Gender Identity: Nature and Nurture Working Together Author(s): Alice Eagly and Wendy Wood Source: Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture , Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 2017), pp. 59- 62 Published by: Academic Studies Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.26613/esic.1.1.10 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.26613/esic.1.1.10?seq=1&cid=pdf- reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Academic Studies Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture This content downloaded from 128.95.104.109 on Sun, 23 Aug 2020 07:25:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms ESIC 2017 Gender Identity: Nature and Nurture Working Together Alice Eagly and Wendy Wood Gender identity reflects the intertwined influ- of this biology, especially early hormones, may ences of nature and nurture. As social scientists directly affect children’s temperamental tenden- define the concept, gender identity is individ- cies, as manifested in, for example, activity level uals’ self-definition as female or male, which and early toy preferences (Hines 2013). is based on their biological sex as interpreted Awareness of oneself and others as male or within their culture (Eagly and Wood 2013; female, which emerges by around 18 months of Wood and Eagly 2015). When people describe age, further develops as children learn what this who they are, most indicate that being a man classification means in their culture through or woman or boy or girl is important to their observation of the behaviors and events linked overall identity. with each category (Baldwin and Moses 1996). The capacity to create a gendered self-defi- As children observe other boys and girls, they nition and to act on this identity in relating tend to imitate their own sex by, for example, to others has origins in human evolution. The playing with the same toys (e.g., Zosuls et al. apparent universality and critical functionality 2009). of gender identity suggests that it represents a Humans are highly altricial, and children psychological adaptation (Schmitt and Pilcher are extensively socialized. A great deal of this 2004). These identities help to coordinate socialization involves gender. Through obser- reproduction and childcare and are a central vation and direct experience, children learn to facilitator of the cooperative male-female divi- participate in the collaborative division of labor sion of labor that organizes human societies. As between the sexes in their society. For example, we shall explain, gender identities largely reflect they may observe female caretakers who provide and support male and female social roles in a feeding, dressing, and soothing and male care- culture. takers who engage in energetic and competitive The most basic aspect of gender identity play. This socialization includes role depictions is the existential sense of oneself as female or of males and females in story and song, media, male, which ordinarily reflects aspects of bio- and other cultural productions. Children’s logical sex (Miller 2015). Sexual development gender identities develop accordingly, with, for derives from XX or XY chromosomes, which example, many contemporary little boys choos- affect development in multiple ways, including ing firefighter outfits and little girls preferring the formation of gonads that release prenatal to be Disney princesses. early postnatal hormones (Arnold 2017). At a As children mature, their direct experiences very early age, children typically react to bio- and observations of the division of labor shape logical sex by learning that there are two sexes their ideas about the sexes into gender roles, and that they belong to one of these groupings which are consensually shared beliefs about (Martin and Ruble 2010). Children’s biology the attributes of women and men (Eagly and thus shapes their gender identity at this simple Wood 2012). People infer these psychologi- level of sex classification. Furthermore, aspects cal attributes to explain why women and men This content downloaded from 128.95.104.109 on Sun, 23 Aug 2020 07:25:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Alice Eagly and Wendy Wood engage in different activities in the division of behaviors in relevant social contexts. These bio- labor. Observations of the role-based activities logical processes stem from selection pressures of women and men thereby yield expectations that shaped the basic perceptual, sensory, and about each sex’s typical attributes—that is, motivational processes that humans share with stereotypes about women and men. These ste- other animals. Nature and nurture thus work reotypes broadly reflect the trait dimensions of together to facilitate gender role performance. communion (e.g., warmth, concern for others) In our analysis, societies’ division of labor is and agency (e.g., dominance, competitiveness). critical to the content of its gender roles and Additional stereotype components pertain to associated expectations and identities (Eagly physical attributes, activity preferences, and and Wood 2012). This division arises because cognitive abilities. In short, the social construc- women’s and men’s activities are constrained tion of gender in a society reflects its actual divi- by the interaction between the sexes’ biological sion of labor attributes and a society’s socioeconomic devel- Gender stereotypes function as shared expec- opment and ecology. Specifically, the roles of tations, or norms, that promote conformity in men and women arise mainly from the conflu- both sexes (Wood and Eagly 2012). People are ence of two sources: (1) each sex’s unique phys- aware of others’ gender-relevant expectations ical attributes and related behaviors, especially and by conforming they typically gain social women’s reproductive activities in the form of approval, whereas deviating yields social rejec- childbearing and nursing infants, and men’s tion. Thus, other people’s expectations are one greater size, speed, and upper-body strength, mechanism by which gender-role norms influ- and (b) the social, economic, technological, and ence behavior. ecological environments that a society presents Gender stereotypes also form the basis for at any one point in time. gender identities, as individuals incorporate These physical sex differences enable one the cultural meanings of gender into their own sex to perform some activities more easily and psyches. To the extent that people value their efficiently than the other sex. For example, female or male group membership, they tend to men more efficiently perform activities that are self-stereotype by ascribing typical feminine or highly strength-intensive. A critical issue for masculine attributes to themselves. For exam- further study is the extent to which the division ple, women may regard themselves as caring of labor fashioned within the society’s socioeco- and compassionate, and men may see them- nomic structure reflects biologically influenced selves as strong and competitive. psychological sex differences such as percep- People act on their gender identities through tual, motor, and spatial aptitudes (Baker and self-regulatory processes, by which they control Cornelson, 2016). their behavior in line with their identity (Wood As in all societies, a division of labor is evi- et al. 1997; Witt and Wood 2010). Both men dent in today’s industrialized societies. The and women experience positive affect when communal activities of women are apparent acting consistently with their personal gender in their employment in the expanding service, standards and negative affect when acting in educational, and health-care sectors of econ- ways that depart from these standards. omies (e.g., U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics The regulation of behaviors by gender iden- 2015). In addition, women still perform the tity and gender norms is accompanied by hor- majority of domestic work, even though most monal processes (e.g., Van Anders 2013). Thus, women are currently employed, and men hormonal changes, especially in testosterone, increasingly perform some childcare (e.g., oxytocin, and arginine vasopressin, generally Sayer 2016). Although women have entered facilitate culturally masculine and feminine many higher-status occupations that were once 60 Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture This content downloaded from 128.95.104.109 on Sun, 23 Aug 2020 07:25:46 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Gender Identity: Nature and Nurture Working Together male-dominated (e.g., professor, physician), In addition, contemporary conditions favor representation is low in specific areas. They are universalistic, gender-blind treatment of people underrepresented in things-oriented occupa- as employees and citizens (Jackson 1998). tions (e.g., many STEM fields and mechanical Reflecting these trends, the social roles of and construction trades; Lippa, Preston, and women and men have