Parents play a major role in social influence in the gender development of their child e.g. naming their child. For example shared gender names such as Alex may lead to less gender typed socialisation. Traditionally minded parents are likely to treat boys and girls differently due to gender. When the child shows gender appropriate behaviour they will likely be rewarded through praise and attention, therefore reinforcing behaviour. The child will also observe parents as being different in appearance and behaviour further influencing gender role development.
Later on peers also have an influence. Those of the same gender will likely have been raised in a similar way and will show behaviour consistent with the child's gender perceptions. Peers will often provide reinforcement for gender appropriate behaviour and punishment for gender inappropriate behaviour e.g. not including them in games.
Media provides another source of models through television, books, films and toys. Males are likely to be portrayed as independent with interests in e.g. sports, and women portrayed as submissive, in a homemakers roles. Individuals can learn from such behaviours through vicarious reinforcement, as they observe outcomes of different behaviours. This can result in similar behaviour if the possible reward outweighs the possible cost.
Langlois and Downs found father were more disapproving, than mother, of their sons' gender inappropriate behaviour e.g. playing with dolls. A similar pattern was found in peer reinforcement with boys reacting more negatively to gender inappropriate behaviour than girls, possibly due to social influences portraying male behaviour as more desirable. Also supporting that positive reinforcement may influence gendered behaviour. However, issues occur as research used methods of self-report requiring parents to report on their child's behaviour and gender development. Results may have suffered social desirability, with parents trying to portray their children in the best light, therefore results lack internal validity and reliability. Therefore may not represent the actual social influence parents have on gender roles.
Williams et al observed the introduction of TV into Canadian communities. Communities with the widest range of TV channel access has the strongest sex-typed stereotypes, while having less TV channels resulted in weaker stereotypes. This supports social influences for gender development as through vicarious learning and media exposure this influenced the children's gender views. However, methodological issues occur as questionnaires were used to measure stereotypes. Some questions may have used terms the children did not understand causing them to guess. Therefore do not represent the children's actual views. Also due to the lack of control of extraneous variables in research caused the results to have a lack of internal validity.
Both Langlois and Downs and William's studies highlight the importance of role models as in both studies it is seen social influences influence development. Whether they come from parents, peers of the media. Models should be positive and show a range of behaviour to help move away from sexist stereotypes. It is difficult to determine the extent of social influence as there is the issue of separating social, cultural and cognitive influences on development. However, research can lead to positive real world applications as if social influence plays a role, the media could be used to display men and women in roles normally associated to the opposite sex, this can help lead to greater equality among the sexes.
Social influence has be criticised for ignoring the role of biological factors in gender such as influence of prenatal hormone influences e.g. in rough and tumble play. Also this approach is deterministic to suggest children have no choice but to respond to the social influences they receive. Social learning theory provides an alternative to the strict determinism of operant conditioning but could still be seen as not allowing enough room for free will. Therefore due to this a biosocial approach may be more accepted as this takes into consideration social and biological factors in gender development.
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