Effects of Real Gender and Labeled Gender on Adults' Perceptions of Infants

Burnham, Denis K; Harris, Mary B.

doi:10.1080/00221325.1992.10753711

Cited by 24 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…These include the influence of maternal behavior on affective reactions, which can differ for male and female offspring (Burnham & Harris, 1992;Reid, 1994). Sex difference in anxiety and in coping strategies may also underlie the present findings (Cole & Sapp, 1988;Mak, Blewitt, & Heaven, 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Greater sustained anxiety but not phasic fear in women compared to men.

Grillon

2008

Emotion

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Startle reflex studies in rodents indicate that female are more reactive than rats in experimental models of sustained anxiety but not in models of phasic fear (Toufexis, 2007). This study examined evidence for a similar effect in humans. Participants were exposed to three conditions, (1) predictable aversive shocks signaled by a cue, (2) unpredictable shocks, and (3) no shocks. Acoustic startle stimuli were delivered regularly across conditions. Phasic startle potential to the threat cue in the predictable condition was not affected by sex. In contrast, and consistent with basic research, the sustained increase in startle in the predictable and unpredictable conditions was greater in women compared to men. Animal studies suggest that such an effect may be mediated by the effects of sexual dimorphism in limbic structures, including the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. However, psychosocial factors may also contribute to this effect. Keywords fear; anxiety; sex difference; startle; unpredictability The greater prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders among women compared to men (Kessler et al., 1994) points to a potential sex difference in reactivity to threat. Preclinical studies may provide clues as to the nature of this difference. A recent review focusing on animal models, using the startle reflex as an operational measure of aversive states, compared sex differences in two types of aversive responses, anxiety, a sustained state of distress to uncertain threat, and fear, a phasic defensive response to certain danger (Toufexis, 2007). Contrasting phasic and sustained aversive states was motivated by evidence of a neural differentiation between them, the former relying on the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) and the latter on the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST; Davis, 1998), as well as by an indication of strong sexual dimorphism in the BNST (Allen & Gorski, 1990). Toufexis concluded that BNST-mediated sustained potentiated startle (anxiety), but not cued specific fear-potentiated startle (fear), was increased in female rats compared to males.The present study examined evidence for a similar sex difference in humans, also using startle as a measure of aversive states. We have distinguished phasic fear to a predictable threat signaled by a cue from the more sustained contextual anxiety state during administration of predictable (certain) and unpredictable (uncertain) shocks (Grillon et al., 2006; Grillon, Baas, Lissek, Smith, & Milstein, 2004a). Based on Toufexis's review (Toufexis, 2007), we hypothesized that relative to men, women would show enhanced contextual-potentiated startle but not increased fear-potentiated startle to a threat cue.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Greater sustained anxiety but not phasic fear in women compared to men.

Grillon

2008

Emotion

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“…In both of these studies, participants all saw the same videos. The only things that affected their interpretations were their background stereotypes about gender (Burnham and Harris 1992).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stereotypes, theory of mind, and the action–prediction hierarchy

Westra

2017

Synthese

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Both mindreading and stereotyping are forms of social cognition that play a pervasive role in our everyday lives, yet too little attention has been paid to the question of how these two processes are related. This paper offers a theory of the influence of stereotyping on mental-state attribution that draws on hierarchical predictive coding accounts of action prediction. It is argued that the key to understanding the relation between stereotyping and mindreading lies in the fact that stereotypes centrally involve character-trait attributions, which play a systematic role in the action-prediction hierarchy. On this view, when we apply a stereotype to an individual, we rapidly attribute to her a cluster of generic character traits on the basis of her perceived social group membership. These traits are then used to make inferences about that individual's likely beliefs and desires, which in turn inform inferences about her behavior.

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“…Recent research suggests that mothers are more responsive to baby girls' vocalizations than to baby boys' (Johnson et al 2014). Gender-labeling studies show that differential treatment does not merely respond to underlying differences, but is rather imposed by our preexisting beliefs about sex/gender even when no such differences exist (Condry and Condry 1976;Burnham and Harris 1992). For example, when adults are asked to watch a video of a baby playing with a jack-in-the-box that suddenly pops up, their (experimentally manipulated) belief about the baby's sex affects their subsequent descriptions: when they believe it is a girl, they describe her as "afraid"; when they believe it is a boy, they see him as "angry."…”

Section: The Sex/reproduction Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extended Sex: An Account of Sex for a More Just Society

Ayala¹,

Vasilyeva²

2015

Hypatia

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We propose an externalist understanding of sex that builds upon extended and distributed approaches to cognition, and contributes to building a more just, diversity‐sensitive society. Current sex categorization practices according to the female/male dichotomy are not only inaccurate and incoherent (attributing nonreproductive properties to differences in vaguely defined reproductive roles), but they also ground moral and political pressures that harm and oppress people. We argue that a new understanding of sex is due, an understanding that would acknowledge the variability and, most important, the flexibility of sex properties, as well as the moral and political meaning of sex categorization. We propose an externalist account of sex, elaborating on extended and distributed approaches to cognition that capitalize on the natural capacity of organisms to couple with environmental resources. We introduce the notion of extended sex, and argue that properties relevant for sex categorization are neither exclusively internal to the individual skin, nor fixed. Finally, we spell out the potential of extended sex to support an active defense of diversity and an intervention against sex‐based discrimination.

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Effects of Real Gender and Labeled Gender on Adults' Perceptions of Infants

Cited by 24 publications

References 25 publications

Greater sustained anxiety but not phasic fear in women compared to men.

Greater sustained anxiety but not phasic fear in women compared to men.

Stereotypes, theory of mind, and the action–prediction hierarchy

Extended Sex: An Account of Sex for a More Just Society

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