Department of Psychology, University of Exeter.
Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2021 Nov;16(6):1113-1142. doi: 10.1177/1745691620902442. Epub 2020 May 6.
In the Western world, gender has traditionally been viewed as binary and as following directly from biological sex. This view is slowly changing among both experts and the general public, a change that has been met with strong opposition. In this article, we explore the psychological processes underlying these dynamics. Drawing on previous work on gender performativity as well as gender as a performance, we develop a psychological framework of the perpetuation and disruption of the gender/sex binary on a stage that facilitates and foregrounds binary gender/sex performance. Whenever character, costume, and script are not aligned the gender/sex binary is disrupted and gender trouble ensues. We integrate various strands of the psychological literature into this framework and explain the processes underlying these reactions. We propose that gender trouble can elicit threat-personal threat, group-based and identity threat, and system threat-which in turn leads to efforts to alleviate this threat through the reinforcement of the gender/sex binary. Our framework challenges the way psychologists have traditionally treated gender/sex in theory and empirical work and proposes new avenues and implications for future research.
在西方世界，性别传统上被视为二元的，并直接源自于生理性别。这种观点在专家和普通大众中都在慢慢发生变化，这种变化遭到了强烈反对。在本文中，我们探讨了这些动态背后的心理过程。借鉴先前关于性别表现以及性别作为表演的研究，我们在一个促进和突出二元性别/性表现的舞台上，为二元性别/性的延续和破坏发展出一个心理学框架。只要角色、服装和剧本不一致，性别/性的二元性就会被打破，性别问题就会随之而来。我们将各种心理学文献纳入这个框架，并解释这些反应背后的过程。我们提出，性别问题可能会引发威胁——个人威胁、群体和身份威胁以及系统威胁，这反过来又会导致通过强化性别/性的二元性来缓解这种威胁。我们的框架挑战了心理学家在理论和实证工作中传统对待性别/性的方式，并为未来的研究提出了新的途径和影响。
