Title: Social Role Theory - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
Headings: Social Role Theory
Social Role Theory
Small-group Interaction and Gender
2.1 Social Role Theory
Social role and life course theories
Spillover
The Role of Gender in Educational Contexts and Outcomes
1.3 Sociocultural Theory
Introduction
Social role and life course theories
Needs and Justice
Other Kinds of Theories of Need
Gender Differences in Personality and Social Behavior
2.2 Helping Behavior and Altruism
Gender Issues
Cultural Factors
Mate Selection
Perspectives
Biosocial Construction of Sex Differences and Similarities in Behavior
4.3 Actual change in gender stereotypes
The Agentic–Communal Model of Advantage and Disadvantage: How Inequality Produces Similarities in the Psychology of Power, Social Class, Gender, and Race
8.3 Social Role Processes

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URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128154502000127
The Role of Gender in Educational Contexts and Outcomes
Jennifer Petersen, Janet Shibley Hyde, in Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 2014
1.3 Sociocultural Theory
Sociocultural theory, also called social structural theory or social role theory, was proposed by Eagly and Wood (1999). According to this view, a society's division of labor by gender drives all other gender differences in behavior. That is, for example, women's greater nurturance is a result of, rather than the cause of, their assignment to caring for children. Psychological gender differences result from individuals’ adaptations to the particular roles to which they are assigned as well as the roles that are proscribed. Biological differences between males and females are important because they are magnified by culture. Men's greater size and strength, historically, led them to pursue activities such as warfare, which gave them greater status, power, and wealth than women. Once in those roles, men's behavior became more dominant and women's behavior accommodated by becoming more subordinate. Women's biological capacity for bearing children and breastfeeding led them to care for children, which in turn led them to develop nurturance and relationship skills. This line of theorizing led Eagly and Wood to predict that the greater the gender difference in status and roles in a culture, the greater the psychological gender differences would be.