Abstract: Biological, socialized and cognitive approaches represent three dominant theories about gender development. In recent years, biological approaches are remarkable and have obtained acceptability. The biological approaches of gender development can be divided into two perspectives, including the distal and proximal explanations. Distal evolutionary explanations generally involve evolutionary psychology, evolutionary developmental psychology and cross-species comparisons. Oppositely, proximal explanations involve behavioral genetics, and studies focusing on sex chromosomes, genes, hormones and brain structures and functions. This article summed up some specific influences of these biological factors on gender development, and pointed out several problems about research contents, methods and techniques in behavioral genetics studies, hormone studies and brain imaging studies. Moreover the prospects for the future studies are showed.

Key words: gender development, biological approaches, distal evolutionary explanations, proximal explanations