Compare and contrast TWO theories of gender role development. Make use of examples from the psychological research to illustrate your discussion

One of the most interesting aspects of young infants is the development of the sense of gender. Infants begin to understand gender from 18 months. They start to notice some distinguishable characteristics such as clothes or hair. The first gender concept they recognize is gender identity, which is simply labelling self and others as male or female. From the age of two, children realize that sex is something what we cannot change and it persist through our whole lives. People tend to misunderstand the term ‘gender’ with ‘sex’. Sex refers to biological state that differentiates organisms in two categories: male or female. We are born as males or females and there are many biological characteristics that differentiate us from each other, such as pairs of chromosomes or anatomy. On the other hand, gender is seen as socially determined difference based upon the biological differences between the sexes. It refers to the economic, social and cultural attributes associated with being male or female (Bee, 1995). In many societies being male or female brings many expectations such as wearing appropriate clothes, behaving or working in a manner that is either feminine or masculine. This essay will compare and contrast two theories of gender role development, psychoanalytic theory and social learning theory.

The first discussed theory of gender role development will be psychoanalytic theory proposed by Sigmund Freud (1905, 1925, 1931). Developed in 19th century psychoanalytic theory mostly put emphasis on gender and sexuality. Freud argued that our behaviour is motivated by instinctual drives, and divided consciousness into three layers: unconscious, preconscious and conscious. According to Freud, we are not aware of processes that are happe...

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...at early experiences set the course of development. What is more, psychoanalytic theory tends to be universal for every child, in contrast to social learning theory, which states that reinforced and modelled behaviour may vary from infant to infant (Bee, 1995).

In conclusion, psychoanalytic theory and social learning theory have much more discrepancies than similarities. On one hand, psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the importance of inner, sexual processes and states that development occurs in stages. It is criticised by lack of empirical evidence, focusing too much on infants’ sexuality and its specificity to western cultures. On the other hand, social learning theory base its assumptions on learned experience gained by environment. Development occurs gradually, as infants collect experiences. Both theories, contribute to understanding of children’s development.