to overcome the hindsight bias is to imagine things turning out otherwise. Let’s try it. Imagine that women were stronger and more physically aggressive than men. “But of course!” someone might say, “all the better for protecting their young.” And if human males were never known to have extramarital affairs, might we not see the evolutionary wisdom behind their fidelity? Because there is more to bringing offspring to maturity than merely depositing sperm, men and women both gain by investing jointly in their children. Males who are loyal to their mates and offspring are more apt to ensure that their young will survive to perpetuate their genes. Monogamy also increases men’s certainty of paternity. (These are, in fact, evolutionary explanations—again based on hindsight—for why humans, and certain other species whose young require a heavy parental investment, tend to pair off and be monogamous). Evolutionary psychologists reply that criticisms of their theories as being hindsightbased are “flat-out wrong.” They argue that hindsight plays no less a role in cultural explanations: Why do women and men differ? Because their culture socializes their behavior! When people’s roles vary across time and place, “culture” describes those roles better than it explains them. And far from being mere hindsight conjecture, say Genes, Culture, and Gender focusON Chapter 5 179 Evolutionary Science and Religion A century and a half after Charles Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species, controversy continues over his big idea: that every earthly creature is descended from another earthly creature. The controversy rages most intensely in the United States, where a Gallup survey reveals that half of adults do not believe that evolution accounts for “how human beings came to exist on Earth” (Newport, 2007b). This skepticism of evolution persists despite evidence, including modern DNA research, which long ago persuaded 95 percent of scientists that “human beings have developed over millions of years” (Gallup, 1996). For most scientists, mutation and natural selection explain the emergence of life, including its ingenious designs. For example, the human eye, an engineering marvel that encodes and transmits a rich stream of information, has its building blocks “dotted around the animal kingdom,” enabling nature to select mutations that over time improved the design (Dennett, 2005). Indeed, many scientists are fond of quoting the famous dictum of geneticist (and Russian Orthodox Church member) Theodosius Dobzhansky, “Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of evolution.” Alan Leshner (2005), the executive director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, laments the polarization caused by zealots at both the antiscience and the antireligious extremes. To resolve the growing science-religion tension, he believes “we must take every opportunity to make clear to the general public that science and religion are not adversaries. They can co-exist comfortably, and both have a place and provide important benefits to society.” There are many scientists who concur with Leshner, believing that science offers answers to questions such as “when?” and “how?” and that religion offers answers to “who?” and “why?” In the fifth century, St. Augustine anticipated today’s science-affirming people of faith: “The universe was brought into being in a less than fully formed state, but was gifted with the capacity to transform itself from unformed matter into a truly marvelous array of structures and forms” (Wilford, 1999). And the universe truly is marvelous, say cosmologists. Had gravity been a tiny bit stronger or weaker, or had the carbon proton weighed ever so slightly more or less, our universe—which is so extraordinarily right for producing life—would never have produced us. Although there are questions beyond science (why is there something rather than nothing?), this much appears true, concludes cosmologist Paul Davies (2004, 2007): Nature seems ingeniously devised to produce self-replicating, informationprocessing systems (us). Although we appear to have been created over eons of time, the end result is our wonderfully complex, meaningful, and hope-filled existence. evolutionary psychologists, their field is an empirical science that tests evolutionary predictions with data from animal behavior, cross-cultural observations, and hormonal and genetic studies. As in many scientific fields, observations inspire a theory that generates new, testable predictions (Figure 5.6). The predictions alert us to unnoticed phenomena and allow us to confirm, refute, or revise the theory. Critics nevertheless contend that the empirical evidence is not strongly supportive of evolutionary psychology’s predictions (Buller, 2005, 2009). They also worry that evolutionary speculation about sex and gender “reinforces male-female stereotypes” (Small, 1999). Might evolutionary explanations for gang violence, homicidal jealousy, and rape reinforce and justify male aggression as natural “boys will be boys” behaviors? But remember, reply the evolutionary psychologists, evolutionary wisdom is wisdom from the past. It tells us what behaviors worked in our early history as a species. Whether such tendencies are still adaptive today is an entirely different question. Evolutionary psychology’s critics acknowledge that evolution helps explain both our commonalities and our differences (a certain amount of diversity aids survival). But they contend that our common evolutionary heritage does not, by itself, predict the enormous cultural variation in human marriage patterns (from one spouse to a succession of spouses to multiple wives to multiple husbands to spouse swapping). Nor does it explain cultural changes in behavior patterns over mere decades of time. The most significant trait that nature has endowed us with, it seems, is the capacity to adapt—to learn and to change. Therein lies what we can all agree is culture’s shaping power. “Sex differences in behavior may have been relevant to our ancestors gathering roots and hunting squirrels on the plains of Northern Africa, but their manifestations in modern society are less clearly ‘adaptive.’ Modern society is information oriented—big biceps and gushing testosterone have less direct relevance to the president of a computer firm.” —DOUGLAS KENRICK (1987) 180 Part Two Social Influence General evolutionary theory Evolution by Natural Selection Theory of Reciprocal Altruism (see Chapter 14) Middle-level evolutionary theories Specific evolutionary hypotheses Specific predictions derived from hypotheses Theory of Parental Investment and Sexual Selection Theory of Parent-Offspring Conflict Hypothesis 1: In species where the sexes differ in parental investment, the higher-investing sex will be more selective in choice of mating partners. Hypothesis 2: Where males can and sometimes do contribute resources to offspring, females will select mates in part based on their ability and willingness to contribute resources. Hypothesis 3: The sex that invests less parentally in offspring will be more competitive with each other for mating access to the highinvesting sex. Prediction 1: Women have evolved preferences for men who are high in status. Prediction 2: Women have evolved preferences for men who show cues indicating a willingness to invest in them and their offspring. Prediction 3: Women will divorce men who fail to contribute expected resources or who divert those resources to other women and their children. FIGURE :: 5.6 Sample predictions derived from evolutionary psychology by David Buss (1995a). Gender and Hormones “The finest people marry the two sexes in their own person.” —RALPH WALDO EMERSON, JOURNALS, 1843 If genes predispose gender-related traits, they must do so by their effects on our bodies. In male embryos, the genes direct the formation of testes, which begin to secrete testosterone, the male sex hormone that influences masculine appearance. Studies indicate that girls who were exposed to excess testosterone during fetal development tend to exhibit more tomboyish play behavior than other girls (Hines, 2004). Other case studies have followed males who, having been born without penises, are reared as girls (Reiner & Gearhart, 2004). Despite their being put in dresses and treated as girls, most exhibit male-typical play and eventually—in most cases, not without emotional distress—come to have a male identity. The gender gap in aggression also seems influenced by testosterone. In various animals, administering testosterone heightens aggressiveness. In humans, violent male criminals have higher than normal testosterone levels; so do National Football League players and boisterous fraternity members (Dabbs, 2000). Moreover, for both humans and monkeys, the gender difference in aggression appears early in life (before culture has much effect) and wanes as testosterone levels decline during adulthood. No one of these lines of evidence is conclusive. Taken together, they convince many scholars that sex hormones matter. But so, as we will see, does culture. As people mature to middle age and beyond, a curious thing happens. Women become more assertive and self-confident, men more empathic and less domineering (Kasen & others, 2006; Lowenthal & others, 1975; Pratt & others, 1990). Genes, Culture, and Gender Hormone changes are one possible explanation for the shrinking gender differences. Role demands are another. Some speculate that during courtship and early parenthood, social expectations lead both sexes to emphasize traits that enhance their roles. While courting, providing, and protecting, men play up their macho sides and forgo their needs for interdependence and nurturance (Gutmann, 1977). While courting and rearing young children, young women restrain their impulses to assert and be independent. As men and women graduate from these early adult roles, they supposedly express more of their restrained tendencies. Each becomes more androgynous—capable of both assertiveness and nurturance. Chapter 5 181 androgynous From andro (man) ⫹ gyn (woman)—thus mixing both masculine and feminine characteristics. Summing Up: Evolution and Gender: Doing What Comes Naturally? Evolutionary psychologists theorize how evolution might have predisposed gender differences in behaviors such as aggression and sexual initiative. Nature’s mating game favors males who take sexual initiative toward females—especially those with physical features suggesting fertility—and who seek aggressive dominance in competing with other males. Females, who have fewer reproductive chances, place a greater priority on selecting mates offering the resources to protect and nurture their young. Critics say that evolutionary explanations are sometimes after-the-fact conjectures that fail to account for the reality of cultural diversity; they also question whether enough empirical evidence exists to support evolutionary psychology’s theories, and are concerned that these theories will reinforce troublesome stereotypes. Although biology (for example, in the form of male and female hormones) plays an important role in gender differences, social roles are also a major influence. What’s agreed is that nature endows us with a remarkable capacity to adapt to differing contexts. Culture and Gender: Doing as the Culture Says? Culture’s influence is vividly illustrated by differing gender roles across place and time. Culture, as we noted earlier, is what’s shared by a large group and transmitted across generations—ideas, attitudes, behaviors, and traditions. We can see the shaping power of culture in ideas about how men and women should behave. And we can see culture in the disapproval they endure when they violate those expectations (Kite, 2001). In countries everywhere, girls spend more time helping with housework and child care, and boys spend more time in unsupervised play (Edwards, 1991). Even in contemporary, dual-career, North American marriages, men do most of the household repairs and women arrange the child care (Bianchi & others, 2000; Fisher & others, 2007). Gender socialization, it has been said, gives girls “roots” and boys “wings.” Peter Crabb and Dawn Bielawski (1994) surveyed twentieth-century children’s books that received the prestigious Caldecott Award and found that the books showed girls four times more often than boys using household objects (such as broom, sewing needle, or pots and pans), and boys five times more often than girls using production objects (such as pitchfork, plow, or gun). For adults, the situation is not much different. “Everywhere,” reported the United Nations (1991), “women do most household work.” And “everywhere, cooking and dishwashing are the least shared household chores.” Analyses of who does what in 185 societies revealed that men hunt big game and harvest lumber, women do about 90 percent of the cooking and the laundry, and the sexes are equally likely to plant and harvest crops and to milk cows. Such behavior expectations for males and females define gender roles. gender role A set of behavior expectations (norms) for males and females. 182 Part Two Social Influence Three months after the southeast Asian tsunami on December 26, 2004, Oxfam (2005) counted deaths in eight villages and found that female deaths were at least triple those of men. (The women were more likely to be in or near their homes, near the shore, and less likely to be at sea or away from home on errands or at work.) “At the United Nations, we have always understood that our work for develop- Does culture construct these gender roles? Or do gender roles merely reflect men’s and women’s natural behavior tendencies? The variety of gender roles across cultures and over time shows that culture indeed helps construct our gender roles. ment depends on building a successful partnership with Gender Roles Vary with Culture the African farmer and her Despite gender role inequalities, the majority of the world’s people would ideally like to see more parallel male and female roles. A Pew Global Attitudes survey asked 38,000 people whether life was more satisfying when both spouses work and share child care, or when women stay home and care for the children while the husband provides. A majority of respondents in 41 of 44 countries chose the first answer (Figure 5.7). However, there are big country-to-country differences. Egyptians disagreed with the world majority opinion by 2 to 1, whereas Vietnamese concurred by 11 to 1. In its Global Gender Gap Report 2008, the World Economic Forum reported that Norway, Finland, and Sweden have the greatest gender equality, and Saudi Arabia, Chad, and Yemen the least. Even in industrialized societies, roles vary enormously. Women fill 1 in 10 managerial positions in Japan and Germany and nearly 1 in 2 in Australia and the United States (ILO, 1997; Wallace, 2000). In North America most doctors and dentists are men; in Russia most doctors are women, as are most dentists in Denmark. husband.” —SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN, 2002 In Western countries, gender roles are becoming more flexible. No longer is preschool teaching necessarily women’s work and piloting necessarily men’s work. Genes, Culture, and Gender “What kind of marriage do you think is the more satisfying way of life?” Both work/share child care Husband provides Russia United States Canada 58 37 Italy 74 24 Great Britain 71 23 Germany 80 18 France 86 13 66 26 Guatemala 64 36 Argentina 63 35 Mexico 68 32 Honduras Chapter 5 Mali Poland Ukraine Czech Rep. 56 42 60 39 64 36 70 28 Slovak Rep. 74 25 Bulgaria 74 23 Egypt 34 66 Pakistan 34 63 Jordan 37 62 Uzbekistan 58 42 Lebanon 64 35 Turkey 69 29 63 36 Tanzania 72 25 69 30 Kenya Brazil 78 21 Uganda Bolivia 81 18 South Africa 80 20 Venezuela 83 17 Nigeria 80 19 Peru 86 13 Senegal 83 17 Ghana 84 14 Angola 87 12 Ivory Coast 89 11 Indonesia 54 46 78 20 Bangladesh 55 45 79 20 Philippines 62 37 India 63 36 South Korea 65 34 Japan 66 32 China Vietnam FIGURE :: 5.7 Approved Gender Roles Vary with Culture Source: Data from the 2003 Pew Global Attitudes survey. Gender Roles Vary over Time In the last half-century—a thin slice of our long history—gender roles have changed dramatically. In 1938, just one in five Americans approved “of a married woman earning money in business or industry if she has a husband capable of supporting her.” By 1996, four in five approved (Niemi & others, 1989; NORC, 1996). In 1967, 57 percent of first-year American collegians agreed that “the activities of married women are best confined to the home and family.” In 2005, only 20 percent agreed (Astin & others, 1987; Pryor & others, 2005). (With the culture approaching a consensus on these matters, the questions are no longer asked in these surveys.) Behavioral changes have accompanied this attitude shift. In 1965 the Harvard Business School had never granted a degree to a woman. At the turn of the twentyfirst century, 30 percent of its graduates were women. From 1960 to 2005, women rose from 6 percent to 50 percent of U.S. medical students and from 3 percent to 50 percent of law students (AMA, 2004; Cynkar, 2007; Hunt, 2000; Richardson, 2005). In the mid-1960s American married women devoted seven times as many hours to housework as did their husbands; by the mid-1990s this was down to twice as many hours (Bianchi & others, 2000; Fisher & others, 2007). The changing male-female roles cross many cultures, as illustrated by women’s gradually increasing representation in the parliaments of nations from Morocco to 87 12 91 8 183 184 Part Two Social Influence In Western cultures, gender roles are changing, but not this much. DOONESBURY © 1989 G. B. Trudeau. Reprinted with permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved. Sweden (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; IPU, 2008). Such changes, across cultures and over a remarkably short time, signal that evolution and biology do not fix gender roles: Time also bends the genders. Peer-Transmitted Culture Cultures, like ice cream, come in many flavors. On Wall Street, men mostly wear suits and women often wear skirts and dresses; in Scotland, many men wear pleated skirts (kilts) as formal dress; in some equatorial cultures, men and women wear virtually nothing at all. How are such traditions preserved across generations? The prevailing assumption is what Judith Rich Harris (1998, 2007) calls The Nurture Assumption: Parental nurture, the way parents bring their children up, governs who their children become. On that much, Freudians and behaviorists—and your next-door neighbor—agree. Comparing the extremes of loved children and abused children suggests that parenting does matter. Moreover, children do acquire many of their values, including their political affiliation and religious faith, at home. But if children’s personalities are molded by parental example and nurture, then children who grow up in the same families should be noticeably alike, shouldn’t they? That presumption is refuted by the most astonishing, agreed-upon, and dramatic finding of developmental psychology. In the words of behavior geneticists Robert Plomin and Denise Daniels (1987), “Two children in the same family [are on average] as different from one another as are pairs of children selected randomly from the population.” The evidence from studies of twins and biological and adoptive siblings indicates that genetic influences explain roughly 50 percent of individual variations in personality traits. Shared environmental influences—including the shared home influence—account for only 0 to 10 percent of their personality differences. So what accounts for the other 40 to 50 percent? It’s largely peer influence, Harris argues. What children and teens care most about is not what their parents think but what peers think. Children and youth learn their culture—their games, their musical tastes, their accents, even their dirty words—mostly from peers. In hindsight, that makes sense. It’s their peers with whom they play and eventually will work and mate. Consider: Preschoolers will often refuse to try a certain food despite parents’ urgings— until they are put at a table with a group of children who like it. Genes, Culture, and Gender Chapter 5 185 Children learn many of their attitudes from their peers. Although children of smokers have an elevated smoking rate, the effect seems largely peer mediated. Such children more often have friends who model smoking, who suggest its pleasures, and who offer cigarettes. Young immigrant children whose families are transplanted into foreign cultures usually grow up preferring the language and norms of their new peer culture. They may “code-switch” when they step back into their homes, but their hearts and minds are with their peer groups. Likewise, deaf children of hearing parents who attend schools for the deaf usually leave their parents’ culture and assimilate into deaf culture. Ergo, if we left a group of children with their same schools, neighborhoods, and peers but switched the parents around, says Harris (1996) in taking her argument to its limits, they “would develop into the same sort of adults.” Parents have an important influence, but it’s substantially indirect; parents help define the schools, neighborhoods, and peers that directly influence whether their children become delinquent, use drugs, or get pregnant. Moreover, children often take their cues from slightly older children, who get their cues from older youth, who take theirs from young adults in the parents’ generation. The links of influence from parental group to child group are loose enough that the cultural transmission is never perfect. And in both human and primate cultures, change comes from the young. When one monkey discovers a better way of washing food or when people develop a new idea about fashion or gender roles, the innovation usually comes from the young and is more readily embraced by younger adults. Thus, cultural traditions continue, yet cultures change. Summing Up: Culture and Gender: Doing as the Culture Says? The most heavily researched of roles, gender roles, reflect biological influence, but also illustrate culture’s strong impact. The universal tendency has been for males, more than females, to occupy socially dominant roles. Gender roles show significant variation from culture to culture and from time to time. Much of culture’s influence is transmitted to children by their peers. 186 Part Two Social Influence FIGURE :: 5.8 A Social-Role Theory of Gender Differences in Social Behavior Various influences, including childhood experiences and factors, bend males and females toward differing roles. It is the expectations and the skills and beliefs associated with these differing roles that affect men’s and women’s behavior. Source: Adapted from Eagly (1987), and Eagly & Wood (1991). Gender-role expectations Socialization Division of labor between the sexes Other factors (e.g., biological influences) Gender differences in behavior Gender-related skills and beliefs What Can We Conclude about Genes, Culture, and Gender? Biology and culture play out in the context of each other. How, then, do biology and culture interact? And how do our individual personalities interact with our situations? Biology and Culture interaction A relationship in which the effect of one factor (such as biology) depends on another factor (such as environment). We needn’t think of evolution and culture as competitors. Cultural norms subtly yet powerfully affect our attitudes and behavior. But they don’t do so independent of biology. Everything social and psychological is ultimately biological. If others’ expectations influence us, that is part of our biological programming. Moreover, what our biological heritage initiates, culture may accentuate. If genes and hormones predispose males to be more physically aggressive than females, culture may amplify that difference through norms that expect males to be tough and females to be the kinder, gentler sex. Biology and culture may also interact. Advances in genetic science indicate how experience uses genes to change the brain (Quarts & Sejnowski, 2002). Environmental stimuli can activate genes that produce new brain cell branching receptors. Visual experience activates genes that develop the brain’s visual area. Parental touch activates genes that help offspring cope with future stressful events. Genes are not set in stone; they respond adaptively to our experiences. Biology and experience interact when biological traits influence how the environment reacts. Men, being 8 percent taller and averaging almost double the proportion of muscle mass, are bound to experience life differently from women. Or consider this: A very strong cultural norm dictates that males should be taller than their female mates. In one U.S. study, only 1 in 720 married couples violated that norm (Gillis & Avis, 1980). With hindsight, we can speculate a psychological explanation: Perhaps being taller helps men perpetuate their social power over women. But we can also speculate evolutionary wisdom that might underlie the cultural norm: If people preferred partners of their own height, tall men and short women would often be without partners. As it is, evolution dictates that men tend to be taller than women, and culture dictates the same for couples. So the height norm might well be a result of biology and culture. Alice Eagly and Wendy Wood (1999; Wood & Eagly, 2007) theorize how biology and culture interact (Figure 5.8). They believe that a variety of factors, including biological influences and childhood socialization, predispose a sexual division of labor. In adult life the immediate causes of gender differences in social behavior are the roles that reflect this sexual division of labor. Men, because of their biologically endowed strength and speed, tend to be found in roles demanding physical power. Genes, Culture, and Gender THE inside STORY Chapter 5 187 Alice Eagly on Gender Similarities and Differences I began my work on gender with a project on social influence in the early 1970s. Like many feminist activists of the day, I

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