You have been asked to address a group of high school teachers who are concerned about gender-role socialization in high school. They understand that there is increased pressure on adolescents to act in certain ways. They also want you to address any other issues on this topic that you believe are relevant, so they will be able to come up with a program to help their students move as smoothly as possible through adolescence.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Pressures to behave in sex-appropriate ways may temporarily intensify during middle adolescence. This idea, called the gender intensification hypothesis, is that many of the sex differences observed between adolescent boys and girls result from an acceleration in their socialization to act in stereotypically masculine and feminine ways. Even though individuals' beliefs about gender roles may become more flexible as they move through adolescence, largely as a result of the cognitive changes of the period, social pressures may drive teenagers toward more gender-stereotypic behavior. Indeed, the impact of environmental factors on gender-role behavior is much stronger than the impact of the hormonal changes of puberty. As teenagers age, it may become more important for them to act in ways that are consistent with gender-role expectations and that meet with approval in the peer group. Boys who do not act traditionally "masculine" enough and girls who do not act traditionally "feminine" enough may be less popular with and less accepted by their same-sex and opposite-sex peers. Although boys and girls who behave in gender-typical ways are more accepted than their peers whose behavior does not conform with gender-role stereotypes-and feel better about themselves as a result of this peer acceptance-the costs of being gender-atypical are greater for boys than girls. Specifically, males who do not conform to traditionally masculine gender-role norms are judged more deviant than are females whose behavior departs from exclusively feminine roles. Interestingly, however, boys who have a more traditionally masculine orientation, while higher in self-acceptance than other boys, are more likely to be involved in various types of problem behavior-perhaps because part of being masculine in contemporary society involves being "macho" enough to experiment with delinquency, drugs and alcohol, and unprotected sex.

Key Points:

a) Explain the gender intensification hypothesis (and what factors contribute to gender-stereotypic behavior).

b) Describe the results of pressure to act stereotypically "masculine" and stereotypically "feminine."