17 Module 17: Social Development

Many parents are proud of their children’s physical and cognitive developments. Milestones in social development, the third type of development, elicit very different emotions from some parents when they witness them for the first time. Sure, they are proud the first time their daughter walks across the room, but they are overjoyed the first time she runs into their arms and hugs them. An infant’s first smile, his obvious realization that you, his parent, will protect him and soothe his fears, his willingness or unwillingness to go to preschool without you, all are social developments, and for many parents, they are accompanied by strong emotions of happiness, fear, and even some sadness. And yes, some pride, too.

As we pointed out in Module 16, many key cognitive developments are closely related to social developments. This is particularly easy to see in infants. For example, think about the ability of newborn infants to recognize their mother’s voice as soon as they are born, or more generally, in infants’ apparent preference to attend to all things human. Clearly, these predispositions, abilities, and preferences are going to influence the processes through which children develop socially.

Cognitive developments might begin first, so they may be more fundamental, but one can make a good argument that social developments are really the goal. Infants and young children must use their fledgling cognitive abilities to learn how to get along in the world of other humans, that is, the social world. This module describes what some of the important social developments are and how they occur. Section 17.1 describes attachment, the emotional bonds that develop between an infant and one or more specific people, and how those bonds affect us throughout our lives. Section 17.2 covers issues related to the roles that parents and other caregivers play in their children’s early social development. It describes the effects of different parenting styles, and physical punishment. Section 17.3 focuses on Erik Erikson’s influential theory of psychosocial development and one of its major components, the development of our identity. Section 17.4 describes gender identity and explains how genders are different and how they are similar. Section 17.5 concludes the module with a discussion of the role of friendship in our social development.

Social Development

17.1 Developing Social Bonds: Attachment

17.2 Parenting Styles and Discipline

17.3 Developing Identity

17.4 Developing a Gender Identity

17.5 Friendship and Intimacy

READING WITH A PURPOSE

Remember and Understand

By reading and studying Module 17, you should be able to remember and describe:

• Attachment: Strange situation technique, secure attachment, resistant attachment, avoidant attachment, disoriented attachment (17.1)
• Parenting styles: authoritarian, permissive, authoritative, neglecting (17.2)
• Physical punishment (17.2)
• Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development (17.3)
• Components of identity: religiosity, ethnicity, nationality (17.3)
• Different gender identities (17.4)
• Gender differences and similarities (17.4)
• Changes in friendship over the lifespan (17.5)

Apply

By reading and thinking about how the concepts in Module 17 apply to real life, you should be able to:

• Recognize different attachment styles in young children (17.1)
• Recognize different parenting styles (17.2)
• Recognize examples of crises from Erikson’s theory (17.3)

Analyze, Evaluate, and Create

By reading and thinking about Module 17, participating in classroom activities, and completing out-of-class assignments, you should be able to:

• Recognize characteristics from attachment styles in your own relationships (17.1)
• Support your opinion about the use of physical punishment (17.2)

17.1 Social Bonds: Attachment

Our descriptions of infants so far have left out two of the most noticeable facts about them. First, they cry. Boy, do they cry. Surely, there must be some reason for this universal behavior. Second, infants are, shall we say, needy. They cannot feed or clean themselves, they cannot move around, they cannot keep themselves safe, and so on. To borrow from Blanche DuBois of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, they are completely “dependent on the kindness of strangers.” You probably realize that these two facts are related to each other. Infants’ primary way of expressing their needs is by crying. (By the way, although it is not critical for the points we want to make about crying, it is not a trivial observation that the characteristics of crying change as the infant develops, from a more-or-less automatic reflex to a conscious strategy; Thompson, 1998). What you may not realize is that these two facts are probably related to the most significant social development during the child’s first year. In essence, infants move from being interested in all people to having a strong emotional bond with one person (or a small number of people), often with an accompanying fear of others.

Consider crying for a moment. Adults are quite good at judging differences in distress or emotion in infants’ cries (Leger et al., 1996; Thompson et al., 1996). In addition, parents are good at recognizing their own child’s cry from other children’s (Gustafson et al., 1994). Finally, listening to an infant cry hurts. Really. Jeffrey Lorberbaum and his colleagues (1999) used fMRI to record brain activity while mothers listened to the sound of babies crying. The researchers found that the mothers’ brains were active in the anterior cingulate cortex, a cortex area that is involved in the emotional distress that accompanies physical pain (Rainville et al., 1997).

Think about it. Infants cry when they need something. Parents are good at telling when the need is urgent and when it is their own child, so they can respond appropriately. Listening to crying hurts, so they want to respond to it. It all fits together so well. This pattern of infants expressing needs and parents responding to the need is an important component of that shift from infants’ interest in humans in general to their emotional bond to individual people, as you will see in a moment.

Why Infants Are Attached to Caregivers

The emotional bond to specific people to which we have been referring is called attachment. Think about how some young children display this attachment when they are unsure but curious about a new situation—for example, a loud but interesting looking new person. They would grab onto their parent’s legs and cautiously peer at the person from between their knees. At these times, it is easy to think that attachment means that parent and child are physically attached. Although there are many times when the attachment seems like a physical one—for example, when you can see a young child clinging to a parent during a threatening situation—attachment is defined as the emotional bond between the child and the other person. The other person can be, and often is, a parent, but it really can be anyone, another caregiver, a grandparent, an older sibling, and so on.

Let us think about the purposes of attachment for a moment. We just noted that physical clinging is common when a child feels threatened. Perhaps being attached to a parent provides safety for the child. You might imagine, then, that attachment serves some biological purpose. In other words, perhaps it is adaptive; offspring that stay near their parents are more likely to survive; therefore, the tendency can be passed on to future generations (Bowlby, 1982). It is clear that some kind of bonding mechanism between parent and offspring occurs throughout the animal kingdom, suggesting that the adaptive, evolutionary, explanation is correct.

What, then, might be the specific benefits that the child derives from being attached to a parent? Because the mother is the sole biological source of nourishment for an infant, it seems reasonable to suppose that attachment helps the infant stay near its food source. If that is true, then you would expect a child to be more attached to the caregiver that provides food than to other caregivers. Indeed, infants often do have a stronger attachment bond to their mothers than to anyone else. Early psychologists, such as the behaviorists made these observations and drew the very same conclusion, namely that attachment bonds form because the mother provides nourishment for the infant. Like too many sensible and obvious conclusions, however, it is wrong. The relationship between nourishment and attachment is a correlation only. Recall that a correlation is simply a relationship between two variables, and we are not permitted to draw causal conclusions from correlations alone. Mothers, and for that matter many other kinds of caregivers, provide much more than simply nourishment.

The discovery that a separate factor was responsible for attachment required the ingenuity to separate the provision of nourishment from other factors, and the ability to conduct research designed to disrupt the attachment bond between a parent and offspring. Because such a study would be extremely unethical with human children, the important research was done by Harry Harlow with monkeys, during the 1950s. The factor that Harlow pitted against nourishment was body contact. Again, think about human infants. When they physically cling to a caregiver, it seems that they are rarely doing so to seek food. Rather, it is more likely comfort that they are seeking. Could it be that this comfort is the cause of the attachment bond? In his research, Harlow separated infant monkeys from their mothers and raised them with different kinds of “substitute mothers.” The substitutes were designed to provide nourishment, physical comfort (specifically, a soft, warm surface to cling to), or both. By varying these aspects of the substitute mothers, he was able to discover the importance of comfort over food. Specifically, some monkeys were raised with a single substitute mother that provided both comfort and food; this was a soft terrycloth “doll” that also provided food. Other monkeys were raised with the terrycloth mother and a separate “nourishment” mother, a wire model that simply provided the food. The results of the research were simple and straightforward. It did not really matter which substitute mother provided the food; the infant spent most of its time with the terrycloth “comfort” mother.

You can also access the video directly at: https://youtu.be/OrNBEhzjg8I

Attachment Styles

If you spend some time around different children, you will notice that they do not all seem equally attached to their parents. Furthermore, the differences among the children can be observed quite early, certainly within the first year. Some of you might think about that and conclude that the attachment differences between children must reflect some differences that they were born with. Others of you might conclude that something must have happened to the children early in life to lead to these differences. You may both be right.

First, let us describe the common differences in attachment that we can observe among children before turning to the possible reasons. Psychologist Mary Ainsworth pioneered the research technique that has been commonly used to assess what is known as attachment style (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Through this technique, known as the Strange Situation technique, four different attachment styles have been identified: secure attachment, and three styles of insecure attachment—resistant attachment, avoidant attachment, and disoriented attachment.

The Strange Situation research is frequently conducted when the child is about one year old. In a typical study, an observer watches while the child plays with the mother in the room. After a few minutes a new person enters the room to play with the child for a few minutes, then the mother leaves. Then, the new person leaves and the mother returns. For a few more minutes, the mother and stranger alternate being in the room with the child, and the child is even left alone for a short time. Although the reactions of the child to each change in the situation are recorded, it is the response when the mother returns that is key; how does the child act during the reunion?

• Securely attached children (about 65% of children in the US) are happily reunited with the mother. If they had been distressed by the mother leaving, they are easily calmed upon her return.
• Resistant attached children (about 10% – 15% of children in the US) appear angry when the mother returns. They may push her way, or fight to be put down.
• Avoidant attached children (about 10% – 15% of children in the US) display little response when the mother returns. It almost looks as if the infant did not even realize the mother was gone.
• Disoriented attachment (about 5 % – 10 % of children in the US) display inconsistent behaviors when the mother returns. They may appear disoriented and confused and may want to be picked up, only to scream when they are. They may also show distress again after calming down.

You can also access the video directly at: https://youtu.be/QTsewNrHUHU

So, what causes these differences in attachment style? Recall the discussion above about crying signifying an infant’s needs and parents responding to it. Although all parents may be motivated to respond to an infant crying, not all do so the same way. The pattern of responding by the mother when the child is in distress is closely related to the child’s attachment style. Mothers who are relatively unresponsive to their children often have children with avoidant attachment, mothers who respond inconsistently often have resistant or disoriented attached children, and mothers who respond appropriately often have securely attached children (Carbonell et al., 2002; Cox et al., 1992; Isabella, 1993). Although we have been talking primarily about attachment to the mother, it is true that infants can be attached to several individual people. For example, van IJzendoorn and De Wolff (1997) found that fathers’ responsiveness also predicts infants’ secure attachment. It appears, then, that the pattern of parent responding causes the attachment style. This conclusion, also based on a correlation, is sensible, obvious and this time, at least partially right.

There is additional evidence that helps us conclude that parents’ behavior influences the attachment style of an infant. For example, providing support services for at-risk mothers can increase secure attachment in their infants (Jacobson & Frye, 1991; Lyons-Ruth et al.. 1990). Also, there are cross-cultural differences in attachment style, which strongly suggests that experience (that is, parent responsiveness) also plays an important role. For example, van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg (1988) found that German infants were more likely than American and Japanese infants to have avoidant attachment. Japanese infants were more likely than American and German infants to have resistant attachment. In all three, however, secure attachment was the most common style.

There might be more to the story than parent responsiveness alone, however. As many parents of multiple children report, you can often recognize differences between children’s personalities soon after birth. Some children cry a lot and are difficult to console; others seem rather content, you might even say easygoing. It is possible that these differences, called temperament, are partly responsible for differences in attachment style (Kagan, 1987; 1998). Temperament refers to biologically-based differences in a person’s emotional and motor reactions to new stimuli, and tendencies regarding self-regulation. Also, because differences in temperament appear so early, they are very likely partially genetic (Ebstein et al., 2003).

To illustrate how it might work, suppose as a parent, you have a child with a difficult temperament; she cries frequently, and is very unpredictable and difficult to console. Sometimes when you pick her up, she stops crying right away, other times the crying goes on for hours. This type of behavior is essentially what a researcher would recognize as disoriented attachment. It is easy to imagine that your responding would grow to be inconsistent; sometimes you would respond right away, other times you might wait for a while. There you have it; a consistent pattern between the attachment style of the child and the responsiveness of the parent. But instead of parent responsiveness leading to attachment, we have infant temperament leading to attachment style, and then causing parent responsiveness.

Consequences of Attachment

Before moving on to a broader discussion of parenting behaviors, We should talk a little bit about why attachment has been such an important topic for psychologists to study. If attachment style manifests itself only in the Strange Situation research studies, psychologists’ attention to it would be a pretty pointless intellectual exercise. That appears not to be so. The attachment style that is established during infancy appears to be repeated in relationships with other people throughout life. It is as if infant attachment style forms a template that guides the developing child when forming later relationships (Sroufe & Fleeson, 1986). In an unexpected twist, genetics appears to play a stronger role in these attachment patterns for adolescents and adults than they do in the infant attachment we just described (Fearon et al., 2014; Franz et al., 2011).

Attachment style, as it turns out, ends up being related to a great deal of older child and adult social behavior. Researchers have examined the same children over time, a research design called a longitudinal study, in order to find out whether later behavior is indeed related to infant attachment style. A longitudinal study is a difficult and expensive way to do research, but it is the best way to discover changes in individual people. Studies have found that attachment style does predict later social behavior. For example, securely attached infants are more socially competent when they get older, are more empathetic, have higher self-esteem, and do better in school (Sroufe, et al. 2005; Urban et al. 1991). The most consistent attachment style over time is the disoriented attachment. Children with this style have problems with aggression and anger throughout the school years (Lyons-Ruth, 1996; Lyons-Ruth et al., 1997).

No one would claim that infant attachment style is the only determinant of social behavior during adulthood. Many life events, such as parents’ divorce, can also influence the way we form social relationships (Lewis, 1997). Even if it were the only important factor, infant attachment style can change as the child develops. Also, if the parent-child relationship changes—for example, the mother or father grows more or less responsive—the child’s attachment style might change along with it (Thompson, 2000).

17.2. Parenting Styles and Discipline

Parents differ from each other in much more than simply their responsiveness to their children. Some parents feel that their role is to control their children, and they employ harsh discipline, firm rules, and physical punishment. Others prefer to let children make their own choices and provide very few rules and little guidance. Still others think of themselves in more of a guiding role; they explain the purposes of rules and allow their children to develop as independent thinkers. Some parents spend a great deal of time with their children, others because of career and work obligations are with them for only a couple of hours each day. There are a great many aspects that we can use to describe differences among parents. Many of these differences influence the way that children develop socially, and they could be the topic of an entire book. Indeed, there are dozens of advice books covering many parenting strategies and behaviors. In this section, we will describe two key topics: parenting styles and physical punishment. Each has been the subject of substantial research and in some cases, significant news coverage.

Parenting styles

The most heavily researched difference among parents has probably been parenting style. Diana Baumrind (1989) identified four major styles of parenting: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and neglecting. Researchers over the years have found several differences in the adjustment of children whose parents have different parenting styles.

Authoritarian parents rule with very firm rules and harsh discipline, often using physical punishment. They seek to teach their children to obey. Permissive parents have few rules, instead letting the children set their own courses. Authoritative parents seek to guide their children to make the right choices. Although they have firm rules, similar to authoritarian parents, authoritative parents can be flexible; they allow the children some say in formulating rules. They see their role more to teach than to control; therefore, they spend a lot of time explaining reasons for rules to the children. The fourth style, disengaged or neglecting parents, is just what it sounds like, a parenting style marked by leaving the children alone. Of the four, it is clearly the worst style, and is actually a sufficient cause for a court to suspend someone’s parental rights.

Of course, the four styles are not equally effective. Children who have authoritative parents are better adjusted than those with authoritarian or permissive parents (and children of neglecting parents fare very poorly). Children of authoritative parents—particularly compared to children of authoritarian parents—are more independent, less anxious, and friendlier and more competent in social situations; they also have high self-esteem (Baumrind, 1989; 1991; Kaufmann et al,. 2000; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). This point is worth emphasizing because some people believe that harsh discipline is necessary to have well-behaved, well-adjusted children. There is very little evidence suggesting that such parenting is superior to authoritative parenting, and a great deal of evidence suggesting the opposite. For example, one study of 10,000 high school students across a wide range of ethnicities, family structures, socioeconomic statuses, and types of community found that children of authoritative parents tended to do better in school, were more self reliant, had less psychological distress, and had fewer behavior problems (Steinberg et al., 1991).

We also have a version of the third variable problem preventing us from concluding that parenting styles cause differences in adjustment. In short, one variable that could lead to both is genes; again, the description parallels what we just saw for attachment. Specifically, perhaps a parent is an easygoing, authoritative parent and a child an easygoing, well-adjusted child because of genes that they share. Behavioral genetics examinations of personality have revealed heritabilities for many personality characteristics in the 30%–50% range (Ebstein et al., 2003). In other words, about 30% to 50% of the variation in personality characteristics in the population can be attributed to genetic differences. The parent-child shared genetic contributions to personality could certainly account for some of the correspondence between parenting style and child outcomes.

Given the plausible directionality and third variable alternative explanations, you may be tempted to completely discount the role of parenting effects. A few psychologists have indeed assigned a minor role to parenting styles (Harris, 1995). What we really need is some experiments to help us draw the causal conclusion. Unfortunately, not many have been conducted. For example, Philip and Carolyn Cowan (2002) randomly assigned 100 couples with a child entering kindergarten to one of three groups: two groups participated in 16 weekly discussions with other parents (led by a pair of psychologists), and the third was a control group that had no discussions. One of the discussion groups had a special emphasis on parenting issues, and the other on marital issues. The Cowans found that parents in the parenting discussion group increased their authoritative parenting behavior, and as a result their children adapted to school better than the control group did. Even more interesting, the parents who participated in the marital discussion group also increased their authoritative parenting, and their children fared better in school, too.

Rather than continuing to look for straightforward parenting effects, many researchers have become interested in the possibility that parenting styles do not affect all children equally (Bates et al., 1998). Most psychologists believe that children’s adjustment reflects a combination of genetic effects, child-to-parent effects, parenting styles, and other environmental forces such as peer influences (Maccoby, 2002).

Physical Punishment

A parenting tool common in authoritarian parents, but present among all styles, is physical punishment, or spanking. The estimates of the frequency of physical punishment in the US vary widely, from 37% – 80% of parents (Gershoff et al., 2018; Finkelhor et al., 2019). The discrepancy largely results from different methodologies, particularly with respect to the ages of the children included in the study (younger children are more likely to be spanked than older children are). It is probably safe to say that the majority of parents in the US have used physical punishment, though.

The key question, of course, is does all this spanking create better children? This has been the subject of debates over the years. One of the key problems is that ethical concerns make it difficult to conduct the type of research that allow confident casual conclusions (of course, you remember that this is the experimental research design, right? If not, we recommend that you go back to Module 2, if not now, at least before your final exam in this class). The primary research method that has been used is a longitudinal design, which is technically a correlational design.

Further complicating matters, or so it seems, is the fact that the research is not entirely consistent. There are some studies that show spanking is associated with poorer outcomes, some that do not. And media accounts have continued to report these controversies, with article titles like Spanking Can Be an Appropriate Form of Child Discipline (Pingleton, 2014) and Meet the Scientists Who Haven’t Given Up on Spanking (Pelley, 2018). One final bit of apparent contradiction and complication: 30% of members of the American Psychological Association surveyed in 2016 did not agree that spanking is harmful to children (Gershoff, 2018). It is a requirement to have a PhD in psychology to be a member of APA, so this certainly seems like a legitimate scientific controversy that has not yet been settled.

But hold on, things are not so simple. Or is it things are not so complicated? We are starting to confuse ourselves here. Let us clarify. And we will start by simplifying: the science is largely settled. Spanking is harmful to children.

We will let the American Psychological Association speak for itself. From the Resolution on Physical Discipline of Children By Parents (APA, 2019):

“. . .the American Psychological Association recognizes that scientific evidence demonstrates the negative effects of physical discipline of children by caregivers and thereby recommends that caregivers use alternative forms of discipline that are associated with more positive outcomes for children.”

And how about the American Academy of Pediatrics, who have had a policy against physical punishment for many years? Here is an excerpt from their 2018 revision. It is their strongest statement against the practice yet:

“Parents, other caregivers, and adults interacting with children and adolescents should not use corporal punishment (including hitting and spanking), either in anger or as a punishment for or consequence of misbehavior, nor should they use any disciplinary strategy, including verbal abuse, that causes shame or humiliation.”

It is true that longitudinal studies are correlational. In essence, we are stuck with the same kinds of difficulties that we had when trying to draw conclusions about the roles of parent responsiveness on attachment and parenting style on adjustment. Physical punishment is consistently associated with negative outcomes, but is it the case that the spanking caused the poor outcomes, or that the poorly behaved children caused parents to spank them more? Gershoff et al. (2018) produced an excellent explanation of the scientific conclusion that physical punishment is harmful and ineffective, and they did it by following an important historical model. No one doubts that smoking causes lung cancer, despite the fact that there are no experimental studies on humans. Gershoff and her colleagues applied the same criteria used to evaluate the appropriateness of causal conclusions from the smoking-lung cancer non-experimental research to the research on physical punishment to produce a very convincing case that spanking causes poor outcomes and spanking does not produce better-behaved children.

So what are these poor outcomes to which we keep referring?

A well-known meta-analysis found that children who are spanked have lower levels of moral internalization (essentially, learning that what they did was wrong and taking responsibility for it), lower quality of parent-child relationship, worse childhood and adulthood mental health, higher childhood and adulthood levels of aggression, and higher childhood antisocial behavior (Gershoff 2002). Ouch.

The one “positive” outcome? Immediate compliance. The quotation marks, of course, are intended to convey that this only seems like a positive outcome. In reality, it is one of the key factors that lead parents to believe that spanking is effective. But even here, it is not doing what they think it is. Although spanking often stops a behavior in the short term, the long-term results are less promising. Essentially, children learn how to avoid the spanking, sometimes by making sure that they commit the behavior only in situations in which they are unlikely to be caught (Johnston, 1972). Picture the 13-year old who is spanked for using profanity at the dinner table. He is likely to stop swearing in the presence of his parents, but unlikely to do so with his friends.

Some critics have charged that research showing negative effects combined mild physical punishment with harsher punishment that crosses over the line to abuse, and that only lower quality studies have found negative effects. Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor (2016) conducted a new meta-analysis that addressed these concerns. They found separate effects for lower-level and harsher physical punishment. They also found no evidence that the size of the negative effects varied according to the measure of study quality they employed.

Still, spanking does have some adherents. Even they admit, however, that spanking should be occasional and mild (Baumrind et al,. 2002; Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005). The problem is, children are often judged most in need of a spanking when they have committed an act that has frustrated, insulted, or angered a parent. In short, the time that the parent probably most wants to spank the child is the exact time that the “mild swat” is most likely to spiral into an anger-fueled abusive episode. If parents accept the advice that they should wait until they are not angry when they spank, they force themselves to contradict one of the principles of the effective use of punishment. You might recall that consequences are much more effective at influencing behavior if they are immediate (Module 6). If it takes a parent an hour after a child’s infraction to calm down enough to administer a controlled swat, the time for the effective use of the punishment has long passed. Also, it is worth considering what the word discipline means; it comes from the same Latin root as the word disciple. It means to teach. The goal of discipline is not simply to stop unwanted behaviors; it is also to teach wanted behaviors. Punishment, physical or otherwise, is designed only to stop specific behaviors. There is no guarantee that unwanted behaviors will be replaced by appropriate ones.

What can we conclude from these sometimes confusing results about the role of parents? First, because of the genetics/temperament/personality issues, it is safe to say that parents’ behaviors are not as strong an influence as some believe. At the same time, few psychologists have gone so far as to say that parents are unimportant, rather that they are one of several influences. Second, there is growing agreement that a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting is inappropriate, so it can be difficult to track the individual influence of a parent’s behaviors. Third, there is a widespread, but not universal, agreement that the negative aspects of physical punishment outweigh any possible benefits. There is a good possibility that physical punishment and authoritarian parenting cause problems such as aggression, antisocial behavior, and poor relationships between parents and children. Keep in mind that very few psychologists are out there advocating strongly that physical punishment (and authoritarian parenting) is better than alternative techniques, only that they might not be worse.

Let us conclude this section by returning to two lingering problems. What about the news articles in favor of spanking and the 30% of APA members who are not against spanking? Well, part of the answer comes from the seven tips for evaluating information that we shared with you in Module 1. In particular, we think a version of what we called the myth of two equal sides is going on with respect to the evaluation of research. The number of studies that find that spanking is not harmful is quite small. The overall evaluation of the whole body of research has led to the two most appropriate professional associations (the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics) to produce unequivocal recommendations that parents NOT use physical punishment under any circumstances. As for the 30% of APA members, we cannot be sure because we do not know who the respondents are, but there are a significant number of psychologists who do not endorse a scientific, evidence-based approach to psychology. We believe this is a serious problem in the discipline and will describe it more fully in Module 31.

17.3. Development of Identity: Learning Who You Are

Life is hard. And we are not even talking about school. Throughout your life you have had to learn how to survive in the physical and social world. You had to learn which kinds of situations were safe and how to navigate the social landscape. There were friends to make, rivals to best, enemies to avoid. Each task may require a unique set of abilities. Is it any wonder that many psychologists over the years have characterized human life as a monumental struggle?

Erik Erikson was one of those psychologists. He is one of the most famous social developmental psychologists, and his theory guided a great deal of research throughout the second half of the 20th century. Erikson divided the entire lifespan into eight separate stages; during each, he explained, we are faced with particular kinds of conflicts or challenges. Social development proceeds through our resolution of these conflicts, or the way that we meet the challenges. The “footprints” of the challenges are left on our later personalities, as they influence the way that we approach later social relationships.

Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

You can also access the video directly at: https://youtu.be/aYCBdZLCDBQ

As you read the descriptions of the eight stages, you may have two reactions that correspond to the major evaluations of Erikson’s theory. First, he was right on the money about the types of challenges that many people face throughout their lives. Second, the timing seems off. Although it does seem correct that we face important challenges and that our response to those challenges will influence our later social relationships, the challenges probably do not come so neatly packaged into particular stages of life. Rather, the challenges may occur at any time throughout life and in no particular order.

This section will expand on one of Erikson’s key challenges, developing an identity, to illustrate how they can span well beyond a single life stage. Your identity is your sense of self, the important aspects of your life that make you a unique person. Most people have a very strong sense that their identity is constant, but the reality is that identity is formed and modified throughout your life.

Self-Awareness in Infancy and Childhood

The first step along the path to establishing a solid identity is to realize that you are an individual person. This is not as ridiculous as it may sound. Recall from Module 16 that the first time an infant is absorbed watching her hand move, she may not even realize that it is her hand, under her control. A key accomplishment during Piaget’s sensorimotor stage is for the infant to realize that objects exist apart from the self. Part of that key cognitive development comes from the realization that there is such a thing as the self.

To be sure, infants love looking at their reflection. If you hold an infant up in front of the mirror, she is likely to kick her legs excitedly, coo, or laugh. But this response is a bit like a dog that barks at its own reflection, thinking it another dog. How do we know that? That is, how do we know that a young infant does not realize that the baby in the mirror is a reflection of her? Suppose you manage to sneak a sticker onto the child’s nose without her knowledge. When she sees the baby in the mirror, will she reach for her own nose, or will she reach for the mirror? If the infant is under 15 months old, she will probably reach for the mirror; if she is over 18 months, she will reach for her own nose. Thus, the child’s realization that she is the baby in the mirror develops during this period (Butterworth, 1992; Schneider-Rosen & Cicchetti, 1991). After this time, the infant begins to focus on and think about her self. She can experience emotions such as embarrassment and pride, and will soon learn to recognize photographs of herself (Bullock & Lutkenhaus, 1990; Lewis, 1990).

Development of thinking about the self seems to parallel, or at least closely follow the development of a theory of mind (Module 16; Wellman, 1993). For example, children begin to think more clearly about their own intentions and plans, and develop the ability to systematically about pursuing goals during the ages of 5 to 7. Psychologists call it the 9 to 5 shift. Just kidding. They call it the 5 – 7 year shift (Sameroff & Haith, 1996).

Adolescent Identity Crisis and Emotional Turmoil

Erik Erikson thought of adolescence as a time of crisis, as the teenager struggles to figure out who he or she is. Researchers have found that he was at least partially right. Because of the physical, cognitive, and social changes that occur, identity does appear to become key in adolescence (Grotevant, 1998). Research is less supportive of the idea that the search becomes a crisis, however.

Erikson was not the first psychologist to think of adolescence as a turbulent time. Over 100 years ago, one of the pioneers of psychology, G. Stanley Hall, characterized adolescence as a period of “storm and stress.” The accepted wisdom is still that adolescence is a time of extreme turmoil, filled with risky behavior, explosive conflict with parents, and moodiness (Arnett, 1999). Public perceptions are clear: many people in the US believe that adolescence is a very difficult time (Buchanan et al., 1990; Buchanan & Holmbeck, 1998).

But is it really? Is adolescence really a time filled with frequent mood swings, excessive risk-taking, and constant fights with parents? The answer is a resounding, “sort of.” It is true that “storm and stress” are more likely during adolescence than at other times of life. The turmoil is by no means a sure thing, however, and when it does occur, it tends to be less dramatic than in the movies, which, by their very nature, must be dramatic. Come on, would you pay thirteen dollars (plus six dollars for popcorn) to watch 112 minutes of a fourteen-year old spending quiet time with, speaking respectfully to, and not arguing with her parents? In reality, there are large individual differences, and many adolescents do not have much conflict with their parents. Even in families that do experience a lot of conflict, adolescents and their parents still report that they have a good relationship with each other (Arnett, 1999).

The famous adolescent mood swings are based in reality, however. Adolescents do report more extreme moods, especially negative ones, than adults report (Arnett, 1999; Larson and Richards, 1994). But contrary to public opinion, the mood swings are probably not the result of “raging hormones.” Researchers found that the mood swings were not related to the stage of puberty an adolescent was experiencing, which would be tied to the kinds and levels of hormones; instead, they suggested that the causes were cognitive and environmental (Larson & Richards, 1994).

Finally, it is also true that adolescents are more likely to engage in risky behavior than at other times in their lives. Risky driving and sexual behavior, criminal behavior, and substance abuse all tend to peak during the adolescent years (Arnett, 1992; 1999; Moffitt, 1993). Although there are individual differences as in the other areas of storm and stress, most adolescents occasionally engage in at least one kind of risky behavior (Arnett, 1992). It’s important to note that while research suggests that risk-taking behaviors are more likely to occur during adolescents, new research indicates that there are some adolescent risk-taking behaviors that have decreased in the last 30 years including unprotected sex and substance use among (Arnett, 2018).

Emotional turmoil, when it does occur, may very well be related to the struggle to form an identity independent from parents. A typical adolescent belief is that no one, especially parents, understands them. Originally, psychologists viewed this as solely a cognitive issue. Specifically, they believed it was a version of Piaget’s egocentrism that applied to adolescents (Elkind, 1985; Elkind & Bowen, 1979). More recently, some psychologists have proposed that adolescents’ feelings of being misunderstood may be more an effect of social development, specifically establishing one’s identity. Key parts of the process of establishing one’s own identity are paying extra attention to the self and separating the self from parents. During these processes, many adolescents tend to exaggerate their differences from other people. They (correctly) notice their own uniqueness, and they (probably incorrectly) believe that because they are so different from everyone else, no one—especially parents—can possibly understand them (Lapsley, 1993; Vartanian, 2000). Many adolescents struggling with their identity come to think that other people notice them as much as they notice themselves, as if they are on a stage in front of an “imaginary audience” (Elkind, 1976; O’Conner, 1995). Adolescents who have difficulty during the process of establishing an identity—in other words, those who suffer an identity crisis—are especially likely to adopt these “egocentric” beliefs.

So, identity formation can be a struggle, but is it a crisis? For example, think about one of literature’s best-known examples of an adolescent in the throes of an identity crisis, Holden Caulfield from J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. During the course of a single weekend, Holden is expelled from school and reveals that he cannot relate socially to people with whom he comes in contact. He despises and ridicules his roommate, yet Holden clearly envies him. He also expresses a deep-seated need to protect the innocence of childhood, part of his identity that he is giving up as he approaches adulthood. Increasingly alienated, depressed, and hopeless, Holden ends up in a hospital unable to cope with his crisis.

How accurate was Salinger’s portrayal of an adolescent struggle for identity? One of the great appeals of the novel is that teenagers can identify with Holden Caulfield. Individual readers recognize pieces of themselves in small aspects of Holden’s experiences. Very few people experience a weekend as dramatic as Holden Caulfield’s, however. In reality, as you might have guessed from the earlier discussion about emotional turmoil in general, the search for an identity is not as much a crisis as is commonly assumed. Although a crisis may occur, it is by no means necessary (Grotevant, 1998). For many people, it is a better characterization of the process to call it an exploration. Some people choose an identity without much fanfare and searching, others seemingly never do (Grotevant, 1998; Marcia et al., 1993). Many adolescents do, however, engage in active exploration, and for some of these people, identity search can be a crisis. As we are sure you realize, identity is a very complex concept; individuals may experience a crisis for some aspects of identity, such as gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion, but not for others.

Identity Development Beyond Adolescence

Although forming an individual identity is a critical task during adolescence, refining your sense of who you are is a lifelong process. People have many opportunities throughout their lives to reassess and redefine their identities (Yoder, 2000). For example, becoming a parent can force a profound change in someone’s identity.

Erik Erikson (1950) proposed that a person’s occupational choice was a key part of his or her identity. Think of how adults in the US introduce themselves. Very often they give their name and then their title or occupation (“I’m JoAnn; I’m an accountant”) rather than referring to their geographical history or family status (“I grew up in Colorado Springs” or “I’m the middle daughter in my family”). But occupational identity is rarely constant throughout your life. Career counselors commonly advise students who are graduating from college today that they can expect to have an average of four different careers (not jobs within the same career, but completely different careers) during their lifetimes. Each career change is likely to entail a significant revision of your identity.

Aspects of Identity

Although it is clear that people’s identities develop over time, it does not really feel that way. Quite the contrary, your identity feels like the part of you that does not change; it is what makes you, you. One possible explanation of this contradiction is that some aspects of your identity seem freely chosen, such as career or religious affiliation, and others, such as sex or ethnicity, are assigned to you. It may be that the assigned aspects of one’s identity play the key role in providing that sense of continuity, despite changes in other aspects. Even the chosen aspects are often conceived in relation to the unchosen aspects (Grotevant 1992; 1993). For example, a female adolescent may choose a career based on her gender identity. Thus, even the chosen and changing aspects of identity are tied to the invariant, assigned ones. We will finish our coverage of identity by discussing three different sources of identity, one chosen, one assigned, and one somewhere in the middle. Note, we will address a fourth aspect of identity, gender in Module 26.

Religious affiliation: A chosen aspect of identity

The majority of people throughout the world affiliate themselves with a specific religion, and for many it is among the most important aspects of their identities. Although there are certainly areas throughout the world where people are not exactly free to choose their religion, citizens of the US and the rest of the western world do have that choice.

According to the CIA World Factbook (2020), the World and the US are represented by the following religions:

*Note that the US figures are listed for some individual Christian religions, rather than for Christianity overall. As a consequence, some of the “Other Religions” may be Christian as well.

The two most prominent differences between the US and the rest of the world are the percentages of Christians (69% versus 31%) and Muslims (0% versus 24%). Although nearly one-quarter of the world’s population is Muslim, less than 1% of the US is, according to the CIA World Factbook. (Another estimate of the number of Muslims in the US is 3.45 million, which corresponds to a bit over 1%; Pew Research Center, 2018) Obviously, there is an extraordinary difference between the distribution of religions in the US and the rest of the world.

In one key way, however, the United States may have more in common with deeply religious Muslim-populated countries than with the Western European and North American countries more similar in terms of religious affiliations. The US is quite religious. More people believe in God, attend church regularly, pray at least occasionally, and read the Bible in the US than in any other western country. Although religious commitment in the US has remained higher than other nations, it has begun to decline recently, however (Pew Research Center, 2019).

Religion, of course, is not a monolithic concept. Some aspects of religious identity lead to good outcomes, others to bad. Religious commitment, or religiosity, is often related to good deeds. The relationships are not always strong and straightforward, but they are there. For example, religious people—especially those who adopt a flexible, questioning attitude toward their religion—are likely to help people in need (Batson et al., 1989; Batson et al. 2001). Researchers occasionally question the motives of some religious helpers. For example, some religious people help only because they want to look like helpers (Batson & Gray, 1981). Still, it is difficult to criticize them, because they are embracing an aspect of identity that encourages them to do good deeds.

Many people have a set of experiences that lead them to assess their faith and affirm religious beliefs as a key part of their identity. In the classic case, such conversion, as it is called, is swift and radical, following the Biblical story of Paul, who converted to Christianity suddenly when he received a visit from Jesus in the form of a voice and a bright light while traveling. You should realize that conversion can work both ways; people can also have revelatory experiences that lead them away from religious beliefs (Roof & Hadaway, 1979).

Perhaps the key source of religious identity is socialization. In short, children learn their religious beliefs and the strength of those beliefs from other people in their lives. Some of that learning takes place in a formal educational setting. For a great many people, however, parents play the primary socialization role. So, although people are free to choose the religious aspects of their identities, many end up adopting their parents’ beliefs. If you examine the degree to which people identify with their parents’ religion as they mature, the agreement between parents’ and children’s attitudes about religion, or the self-reported influence that parents had on their children’s religious beliefs, the conclusion is the same. Parents play a very important role in the development of religious identity (Spilka et al., 2003). As we have seen in other aspects of life, parental influence wanes through adolescence; in the case of religion, the decrease of parental influence is fairly late, around traditional college-age (Ozorak, 1989). Even during adolescence, when general disagreements with parents may be at their highest level, parents and children still tend to agree on many issues related to religion (Glass et al., 1986; Hunsberger, 1985). As you might guess, parent influence on religious identity is strongest when the parent and child have a high-quality relationship (Bao et al., 1999; Myers, 1996).

As we are sure you realize, religious identity is related to additional aspects of an individual’s social identity. For example, one researcher has identified in Christian adults attachment styles with God that resemble the secure and insecure attachments that researchers have observed in infants (Kirkpatrick (1992; 2002). Some research has also found that religious individuals trust others more than non-religious individuals do. Religiosity is also related to people’s stated beliefs (but not always their behaviors) about morality, marriage, non-marital sex, love, and homosexuality (Lefevor et al.,  2019; McFarland et al., 2011; Pew Research Center, 2017 ).

Ethnicity: An assigned aspect of identity

Another key aspect of identity for many people is ethnicity. You can choose your religion, but you cannot typically choose which ethnic group you belong to. Ethnic minority adolescents are faced with the double-sided problem of fitting into the majority culture while keeping elements of the ethnic minority group culture in their identities (Erikson, 1968; Phinney et al. 2000). Adolescents who are members of a majority ethnic group are less likely to acknowledge their ethnicity as an important aspect of their identity, so these issues pertain mostly to members of minority groups (Phinney, 1990).

Successful development of ethnic minority identity within the context of the majority culture leads to good feelings about the self, the majority culture, and one’s ethnic group. A positive ethnic identity also leads to good feelings about other ethnic groups (Phinney, et al., 1997).

It is not always smooth sailing, however. Media depictions and news reports of adult members of ethnic minority groups as morally and socially bankrupt can make it difficult for children to find positive role models, an important step in developing a positive ethnic identity (Glassner, 1999). Adolescents who understand that their options in life may be limited by the ethnic group to which they belong also have trouble developing a positive ethnic identity. Indeed, the stress associated with the problems of forging an ethnic identity can lead to depression, anxiety, and other psychological problems (Caldwell et al., 2002).

Prejudice and discrimination in the larger culture against members of minority groups can also stand in the way of minority adolescents’ attempts to develop a positive attitude about their ethnic group. The problem of discrimination is compounded by the fact that many members of the majority culture are unaware of it. For example, white respondents in the US have consistently rated racial relations and racial discrimination better than black respondents over the past 20 years (Davis, 2020). (By the way, we are writing this book in the immediate aftermath of the worldwide protests against systemic racism that resulted from the George Floyd killing. There has been a rapid change in these attitudes as a result, which we will describe in more detail in Module 21.)

Because of these complications and difficulties, ethnic minority adolescents in the US often form their identity in a different way than white adolescents do. For example, ethnic minority college students may be more likely to engage in extended exploration of their identity options than white students are (Phinney & Alipuria, 1990). On the other hand, because options often seem limited for members of minority groups, many wind up doing less exploration, essentially accepting the identity designation that the dominant culture assigns to them (Streitmatter, 1988).

Nationality: An aspect of identity in the middle

Some political scientists have characterized much of the turmoil in the world as a conflict between dramatically different national and cultural identities, a sort of “clash of civilizations” (Huntington, 1998). For some people, cultural or national identity is something assigned to them by virtue of the location in which they were born. Others, such as immigrants who become citizens of their adopted countries, make a very conscious decision to change their national identity. Researchers have discovered that individuals who immigrate to the United States, for example, often do reassess their identity during adulthood (Birman & Trickett, 2001).

On what do people base a national identity? Many observers have noted that shared religion, language, and ethnicity are among the most important keys to developing a strong national identity. Paradoxically, citizens of the US have had among the strongest national identities in the world over the years despite lacking many of the characteristics commonly thought to be important. As the famous “melting pot,” we are ethnically and racially diverse, we prohibit the establishment of a single religion, and our residents speak many different languages. What we do share, though, is a common history and commitment to ideals such as democracy and freedom. And for many years  that was sufficient to create a very strong national identity and a great deal of national pride among the citizens of the US. For example, surveys consistently found that US citizens report levels of pride that are among the highest rates of any country in the world (Smith & Jarkko, 2001). In recent years, however, national pride has been declining in the US to an all-time low of 63% who are extremely or very proud to be American in 2020 (from a high of 92% in 2003; Branan, 2020). Political and racial divisions that have grown deeper over the last several years are related (and perhaps responsible for) this dramatic and rapid decrease.

You should realize that it is not a simple matter to state that national pride is automatically good, or as some people claim, national pride is automatically bad. When a country has extremely high levels of pride and a strong sense of ethnic identity, it can lead to abuse of people with other ethnic identities. In addition, nations that are seen as too proud can be resented by other countries throughout the world. At the same time, however, the rapid decline of pride in the US, as at least a reflection of the increasing (and increasingly damaging) political and racial divisions cannot be seen as a positive development, at least not yet. If it triggers a serious reflection that leads to real improvement in relationships across the political aisle and among different ethnic and racial groups, then we can change our assessment. Only time will tell, however.

17.4. Developing Gender Identity

The concept of gender is complicated. Sex is more-or-less determined by nature or genes (except in cases of surgical transformation from one sex to another); gender is more obviously an interaction between nature and the environment.  In essence, gender, or gender identity is a person’s internalized feelings about their masculinity or femininity within a given culture. Right from the beginning, we should clarify something important. A person’s sex (based on their genitals, chromosomes, or internal organs) is not the same thing as their gender identity. Sex is assigned at birth. It is based on the presence of X and Y chromosomes and the appearance of the external genitalia (which develop based on the expression of genes and exposure to hormones at specific times prenatally— see Module 15 for a reminder of some details). An individual’s gender identity might match or mismatch their biological sex. People for whom the two match are referred to as cisgender. Individuals whose gender identity mismatch their biological sex are transgender. But we are not done yet, as things get more complex. Some individuals are a mixture of genders, for example, bigender, in which someone identifies as both genders. Others are genderfluid, in which gender varies over time (from one to the other to both or neither). For example, Jonathan Van Ness, one of the stars of the Netflix show, Queer Eye has been quoted: “…somedays I feel like a boy and somedays I feel like a girl” (Tirado, 2019). Still, others do not identify with a gender at all, which is known as agender.

So why all the complexity? Do we really need five individual terms for different kinds of gender identities? We think yes, for at least two reasons. First, as you will soon see, gender really is far more complex than the simple idea that “if you have an X chromosome, you have a female gender identity; if you have a Y chromosome, you have a male gender identity.” Second, the complexity our current definitions about gender might be a function of trying to fit a non-binary concept into binary terms. Let us explain.

Many people are committed to the belief that there are only males and females, or in other words, that gender is a binary concept. You might very well be one of those people, as the belief is held by 55% of adults in the US (Pew Research, 2019). If you are, we hope that you will be open-minded enough to consider the possibility that this is a false dichotomy because evidence that gender is not binary has been accumulating from neuroscience, endocrinology, and psychology. Now, we realize that there are a lot of political issues associated with this assertion, but we are striving to remain objective by focusing on what the science says.

We would like you to walk you through a thought exercise about the issue before we get to the scientific evidence. As we said above, gender identity is the internalized feelings that an individual has corresponding to the common conceptions of “maleness” and “femaleness.” We can sometimes figure out these feelings by observing aspects of a person’s appearance such as, preferred clothing styles, hair styles, presence or absence of body hair, etc., and their behavioral dispositions, such as preferred activities, default ways of interacting with others, etc.

Given what we have just said, do you agree that gender identity is a complex concept, made up of different components? (We will assume you said yes). Do you also agree that the complexity of gender identity approaches other complex aspects of human behavior and mental processes, such as intelligence (Module 8) or personality (Module 19)? (Again, we will assume you said yes). Well, how many of those other concepts are binary (in other words, there are only two categories)? Right, none. They are multi-faceted concepts in which the differences between people cannot be neatly boxed into two groups. Why would gender identity be any different?

“Hold on,” you might say. “Gender is different. It is biologically determined by the sex you are assigned at birth. And that sex is binary.”

There is a phrase we like to use in scientific psychology when someone makes a statement like this: “That is an empirical question.” In other words, to make this claim about gender and sex, it must be supported by research. Remember what we said about the accumulation of evidence above? Recent research in biology and psychology does not support these ideas about a simple binary gender. The reality is that even biological sex is only approximately binary (for example, some intersex people have male and female genitalia). And biological sex assigned at birth is only one of several factors that contribute to a person’s gender identity.

But what about gender differences? “Everyone knows” that men and women are different from each other. Yes, but they are also similar. And we will have more to say about this in the “what does the science say?” section below. First, let us raise the possibility that a group difference can be an illusion.

            It turns out you can get what appear to be group differences by making falsely dichotomizing categorizations. Let us illustrate with a simple example, where the categorization is based on a single dimension. Imagine that we believe that there are only two types of people, short people and tall people. Tall people are better at basketball and swimming. Short people are better at CrossFit and gymnastics. But these groups do not really exist. There is only height, and we are making an arbitrary cutoff to invent the categories tall and short people. Yet, the “group differences” we mentioned exist (for example, taller people do tend to be better at basketball than shorter people).

Now consider a far more complex concept like gender, made up of a great deal more than a single dimension. Does it really make sense that we can neatly divide all people into two genders? We certainly don’t think so.

What does the Science Say?             

Psychology and Neuroscience

So now, let us actually get to the science. It is important to acknowledge that we are not saying that gender identity has no relation to sex. What we are saying is that sex is one (approximately binary) factor among several that combine to determine someone’s gender identity. Also, there is absolutely research that has suggested that gender is binary. There are two problems with this research, however. First, as we are suggesting here, it is being replaced by research that concludes the opposite, that gender is not binary (don’t worry, you will see some of it soon). Second, that older research started with the assumption that gender is binary (Hyde et al. 2019). So of course, that is what the research has found. This is an example of what philosophers call “begging the question.” It means to assume true the very thing that needs to be proved. (As an important aside, when you hear this phrase used, it is very commonly used incorrectly.)

So, what scientific evidence do we have suggesting that gender might not be binary? Imagine ten traits or tendencies that are heavily gender specific. For example, wearing cosmetics (more typical of females) or liking boxing (more typical of males). In a sample of college students, how many do you think would be completely gender consistent? In other words, how many would exhibit all male behaviors or all female behaviors? If gender were truly binary, it would be 100%. But in reality, it is less than 1% (Joel et al. 2015). In other words, there is tremendous overlap in behavior for different genders, even for very gender-typical behaviors.

These are not exceptions. For virtually every “gender-typical trait,” there are a great many people who defy the gender expectation. For example, consider smiling. Although women smile more than men on average, 35% of men smile more than the average person (Eagly 1995). This is not a trick that we are playing with the numbers. The trick is the use of average, and implying that it applies to all individuals in a category. In the case of a true binary, it would be correct to apply the average to all individuals equally. You see, binary gender implies that all male category members are equally male, and all female category members are equally female.  And this is clearly not the case.

Neuroscience evidence has likewise revealed that there is probably no such thing as a “male brain” and “female brain.” The scientific term for this kind of binary situation is dimorphism or dimorphic, having two distinct forms. Dimorphism need not mean that the male and female brains have to be completely different (in other words, they can both have the same kind of brainstem), but it does mean that there will be specific brain areas that are completely different for all men and all women. And as we are sure you can guess by now, this is simply not the case. Although there are average differences between men and women in some specific brain areas, there is, just as we saw for behavior, a great deal of overlap between them. For example, consider one of the largest known brain sex differences: the size of the intermediate nucleus of the hypothalamus. On average, it is twice the size in men. Still, this brain area is within the range of typical females for 30% of men (Hyde et al. 2019).

And it is important to not ignore the experiences of people who do not identify neatly with gender that corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth. These experiences have been chronicled in scientific research many times (Hyde et al. 2019). If you are cisgender, imagine a fundamental aspect of your identity, one that you feel that you did not choose.  What if someone told you that you cannot have this identity, that you must be making it up or faking it, for example? We think we owe others the same consideration we would hope for ourselves (perhaps you remember this as the Golden Rule when you were growing up: Treat others as you would hope to be treated yourself).

Endocrinology

We can find additional research against the gender binary idea when we look at hormones. It turns out that there is no such thing as male hormones and female hormones. “But wait,” You might say. “I learned that estrogen is the female hormone and testosterone is the male hormone.” This is probably a good time to remind you of one of the Seven Tips for Evaluating Psychological Information, namely, Beware of Oversimplifications. Humans have (among many other hormones) estrogens and androgens (testosterone is the most famous androgen). Men, women, and non-binary individuals all have both types of hormones. In fact, these two types, along with progesterone are all produced by both ovaries and testes (and by the adrenal glands, which of course, everyone has; Hyde et al. 2019). It is true that males on average have higher levels of androgens than females. The key part of the previous sentence, however, is the words on average. The same overlap between genders that we described for gender-specific behaviors applies to levels of androgens. And men and women do not even have different levels of estradiol (the most well-known estrogen) and progesterone (Liening et al. 2010; van Anders, 2010). The fact is that the levels of all of these hormones differ greatly among individual people, and within individual people over time.

In Module 15, you saw the important role of genes and hormones in the prenatal development of sex organs. Further, you saw in Module 22 that the two probably play a role in the childhood gender nonconformity that is strongly associated with non-heterosexual orientations. It is also likely that these hormones (estrogens, progesterone, and androgens) play some role in the development of gender identity. The hormones are certainly produced by a fetus on indirect orders from an X or Y chromosome. But the levels of these hormones prenatally can vary greatly within individuals with X chromosomes and individuals with Y chromosomes. In addition, some hormones originate in the environment outside of the fetus, and the amounts of hormones produced by the fetus can be influenced by a great many environmental factors.

These prenatal hormones, in addition to their role in differentiation of fetal sex organs, probably do play a role in our gender identity through differentiation of our brains (Dennis, 2004; Maccoby, 2000; Ruble & Martin, 1998). As we noted above, there is not a complete differentiation into two separate brains, male and female. But there is some differentiation. And some non-human research suggests that changing the levels of specific hormones can alter sex-related behavior. Experimental research with rats has indicated that exposing a female prenatally to high levels of androgens leads the females to learn to navigate a maze as well as males (male rats typically outperform females). It is tricky to generalize research results like this to humans; after all, we only know a few people whom we would equate with rats. There are cases of accidental or naturally occurring human prenatal exposure to the “wrong” hormones, however, and they are consistent with the rat research. For example, some fetuses have been exposed to a synthetically produced hormone, progestin, which is chemically similar to some androgens. It has been used as a drug for women who are at risk for miscarriages. Female children whose mothers received the drug exhibit some behaviors more commonly considered male-typical, such as aggression and independence (Reinisch & Saunders, 1984; Reinisch, 1981). Other children have suffered from genetic conditions that have caused them to receive too much or too little of the gender-appropriate hormones. Here, too, the research has tended to confirm the experimental results with rats. For example, some genetic girls suffer from a disorder called congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Their adrenal glands produce too many androgens during prenatal development (Ruble & Martin, 1998). Sometimes, when doctors catch it early, the condition is reversed, and the infants are raised as girls. Although they have a female gender identity, it is not as strongly female as in girls who had not been exposed to high levels of androgens (Collaer & Hines, 1995). Note especially this last point about girls who have a “weaker” female gender identity. This too is consistent with the idea that gender is a matter of degree, not category.

Social Learning and Cognition: Non-Biological Factors that Promote a Binary Gender

Social Cognitive Theory

Albert Bandura and others (e.g., Bussey & Bandura 1999) have proposed a social cognitive theory that explains how children’s experiences (and their thoughts about those experiences) help shape their gender identity. There is little doubt that parents, other relatives, peers, and society have different expectations for boys and girls; these expectations are called gender roles. It is from the communication of these expectations—which begins essentially at birth—that children learn their own gender identity. From the first days of life, boys and girls are treated differently by many people that they encounter. Although parents often try to treat children of opposite genders similarly they do not always succeed. For example, a group of adults participating in a research study were given a one-year-old infant (not their own child) to engage in play. Each baby was addressed half the time as a girl, and half the time as a boy. When the baby was a “boy” the adults offered more boy-typical toys and encouraged more active play. When the baby was a “girl” the adults engaged in more nurturing style of play (Frisch, 1979).

Many parents do not even try to treat their female and male children similarly. But among those who do, there are many other messages in the environment that convey gender roles. Even if each individual message has only a small effect, the cumulative effect can be quite substantial. For example, imagine the birth of a baby girl whose parents disapprove of “girl” versus “boy” treatment. Well-meaning friends and relatives might want to respect the wishes of the parents, but they might also long to indulge their desire to dress a girl. So, they attempt to satisfy both goals. They very generously gave the infant girl two sets of clothes each. One relative gives her a yellow outfit to satisfy the parents and the pink one that they loved so much. Another gives a multicolored jumpsuit to keep the parents happy and a pink one that they could not resist. A third even gives a blue outfit. Oh, and there is that pink one that was on sale. And so on. At the end, half of the clothes the new daughter receives as gifts were pink, and the other half were spread among several other colors.

Further, through social learning (Bussey & Bandura 1999) children are rewarded or punished for behaviors that conform to or violate the expectations for their gender. As we saw for other behaviors in Module 6, gender-appropriate behaviors are also commonly learned through observational learning. Parents, siblings, teachers, peers, and the media have all contributed (Ruble & Martin, 1998). For example, a young boy would develop expectations about men’s and women’s roles by observing the division of household chores between his mother and father.

Gender Schema Theory

When you meet a new classmate, one of the first facts you notice about the person is gender. It is worth noting that this is a cognitive phenomenon. Recall the descriptions in Module 7 about conceptual knowledge from Module 7 and Piaget’s conceptual schemes from Module 16. Concepts or schemes are mental representations of categories of things (including people) in the world. They are used to interpret new experiences and to help us understand the world. Many modern researchers refer to these mental representations of categories as schemas. Gender, because it is emphasized in many (perhaps all) cultures, turns out to be a very important schema for people.

Sandra Bem (1981; 1993) has proposed a gender schema theory to explain how our gender-related cognitions help shape our gender identity. As you will see, gender schemas contribute to people’s belief that gender is binary. They do this, not because gender is biologically determined by one’s sex at birth, but through the biasing power of categorizing. Let us explain. A schema for a complex concept, such as male or female, would consist of a lot of information, such as physical characteristics, typical behaviors and activities, and so on. When our culture tells us that there are only two genders, all of that complex information gets funneled into one of those two categories. Gender schemas do more than simply helping us to recognize a particular person as male or female, however. They help organize and guide all of our knowledge about the concepts. If a particular schema becomes active in memory, it means a great deal of related knowledge is available. The schema leads you to notice information consistent with it and to neglect information inconsistent with it. For example, suppose your schema for male contains the information that men are aggressive. You will tend to notice cases of men being aggressive (and fail to notice non-aggressive men and aggressive women). If this mental habit reminds you of the confirmation bias that we told you about in Modules 1 and 7, you should ask your professor for extra credit. The biasing power of a schema is indeed very closely related to the confirmation bias. People also apply their gender schemas to themselves. Their expectations about the important aspects of gender can lead them to engage in “gender-appropriate” behaviors and so to increase the appearance of binary gender identity.

17.5 Friendship and Intimacy

Friendships begin very early in life. But there are profound differences between the friendships you can observe between young children and between a pair of twenty-year-olds. These differences roughly correspond to the person’s developing capacity for emotional intimacy. Again we will return to childhood to help us understand friendship and intimacy later in life.

What is friendship? This turns out to be a difficult question for psychologists to answer, in part because friendship can mean different things to different people. With so many different kinds of relationships between people, it is not surprising that there would be disagreement regarding what constitutes a friendship. Let us propose that we define friendship as a relationship between two people that they choose to create and that is based on mutual affection or fondness or liking. According to this definition, shared interests and activities—for example, between classmates, teammates, or co-workers—are not by themselves sufficient bases for friendship, although friendship can develop from them. Other characteristics that people might like to include in a definition of friendship, such as trusting and self-disclosing, might be more useful at judging the strength or quality of a friendship, rather than whether or not the relationship is a friendship.

Childhood Friendship

Many of the young infants’ cognitive abilities seem especially geared to promoting the growth of social relationships. These abilities are not applied solely to caregivers and other adults, however, and they are very important components of developing friendships. Infants show a great interest in other infants, at least by the last three months of the first year; for example, they commonly look at, smile at, and imitate each other (Rubin et al., 1998). During the second year, infants’ social interactions become quite a bit more active and impressive, often involving games of mutual imitation of complex behavior (Brownell, 1990; Hanna & Meltzoff, 1993; Ross, 1982). Although you cannot always tell by the behavior that goes on in the household of one of your authors, two-year-olds also know how to take turns. These older infants’ interest in other children is selective; they choose to associate with some children and not with others (Strayer, 1990). They prefer familiar and sociable playmates, and children that have similar behavioral tendencies and other characteristics (Howes, 1983; 1988; Rubin et al., 1994). Thus, with the children’s demonstration of preferences, even these early relationships contain an important component of friendship.

You can see the increasing complexity of social interactions among preschoolers by examining the ways that they play. Most children between the ages of two and five engage in solitary, group, and parallel play (playing alongside other children, but not really with them), so it is not simply whether or not the child plays alone that reveals their social development. Rather, it appears that parallel play serves a different function for older preschoolers; it is an important way for the children to approach each other. First, they play next to each other, and then they begin to play together (Bakeman & Brownlee, 1980). Another difference that emerges during the later preschool years is a large increase in the frequency of pretend play. Although literally child’s play, a five-year-olds’ ability to share meanings and symbols with playmates through pretending shows a remarkable repertoire of cognitive and social abilities. They must be able to imagine and fulfill complementary roles, such as husband and wife when playing “house,” and the children must agree with each other about the roles and the rules by which pretend scenarios will operate (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). Again, this sharing and collaborating between young children, important as they are for increasing bonds of affection, indicate an increased capacity to form and retain friendships.

Despite these impressive social abilities in evidence in their relationships, young children still define their friendships based on shared activities; they are friends because they do things or play with the same toys together (Berndt & Perry, 1986; Hartup, 1993). It is during the elementary and middle school years that we see a shift toward a less “object-oriented” definition of friendship. By age 10, children realize that friends need each other, that they stick up for and are loyal to each other, and that they share interests and not simply activities (Bigelow, 1977; Zarbatany, McDougall et al., 2000). They have been moving toward it for a while, but children at this age are now ready to begin their attempts at building intimacy. They make efforts to understand each other and are self-disclosing, able to share private thoughts, fears, and feelings (Bigelow, 1977; Clark & Bittle, 1992; Hamm, 2000). Think about the game “Truth or Dare.” When a group of nine-year-olds plays this game, it often devolves quickly into an uninterrupted succession of goofy dares. Twelve-year-old friends, on the other hand, are likely to include many “truth” rounds, in which the players take turns disclosing their private thoughts.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=d9HH3pTmHz8

You may also access the video directly at: https://youtu.be/d9HH3pTmHz8

Adolescents continue the trend of redefining friendship to include shared thoughts and feelings, and loyalty (Berndt & Perry, 1990). What they are doing is increasingly recognizing the importance of quality friendships (Berndt, 2002) and emphasizing intimacy in their friendships (Buhrmester, 1996). They also become less possessive. Younger children often act as if friendship is exclusive: if he is my friend, he cannot be yours. Adolescents recognize that their friends can have other friends (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). In part because of their increasing focus on friendship quality, adolescents depend on their friends more than younger children do. They also depend more on their friends than on their parents to meet their emotional needs (Furman & Buhrmester, 1992), and they spend much more time with friends than parents—in one study, double the amount of time (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984). As was true for younger children, adolescents are similar to their friends; similarity is more broadly defined, however. For example, adolescent friends tend to have similar ethnicities, genders, school achievement, and attitudes about many aspects of life (Hamm, 2000; Hartup, 1993; Youniss & Haynie, 1992).

Friendship in young adulthood changes in a way that most people would guess. Because parenting and work require so much time and effort in young adults’ lives, their friendships often end up tied to these activities. Newlyweds have the largest number of friends, more even than children and adolescents (Hartup & Stevens, 1999). As people get older, their circle of friends gets smaller. Time spent with friends declines steadily, from one-third of an adolescent’s waking hours to less than 10% of a middle-aged person’s day.

Friendship in adulthood resembles friendship in adolescence in important ways. Both types of friendships are characterized by intimacy and self-disclosure, and emotional support. Adolescent and adult friendships differ mainly in the contexts in which these behaviors occur; an adolescent friend may provide emotional support during a breakup with a steady boyfriend or girlfriend, while an adult friend does so during a divorce.

Psychologists have paid a great deal of attention to gender differences in friendship. On the whole, women tend to report higher levels of intimacy in their friendships than men do. Women’s friendships tend to be based more on talking and providing emotional support for each other, whereas men’s tend to be based more on sharing activities (Sapadin, 1988). In this way, then, many men’s friendships are reminiscent of young children’s friendships. Now, we are not saying that men are children. Many men do have friendships in which self-disclosure and support are key features, and the differences between men and women grow smaller later in life.

Some other characteristics of our friendships change as we age, as well. According to the socio-emotional selectivity theory (Carstensen et al., 1999), our circle of friends grows smaller and more selective.  As we age, we are more motivated to seek positive emotions and have less need for friends to serve information needs, resulting in a more carefully chosen, and therefore smaller, group of friends.

We will have quite a bit more to say about friendship and other intimate relationships in Module 22, when we take a non-developmental approach to some of these concepts, so stay tuned.