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GENDER & SEXUAL ORIENT-
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Gender Differences
When you think of a source of differences between men and women what word first pops into your mind?
Most people tend to think of hormones. We hear words like testosterone and estrogen tossed around a lot and often we may not necessarily think about their actual effects. We saw earlier that testosterone has an effect on songbirds. What do hormones do in humans? In the womb, as the brain develops, steroids produced by the gonads exert permanent organizational effects on the brain. Similarly, these same hormones exert phasic activational effects. It is important to remember, however, that organizational changes resulting from prenatal hormones are not always permanent because the brain is susceptible to the activational effects of certain hormones in adult life.
Essentially, males and females tend to be exposed to different levels of hormones while in the womb, as developing children, and as adults. This causes different patterns of organization in the brain and also, some suggest, different patterns of behavior.
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