Gender and psychology

Abstract

This chapter summarises the psychological research on gender. The first part of the chapter focusses on experimental and social constructivist psychology and discusses what psychological differences are found between genders and the different approaches put forward to explain these differences. These approaches include essentialist theories which argue that gender differences arise from evolutionary adaptations, and constructivist theories, which argue that gender differences are the result of cultural and contextual influences. We discuss the extent to which these approaches can explain gender differences in general, but also patterns of gender differences across cultures. The second part of this chapter discusses psychological research that adopts social constructionist approaches to studying gender, and outlines examples of discourse and conversation analytic research on the (re)production of gender in language and interactions. Finally, we will discuss how the retention of multiple perspectives and research methods by gender researchers is important for moving beyond additive (and dichotomous) models of gender, and beyond a European/US centric view.