This research paper focuses on narrowing down the potential topic for my dissertation work through identification of search engines and scholarly resources in preparation for exhaustive literature review. The chosen potential topics for the dissertation include what is the dominant gender paradigm, differences between female and male brains, and how do males nurture differently than women. This paper contains a description of all the three topics as well as the degree of their worthiness in psychology for a doctoral-level study. The study addresses my opinion on potential issues in the area that would benefit from my contribution to theory. The paper also contains several search keywords that would be used to gather a wide range of scholarly articles for each topic and the potential search and resources engines to use in obtaining scholarly sources.
What is the Dominant Gender Paradigm?
The gender paradigm encompasses the view that a wide range of domestic violence are perpetrated by males against females to maintain patriarchy. Societal norm lay a foundation of what individuals expect of every person in given situations. The norms in gender roles are socialized messages directed to women and males directly in response to what is expected of them in terms of their sex ( McDermott et al., 2019) . For instance, males often avoid engagement in emotional, behavioral, and thought processes that are socially constructed as feminine. Avoiding femininity is a critical concern within the framework of gender and normative role strain. A variety of studies have identified a large number of male role norms such as beliefs that males should be stoic, self-reliant, hypersexual, powerful, dominant, competitive, and aggressive among others.
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The field of psychological study, especially on masculinities and men, has grown significantly over the past few years to include a wide range of characterological and cultural factors. Academia and feminist theory have understood for long that all conflicts are gendered. However, the causal relationship between conflict and gender inequality remains unexplored ( Kennedy, Pierson & Thomson, 2016) . Also, the masculine and normative paradigms of gender role strain in the field of psychology have predominated. A variety of researchers have identified a connection between male’s sexist endorsement, restrictive and rigid masculinity behavior and ideologies to a wide range of relational, personal, and social problems, making masculine gender role strain an important area of study. Women's representations and issues within new societal structures have been sidelined continually, and consociationalism, in both practice and theory does not provide solutions to the problem ( Kennedy et al., 2016) . The consociational theory does not have a real interaction with gender, creating a blind spot that is problematic to solve conflicts. The lack of understanding by consociationalism on the gendered nature of the conflict, challenges solutions that fully address the problems and inequalities that demand attention in work and post-conflict settings to reinstate gendered processes of exclusion.
The understanding of the dominant gender paradigm is worthy of doctoral-level study because the psychology of masculinities and men can inform decision-making in practice especially when treating males who endorse traditional masculine norms. The psychology of masculinities and men has amassed a wide range of clinical and empirical knowledge over the last 40 years that can guide practitioners ( Silver, Levant & Gonzalez, 2018) . Men who endorse traditional masculine norms incorporate their own multifaceted and unique cultural groups and appropriate clinical work with such individuals indicates cultural competence. The understanding can also enable healthcare practitioners to enhance gender equality advocacy in therapeutic exercise with males because it serves as a feminist aim as it recognizes male privileges. The challenges of addressing inequalities and problems in gendered conflicts arise because of consociationalism’s blind spot. I would make a contribution to theory by researching how practitioners and mainstream consociational theorists can apply their knowledge in developing structures of governance for societies emerging from violent conflict to further sustainable peace and equitable societies.
The Differences between the Male and Female Brain
Variances in the structure of the brain between sexes result from interactions of influences of the environment and biology on the development of the brain. Neural differentiation development in sex is largely influenced by the immune system, hormones, and sex chromosomes ( Ruigrok et al., 2014) . The brain development is also influenced by postnatal factors, maternal and stress infections, early life programming, and steroid hormones. The symptomatology, prevalence, and age of onset of a wide range of conditions, both neurological and psychiatric differ considerably between females and males. Instances of male-biased conditions include attention deficit, autism, dyslexia, and language impairment while those of females include anxiety and depression disorders ( Ruigrok et al., 2014) . A wide range of research reports gender variances in brain volume, white matter microstructure, cortical thickness, functional connectivity, and surface area between adult females and males ( Ritchie et al., 2018) . The psychological sex brain differences are small but some traits and behavior show substantial and reliable differences ( Ritchie et al., 2018) . For instance, performance on physical aggression and mental rotation tasks are higher on average in males while the personality traits of neuroticism and agreeableness are higher in females.
The activation of the brain while performing specific cognitive tasks are associated with the characteristics of gender or sex differences ( Jäncke, 2018) . Women are typically argued to show more bilateral activation patterns in activities such as processing verbal information. Gender differences in the brain in psychological and psychophysiological studies indicate that females have a more strong response to emotionally negative stimuli than males ( Jäncke, 2018) . A wide range of sex differences that favor men are observed for positive emotions with valence specificity evident for the amygdala. Women, on the other hand, exhibit greater activation for negative emotions than men, evident in the left amygdala and other regions such as the mammillary bodies, hypothalamus, left thalamus, medial prefrontal context, and left caudate ( Jäncke, 2018) . Men exhibit greater activation for positive emotions than women in the left amygdala and other regions such as the right fusiform gyrus and the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus.
Understanding the female and male brain differences is worthy of doctoral-level study because it will inform why and how the differences vary in their predisposition for resilience to or risk for factors influencing the asymmetric effect that sex has on the brain. The understanding will also provide insight into the occurrences during the development of psychopathological conditions affected asymmetrically between sexes. I would make a contribution to theory by researching whether gender differences brain structure underlies skewed sex ratios of conditions such as psychiatric and neurological and whether the brain regions impacted by such conditions are attributed to by physiological conditions resulting from the development of typical sex differences.
How Do Males Nurture Differently Than Woman?
A wide range of studies portray females are more nurturing and empathetic and portray males as having more cognition and fewer emotions. Sex differences in nurturing can emerge in early development, as indicated by researches on play behavior, investigating ways in which individuals manipulate objects that are traditionally handled by girls and boys ( Christov-Moore et al., 2014) . The studies show that young females are more likely than males to carry objects as if they are infants, while males are more likely to carry sticks to hit one another. Males also exhibit lower rates than females in various rudimentary forms of empathy that are essential in nurturing such as neonatal imitation, contagious crying, and social referencing as well as sensitivity and general social interest. Men brought up traditionally are less likely to be conversant with their emotional lives ( Silver et al., 2018) . Therefore, emotional intimacy may be especially difficult with their children and may encounter challenges acknowledging or even noticing their children's feelings along with compassion expression.
Understanding how males nurture differently than women is worthy of doctoral-level study because it is crucial to help clinicians stay attuned in noticing traditional views of how men should discipline or nurture children. The views could be held by various individuals regardless of their gender and could pose detrimental concerns in case they are not addressed. Various implications exist for the quality of relationships between fathers and their partners, as clashes over values and practices in parenting are prevalent, often promoting relationship conflicts ( Silver et al., 2018) . Conflicts and stress over raising children can have detrimental impacts on relationship satisfaction and marriages. I would make a contribution to theory by researching ways clinicians can build rapport by integrating the body of knowledge with a multicultural feminist point of view and implement appropriate interventions with traditional men. The contribution would serve as a crucial social justice function to address gender inequality and reduce the dysfunctional behavior of men that are harmful to society.
Search Strategy
The search strategy used for this paper used Google Scholar and EBSCOhost search engines. The results of the search were refined by narrowing the article search to find full texts, with available reference, scholarly or peer-reviewed journals, published between 2014 and 2019. The search keywords for the topic on what is the dominant gender paradigm were dominant, gender, and paradigm as well as their synonyms. The keywords for the topic on the differences between the male and female brain were differences, between, male and females, gender or sex, and brain and their synonyms. The keywords for the topic on how do males nurture differently than woman were males, men, females, women, gender, sex, nurture, parent, and differently among other synonyms.
References
Christov-Moore, L., Simpson, E. A., Coudé, G., Grigaityte, K., Iacoboni, M., & Ferrari, P. F. (2014). Empathy: gender effects in brain and behavior. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews , 46 , 604-627.
Jäncke, L. (2018). Sex/gender differences in cognition, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy. F1000Research , 7 .
Kennedy, R., Pierson, C., & Thomson, J. (2016). Challenging identity hierarchies: Gender and consociational power-sharing. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations , 18 (3), 618-633.
McDermott, R. C., Pietrantonio, K. R., Browning, B. R., McKelvey, D. K., Jones, Z. K., Booth, N. R., & Sevig, T. D. (2019). In search of positive masculine role norms: Testing the positive psychology positive masculinity paradigm. Psychology of Men & Masculinities , 20 (1), 12.
Ritchie, S. J., Cox, S. R., Shen, X., Lombardo, M. V., Reus, L. M., Alloza, C., ... & Liewald, D. C. (2018). Sex differences in the adult human brain: evidence from 5216 UK Biobank participants. Cerebral Cortex , 28 (8), 2959-2975.
Ruigrok, A. N., Salimi-Khorshidi, G., Lai, M. C., Baron-Cohen, S., Lombardo, M. V., Tait, R. J., & Suckling, J. (2014). A meta-analysis of sex differences in human brain structure. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews , 39 , 34-50.
Silver, K. E., Levant, R. F., & Gonzalez, A. (2018). What does the psychology of men and masculinities offer the practitioner? Practical guidance for the feminist, culturally sensitive treatment of traditional men. Practice Innovations , 3 (2), 94.
