Role Of Gender In Influencing Helping Behaviour †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Role Of Gender In Influencing Helping Behaviour. Answer: Introduction In the present day, gender has been regarded as one of the most important aspect in helping behaviour especially in the western societies. It has also been found that while helping other individuals, men are more likely to help strangers than women. It has also been agreed by many psychologists that gender plays an important role in the society while helping others (Gentile et al., 2014). Accordingly, there are stereotypes on peoples genders that exit for some reason such as a persons gender is determined at the time of his or her birth and they were told to behave accordingly, thus it influence their helping behaviour. Gender Differences and Helping In order to understand the gender differences in helping process, it is important to understand the roles of gender that influence the helping behaviour of every individual. Furthermore, different roles are directed for specified genders as these norms have been set by the society an individual lives (Gentile et al., 2014). For instance in case of the gender role of female it has been argued by many scholars that societal norms encourages women to help others and moreover, women are also expected to give importance to others needs than their own and accordingly will try to help others (Schaller, 2016). The female role playing has also been regarded as a caring nature and it has also been stated that women are more empathic than men. On the other hand, the male gender role in influencing helping behaviour is different than that of female as they tends to portray heroic behaviour. Furthermore, with their heroic behaviour, they tend to save other from certain risk or danger and it has a lso been stated by some scholars that the gender role influences men to help strangers more than women (Seidman, 2016). For instance, bystanders might get more help from men than women, as in this case male can achieve its heroic deeds. Role of Social Status in Helping It is important to note that the social division of gender as per their status within the society largely influence the helping behaviour. It has been stated by some scholars that individuals in the lower status role will be acting more as a service provider than the receivers. However, it has also been noted that in gender differences men acts more as a receiver of helps than women in relation to job and more (Turner, 2018). In cases, when helping behaviour is seen from societal context, then gender differences in influencing behaviour plays a major role as a status cue in order to attain longer goals. According to Starr and Zurbriggen (2017), there are certain implications in status differentiation between gender when seen from social view point, as it has been stated that individuals directly requesting for help as shown as an influencing attempt and helping to that response is viewed as compliant behaviour. Physical Attractiveness and Helping Behaviour of Different Gender Physical attractiveness among gender plays a major role while influencing helping behaviour as people who are more attractive are likely to receive more help than others who are not (Turner, 2018). Prior to that, in case of gender differences, attractive women tends to receive more help than men, and furthermore it has also been stated by numerous scholars that men tends to help attractive women more than the less attractive. As per the report it has been found that men time to spend more time in helping opposite gender attractive people than the unattractive (Dovidio et al., 2017). As noted physical attractiveness of different genders plays a significant role in helping behaviour, therefore attractive women are more likely to act as a receiver than providers, whereas on the other hand, men in helping behaviour more likely to act as a helping agents rather than receiving help and also tends to help attractive women more than the unattractive women. Social Role and Gender Schema Theory It is important to note that in regards to gender differences influence in helping behaviour, societal norms plays a major role as per the social role theory. According to the social norm theory, women are portrayed as caring while helping others and are tends to be as heroic or chivalrous in terms of helping other people (Seidman, 2016). Social role theory also defines that women in case of helping provides help in a nurturing way, because they are expected to behave in that way by the society, while men as per the theory are expected to help others in dangerous and in emergency situation. As per the gender schema theory, masculine gender are expected to help others especially stranger in a more problem solving way, while feminine gender are tends to help in a caring way (Turner, 2018). Gender schema theory mainly deals with role playing as per their gender and accordingly tries to adjust their behaviour as per the norms of the society and in case of helping others male tend to prov ide help in relation to task orientation, whereas interpersonal orientation are possessed by females. Literature Gap In order to carry out the research and to have a clear understanding of the role of gender in influencing human behaviour, numerous journals, articles and books have been thoroughly examined. However, various critical observations have lead to the identification of the gap in literature. From the study, it has been observed that most of the researchers mainly dealt with the role of male and female gender in influencing behaviour, whereas there are very few researches regarding the role of cross-gender in influencing behaviour and also did not provide any clear explanation. It should be noted that transgender willingly wants to help others but people are less likely to receive help from them and they are left alienated within the society. Summary Gender role in influencing behaviour is a wider topic in itself that consists of different gender roles while helping other person. Society also plays a significant role in adjusting human behaviour as per the norms of the society. Apart from this, it has also been shown that physical attractiveness also plays a major role in influencing behaviour while helping others, as attractive individuals are likely to receive more help than the unattractive people. References Christov-Moore, L., Simpson, E. A., Coud, G., Grigaityte, K., Iacoboni, M., Ferrari, P. F. (2014). Empathy: Gender effects in brain and behavior.Neuroscience Biobehavioral Reviews,46, 604-627. Dovidio, J. F., Piliavin, J. A., Schroeder, D. A., Penner, L. A. (2017).The social psychology of prosocial behavior. Psychology Press. Prot, S., Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., Suzuki, K., Swing, E., Lim, K. M., ... Liau, A. K. (2014). Long-term relations among prosocial-media use, empathy, and prosocial behavior.Psychological science,25(2), 358-368. Schaller, M. (2016). The behavioral immune system.The handbook of evolutionary psychology. Seidman, S. (2016).Contested knowledge: Social theory today. John Wiley Sons. Starr, C. R., Zurbriggen, E. L. (2017). Sandra Bems gender schema theory after 34 years: A review of its reach and impact.Sex Roles,76(9-10), 566-578. Turner, S. P. (2018).The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge and Prepositions. John Wiley Sons. Vogel, D. L., Wester, S. R., Hammer, J. H., Downing-Matibag, T. M. (2014). Referring men to seek help: The influence of gender role conflict and stigma.Psychology of Men Masculinity,15(1), 60.