The Social Psychology of Sex and Gender

Abstract

>> The social psychology of gender is a major, if qualified, success story of contemporary feminist psychology. The breadth and intellectual vigor of the field is reflected in the following six commentaries in the broadly defined area of the Social Psychology of Gender which were commissioned for this third of four 35th anniversary sections to feature brief retrospectives by authors of highly cited PWQ articles. Our goal in this section’s introduction is to provide a brief history of the development of this area, placing the articles described in the commentaries into this historical context. The six articles in this special section, individually and taken together, identify significant turning points in the social psychology of gender. We focus on how, within a few brief years, the study of gender in psychology underwent massive transformation. 1 The social psychology of gender has grown to become a thriving, scientifically sound research theme that encompasses a wide variety of topics and questions. The story of how this came to be has been told from a number of perspectives (e.g., Crawford & Marecek, 1989; Deaux, 1999; Rutherford, Vaughn-Blount, & Ball, 2010; Unger, 1998). Here, we focus on how, from psychology of gender’s murky beginnings in early 20th century Freudian personality theory and even deeper roots in androcentric paternalism of 19th century science (Shields, 1975, 1982; Shields & Bhatia, 2009), feminist psychologists have shaped how sex and gender are scientifically defined, theorized, and studied. Over the course of the second half of the 20th century, feminist psychologists challenged psychology’s long-standing equation of female with defect and the psychology of gender with cataloging sex differences (Marecek, Kimmel, Crawford, & Hare-Mustin, 2003; Rutherford & Granek, 2010). We identify three intertwined streams of investigation from which the contemporary psychology of gender grew: (a) research focusing on gender identity as a feature of personality, (b) research on behavioral sex differences, and (c) research on gender roles and the study of gender in social context. We interweave into this story how each of the six key articles highlighted in this special section illustrate turning points in that history. We then describe the critical importance of networks and mentors toward making the research reported in those articles possible. We conclude with our thoughts on future directions in the social psychology of gender.