Eleanor Maccoby
American developmental psychologist of gender and parenting
American developmental psychologist at Stanford who co-wrote The Psychology of Sex Differences (1974) with Carol Jacklin and later studied how girls and boys grow up apart and together.
Why this person matters
Maccoby and Jacklin reviewed the literature on sex differences and concluded that many supposed differences were unfounded. Anti-nepotism rules shaped her early years at Stanford, where she first held a part-time post. She later became the first woman to chair its psychology department.
Main contributions
The Psychology of Sex Differences
With Carol Jacklin she reviewed the research on sex differences in 1974, included unpublished studies to counter publication bias, and concluded that many supposed essential differences between the sexes were unfounded. The book has over 5,000 citations.
Patterns of Child-Rearing
With Robert Sears and Harry Levin she co-wrote this 1957 study of child-rearing.
The Two Sexes
In The Two Sexes: Growing Up Apart, Coming Together (1998) she argued that biological factors may play a role in gender development, because socialisation alone could not explain the behaviour she observed in children.
Context and limits
The source read calls the 1974 review an instant classic but records no criticism of it, and it does not describe the specific findings of Patterns of Child-Rearing. Her 1998 argument for a biological contribution departed from prevailing feminist thinking of the time.
In your introductory course
Lifespan development.She appears in development and gender chapters for the literature on sex differences and for children's gender-segregated play.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 9.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1957
She co-published Patterns of Child-Rearing.
- 1958
She joined Stanford University.
- 1973
She became the first woman to chair Stanford's psychology department, to 1976.
- 1974
She co-published The Psychology of Sex Differences.
Source
- Psychology's Feminist Voices, Eleanor MaccobyArchive or museum. Institutional biography inspected.