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Is there coherence among the cognitive components of gender acquisition?
Sex Roles
Abstract
This study examined the relationships among five measures that assess various cognitive components of the child's acquisition of gender. At around 2 years of age, children were given a task assessing their ability to accurately label as a boy or a girl some head-and-shoulders pictures of boys and girls. At 4 years of age, these children were given tasks measuring (1) the degree to which they found gender a salient parameter of categorization, (2) the amount of gender-related knowledge they could display (SERLI-SRD), (3) the degree to which their preferences were gender-typed (SERLI-SRP) and (4) the accuracy of their memory for gender-typed information. There was no consistent pattern of relationship among the children's scores on these five tools for measuring gender acquisition. Our findings suggest that gender is a multidimensional construct in children's development, and thus these results challenge the undimensional manner in which gender is repeatedly addressed in developmental theory and research.
... Множество изследователи смятат хипотезите на Колбърг за правилни (Maccoby, 1990;Stangor & Ruble, 1987) и в унисон с теоретичния модел за полова идентичност. Според него полът е многоизмерно понятие в детското развитие и свързаните с него знания и поведение не вървят винаги ръка за ръка (Downs & Langlois, 1988;Hort et al., 1991;Huston, 1983). Изследванията, които подкрепят тази гледна точка в науката са насочени към анализ на половото разпознаване, а не към половото постоянство . ...
Introduction by Martyn Barrett
This book examines issues concerning identity and well-being in Bulgarians, not only Bulgarians who are living in Bulgaria itself but also those who are living in other European countries, in Canada and in the USA. The book also examines identity and well-being in two significant ethnic minority groups (Turks and Romany) living in Bulgaria. Given that previous research on other populations has revealed that identity formation and well-being can vary considerably both as a function of ethnonational community and as a function of the specific national context within which a particular ethnonational community lives (Barrett, 2007; Barrett, Riazanova & Volovikova, 2001; Berry, Phinney, Sam & Vedder, 2006; Sam & Berry, 2006), this breadth of perspective is vital for reaching an empirically robust understanding of these issues.
While the research reported in this book focuses primarily on national, ethnic and religious identities, some attention is also devoted to other identities, including gender, local and European identities. This diversity of focus is important. All people have a large number of different identities. Some of these identities are social identities which are derived from their membership of large-scale social groups (groups to which we sometimes develop strong emotional attachments and a deep sense of subjective belonging, such as our membership of our nation and of our ethnic group, and these groups form the primary focus of this book). In addition, we sometimes use our personal attributes (e.g. conscientious, tolerant, fun-loving, etc.) and our interpersonal relationships and social roles (e.g. father, friend, boss, etc.) as well to define ourselves and our own uniqueness further. These multiple identifications with different social groups, attributes, relationships and roles help us to define, position and orientate ourselves within the social world relative to other people. These identifications also play an extremely important role in determining our internal sense of well-being.
Previous research has found that our various identities do not operate in isolation from each other. Instead, they interact in a dynamic manner to drive our judgements, attitudes, self-evaluations and behaviours (Crisp & Hewstone, 2007; Deaux, 1992, 2000; Stryker, 1987). We are not only Bulgarian or British, male or female, black or white, Christian or Moslim. We are simultaneously either a white British agnostic male or a white Bulgarian Christian female. Furthermore, when we are perceived by other people, they perceive us in this much more complex holistic manner, and they relate to us and react to us accordingly. Our well-being can be vitally dependent upon whether we and other people perceive our multiple identities as being compatible or incompatible with each other. For example, there has been an intense debate within the UK in recent years about whether being British and being Moslem are compatible identities (and some white British people deny that these are compatible identities, despite the fact that many British Moslems themselves feel that they are fully compatible: see ETHNOS, 2005, 2006). The sense of social exclusion which can result from judgements of identity incompatibility can sometimes be a source of anxiety, psychological conflict and social maladjustment.
Different cultural values and social practices may be adopted by an individual depending on how their various identities interact with one another. For example, within the UK or the USA, being a Hindu male adolescent of Gujarati descent entails a very different set of values and practices from those that are entailed by being a Hindu female adolescent of Gujarati descent. This is because young Hindu females, but not young Hindu males, are perceived by many of their parents’ generation to be the bearers of the cultural heritage who will in their turn be responsible for transmitting that heritage to the next generation; the result is that females are subject to far more restrictive rules than males (Ghuman, 2003; Maira, 2002). The point here is that it is not being female vs. male that is the crucial distinction – instead, it is the distinction between being a young female Hindu vs. a young male Hindu, with very different social expectations being imposed on these two groups by others within their ethnic community. In other words, it is how these individuals’ ethnic, gender and age identities intersect with one another that drives the social expectations which are placed upon them and which these individuals then have to navigate in the course of their everyday lives.
A further complexity which is generated by our multiple identities is the fact that our various identities are never all activated simultaneously. Instead, as an individual moves across different social contexts, the subjective salience of any given identity fluctuates in a dynamic and fluid manner depending upon the particular social contrasts which are available in those contexts and depending upon the individual’s own motivations, needs and expectations in those situations (Turner et al., 1987; Oakes, Haslam & Turner, 1994). In other words, our national, ethnic or religious identities are not always salient to us irrespective of context. However, identities can sometimes become chronically salient when an individual is confronted on a daily basis with other people who belong to contrasting groups. It is for this reason that minority individuals can develop a chronically salient ethnic minority identity when they are living in a country dominated by a different ethnic majority group, particularly one which is hostile to and discriminates against that minority group. And the chronic salience of this identity can then have a significant impact on these individuals’ cultural adaptation and subjective sense of well-being. This book explores, in considerable detail, the nature of multiple identifications and both majority and minority individuals’ sense of well-being.
The issue of well-being itself has been studied in relationship to national and ethnic identifications by previous investigators, but these studies have tended to focus their attention on the cultural adaptation of ethnic minority individuals using Berry’s (Berry, 1997; 2001) theory of acculturation. These studies have typically found that second generation minority adolescents are often better adapted both psychologically and socioculturally than comparison majority individuals drawn from the national population living within the same country (see Berry et al., 2006, for a review). The research reported in the current book has also found that Turkish and Romany adolescents in Bulgaria have a higher sense of mastery and higher self-esteem than Bulgarian adolescents. Some previous writers in this field have called this kind of phenomenon a “paradox”. However, the phenomenon is surely only a paradox if one adopts the assumption that living with a minority heritage culture in the family home and a different majority national culture outside the home is inherently problematic for psychological adaptation. I myself adopt a different interpretation.
In my view, ethnocultural communities are heterogeneous collectivities in which the boundaries of the group, as well as the values, meanings, symbols, traditions and practices which are associated with the group, are constantly being contested, challenged, renegotiated and reinvented by different individuals and subgroups within the group, with individuals themselves frequently being inconsistent and self-contradictory insofar as they shift their own identities, interpretations and group definitions according to the context in which they are operating (Baumann, 1996, 1999; Maira, 2002; Vadher & Barrett, 2009). If one adopts this alternative characterisation of culture as a dynamic process, then we would expect minority individuals who have been negotiating multiple cultures since the early years of their childhood to be more rather than less adept in dealing with cultural issues than majority individuals who have only been living with a ‘single’ national culture since birth. Hence the finding that minority individuals are better adapted both psychologically and socioculturally than majority individuals is not a paradox at all in my view – it is a direct consequence of these individuals’ greater exposure to and experience of dealing with cultural issues, which renders them more sophisticated in managing their multiple identities and in navigating different cultural domains than their national majority peers. Hence, the findings in the present book that minority individuals have higher self-esteem and a higher sense of mastery than majority individuals are entirely consistent with this more dynamic view of the nature of culture.
Of course, differences between cultures are sometimes profound, and the psychological conflicts which these differences can generate may on occasions be extremely problematic for both majority and minority individuals. However, it is arguable that these kinds of problems tend to arise primarily when the multiple cultures which are being negotiated by an individual contain negative representations of each other (Ballard, 1994). In our own research, working with both majority and minority adolescents living in London, we have found that most adolescents do not experience any problems at all, but are instead extremely adept at negotiating multiple cultures, not only local, national and global cultures but also traditional and modern cultures (Barrett, Garbin, Cinnirella and Eade, in press).
The complexity of the cultural, social and psychological issues in this area of research means that there is no ideal single method which can be used to investigate these phenomena. Every research method which can be used always brings with it its own specific advantages and disadvantages. A particular strength of the research which is reported in this book is that it uses a wide variety of different methods and approaches. These methods include those which I myself have developed and used in other research contexts (Barrett, 2007; Barrett et al., 2001), those which have been developed and used by Jean Phinney and her colleagues (Berry et al., 2006; Phinney, 1992; Roberts, Phinney, Masse, Chen, Roberts & Romero, 1999), as well as a large number of other measures developed by Romanova (Romanova, 1994), Pearlin (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978; Pearlin et al., 1981), Rosenberg (1965), Scheier, Carver and Bridges (1994) and Russell, Peplau and Cutrona (1980). This diversity of measures means that if there are any measurement biases intrinsic to any one method, the triangulation of findings yielded by the different measures should provide a more veridical account than would have been yielded by the use of any single method on its own. Hence, the research in this book provides a particularly compelling portrait of the phenomena which it set out to investigate.
In today’s globalised world, understanding issues of nation and ethnicity has gained a very real urgency. The upsurge of ethnic and regional nationalisms, the dominance of nationalist belief systems, the prejudice and hostility which is sometimes directed at different national, ethnic and religious groups, and the rapidity and fluidity of the societal and cultural changes which many countries are currently undergoing, make the task of understanding how people relate to their own ethnonational group all the more pressing. By examining social identities and psychological well-being within a particular national context in such great depth, and by using a multiplicity of different research methods, the research reported in this book yields great insights into the complex interplay between identity, context and human development. The findings which are reported will be of great interest to social scientists across the world, and the author is to be congratulated on developing such an important and informative line of research.
Professor Martyn Barrett
Academician of the Social Sciences
London, July 2010
... Children as young as two years old begin to label people by gender, show preferences for sex-typed toys, become aware of adult gender roles, and develop gender identities (Carter and Levy 1988; Weinraub et al. 1984). Four-year-old children who appear to have more gender-related knowledge are more likely to label people by gender (Hort, Leinbach, and Fagot 1991). Observations of preschool-aged girls reveal that young girls conform to adult feminine behavior when playing (Edelbrock and Sugawara 1978). ...
Images of female scientists and engineers in popularcance of thesejindings fordevel- opingprograms to change girls'perceptions of scientists and engineers and attitudes toward SET careers.
... They also found that while constancy was positively correlated with gender-typed toy preferences, participant age was not. More recently, Hort, Leinbach, and Fagot (1991) also found that gender schema development, as assessed by gender knowledge, is not positively correlated with the degree to which children's toy choices are gender-typed (see also Carter & Levy, 1988). ...
A number of studies have failed to find that gender constancy (understanding that one's gender is permanent) predicts gender-typed attitudes and behavior. This study (run with a predominantly white sample) tests the hypothesis that gender constant children are motivated to master gender roles, but that how well they do so depends on their knowledge of gender stereotypes. We predicted that attitudes toward computer use (a stereotypically male activity) would be less positive only for 5–9-year-old gender constant girls who also had rich gender stereotypes. Predictions were confirmed, especially for girls whose constancy had recently increased. These data thus suggest that the clearest picture of gender role development emerges when both the unique and interactive effects of gender constancy and gender schema development are assessed. They also indicate that gender differences in computer attitudes can develop through self-socialization processes.
... Perhaps a weaker version of Kohlberg's hypothesis is more appropriate (Maccoby 1990, Stangor & Ruble 1987 ) and in line with gender schema theories. Or perhaps gender is a multidimensional construct in children's development, and gender-related cognitions and behaviors do not always go together (Downs & Langlois 1988, Hort et al 1991, Huston 1983). The latter view is supported by the work of Beverly Fagot and Mary Leinbach, who focus on gender labeling rather than on gender constancy (). ...
Identity is the individual's psychological relationship to particular social category systems. This chapter summarizes how people create and negotiate their gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, and class identities. Theories, methods, and priorities in each of these content areas differ. However, each systematically excludes particular research participants and thus ignores the complexity of people's multiple social identities. Research suggests that gender, racial, ethnic, sexual, and class identities are fluid, multidimensional, personalized social constructions that reflect the individual's current context and sociohistorical cohort. However, far too little empirical work captures the richly textured, theoretical conceptions of identity development, maintenance, and change. Innovative methods for assessing the content and structure of people's identities now exist. Future research should include groups other than young children or college students; should explore functions of identity other than just self-esteem, adjustment, or well-being; and should implement methodologies that are longitudinal and that assess people's many social identities.
... . Studies examining children's discrimination of male and female faces, however, have used face stimuli that include social and cultural cues to sex, such as those available from hairstyle and clothing. When these cues are present, infants as young as 9 months of age categorize pictures of males and females cf. also Cornell, 1974), and children as young as 27 months of age correctly assign appropriate labels to pictures of men and women and of boys and girls (e.g., Hort, Leinbach, & Fagot, 1991;Fagot, Leinbach, & Hagan, 1986). Indeed, research on the development of gender constancy suggests that social cues for gender are of primary importance for children's gender assignments until about the age of 6 (Slaby & Frey, 1975). ...
The ability of children and adults to classify the sex of children's and adults' faces using only the biologically based internal facial structure was investigated. Face images of 7- to 10-year-old children and of adults in their 20s were edited digitally to eliminate hairstyle and clothing cues to sex. Seven-year-olds, nine-year-olds, and adults classified a subset of these faces by sex and were asked, subsequently, to recognize the faces from among the entire set of faces. This recognition task was designed to assess the relationship between categorization and recognition accuracy. Participants categorized the adult faces by sex at levels of accuracy varying from just above chance (7-year-olds) to nearly perfect (adults). All participant groups performed less accurately for children's faces than for adults' faces. The 7-year-olds were unable to classify the children's faces by sex at levels above chance. Finally, the faces of children and adults were equally recognizable--a finding that has theoretical implications for understanding the relationship between categorizing and identifying faces.
The child—what can she tell us about gender? Or, for that matter, about feminism or phenomenology? In psychology, there is a large body of research devoted to understanding children’s gender concepts. There have been some attempts by feminist psychologists to examine the thoughts and concepts of the young child from a feminist perspective—for instance, by looking at how patriarchal values get incorporated into the child’s emerging gender “schema” (e.g., Bem 1981). However, as in most psychological theories regarding gender, there is an implicit definition of gender difference that rests on a simplified biological foundation. That is, the “truth” about gender difference is said to be rooted in natural, biological categories. So small children, who know little about biology, but a lot about human behavior, are said to have beliefs about gender that are pre-logical or pre-rational—meaning that they do not yet construct their ideas about gender on the “true” and stable foundation of biological knowledge. A young preschooler, for example, might tell you that if a girl puts on boys’ clothes, she would be a boy. The child “mistakenly” uses cultural cues (like hair length or clothing) to determine gender instead of rooting a person’s gender classification in biological criteria (e.g., genitals, chromosomes; Bem 1989). Development of gender concepts in childhood, even in these feminist accounts, is explained within a progressivist framework: The young child has ideas about gender that are stereotyped, perhaps amusing, but mistaken; their errors in thinking about gender are gradually eliminated as they approximate the adult-like, biological point of view. The child’s picture of gender is said to be faulty, while the adult view reflects an accurate representation of gender as a biological phenomenon.
One of Sandra Bem’s important contributions was the development of gender schema theory (GST; Bem 1981a). Through an analysis of journal articles referencing GST, we explored the breadth of the theory’s reach and the ways in which its use has changed over time. More specifically, we analyzed how often GST reached journals outside psychology as well as journals and research populations outside the United States, even though Bem was a U.S. psychologist whose empirical work was primarily with U.S. populations. We also assessed the range of research topics that have used a GST framework. We found that 34 years later, GST continues to be cited frequently, with a broad reach beyond U.S. psychology, particularly into international as well as communication and business journals. We found five primary novel uses of the theory: development, discrimination/stereotyping, occupations, historically marginalized populations, and mental health and trauma. We conclude that GST has been a generative theory. For the future, we recommend that GST be used to frame the study of intersectionality, for research-based activism, and as part of a project of theory-bridging.
The present study examines mother-child conversations about gender, to examine (1) children's essentialist beliefs about gender, and (2) the role of maternal input in fostering such beliefs. We videotaped 72 mothers and their sons/daughters (mean ages 2.7, 4.7, or 6.7) discussing a picture book that depicted stereotypical and counter-stereotypical gendered activities (e.g., a boy playing football; a woman race-car driver). Mothers and children also completed measures of gender stereotyping and gender constancy. Results indicate more explicit endorsement of gender stereotypes among children than among mothers. Indeed, mothers provided little in the way of explicit stereotyped input. Nonetheless, mothers expressed gender concepts through a number of more implicit means, including reference to categories of gender (generics), labeling of gender, and contrasting males versus females. Gender-stereotype endorsement from children emerged early (by 2-1/2 years of age), but also underwent important developmental changes, most notably a rapid increase between 2 and 4 years of age in the focus on generic categories of gender. Variation in speech (across individuals and across contexts) cannot be characterized along a single dimension of degree of gender-typing; rather, there seemed to be differences in how focused a speaker was on gender (or not), with some speakers providing more talk about gender (both stereotyped and non-stereotyped) and others providing less such talk. Finally, there were variations in both mother and child speech as a function of child gender and gender of referent. In sum, by age 2, there is much essentialist content in mother-child conversations, even for mothers who express gender egalitarian beliefs. Mothers' linguistic input conveys subtle messages about gender from which children may construct their own essentialist beliefs.
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Inconsistencies that have been reported in past research on developmental changes in gender schemata actually may be a consequence of differences in the way these schemata have been conceptualized and measured. Meta-analysis was used to evaluate this interpretation of past work. On forced choice measures, in which children must select one sex or the other for each item (e.g., "Who is the strong one?"), "correct" matches to societal stereotypes increased with age. Increases were not, however, related to the type of question used (e.g., "Who is ...?" versus "Who can ...?"). Girls made more stereotype matches than boys, although the magnitude of the effect was small. In contrast, on nonforced choice measures, type of question did affect results. Children showed increases in nonstereotyped responses with age, but especially when asked "Who should . . ." or "Who can . . ." , and when elementary-school-aged (as well as preschool-aged) children were included. Girls gave significantly more nonstereotyped responses than boys, especially among older samples and when the domain was traits. Both the age and the sex effects in nonstereotyped responses were larger in more recent studies. IQ and television viewing were significantly related to forced choice scores, whereas television viewing, maternal employment, and memory for gender-stereotyped material were all significantly related to non-forced choice scores. Implications for the distinction between knowledge of stereotypes and attitudes toward stereotypes are discussed.
Thirty toddlers (15 boys, 15 girls) participatedin a sequential touching task to examine their awarenessof own-sex and other-sex gender-typed, andnongender-typed, categories. Twenty-, 24-, and28-month-olds' awareness of gender-typed and non-gender-typedcategories were tested with contrasts of masculine,feminine, ball, and block categories. Toddlers' accuracyat labeling sex was also measured. Toddlers' patterns of touching to both nongender-typed (balls,blocks)and gender-typed (masculine toys, feminine toys)categories exceeded chance. Consistent with genderschema theory and research, boys and girls showedgreater than chance patterns of sequential touching toown-sexgender-typed category items, but notto other-sexgendertyped ones. Contrary to predictions, toddlers whocould accurately label sex (i.e., gender label) did not demonstrate greater sequential touchingof masculine or feminine gender-typed category itemsthan toddlers who could notgender label. Results suggesttoddlers possess greater awareness of gendertyped categories, particularly own-sex gender-typedones, than previously suggested. Additionally, toddlers'awareness of gender-typed categories does not appearrelated to their abilities to label accurately the sexes.
Although the literature on mate preferences indicates that women prefer men with both stereotypic masculine traits, such as strength and assertiveness, and stereotypic feminine traits, such as nurturance and sensitivity, men are encouraged to adopt identities that include only stereotypic masculine traits. This discrepancy produces gender-based role strain for men caught between the desires of women and the demands of social convention. We suggest that the centerfold text published in Playboy magazine provides a useful social infrastructure to help men develop more broadly defined conceptualizations of masculinity. In our analysis of Playboy playmate centerfold texts, we found that playmates expressed a preference for men who included stereotypic feminine attributes in their identities. In the context of attempting to be more attractive to women such as Playboy playmates, the adoption of feminine attributes can be readily justified and help men experience less gender-based role strain.
Play with toys provides children with theopportunity to practice behaviors that have relevance togender role development. By 18 months, toddlersconsistently choose to play with sex-appropriate toys. This study was designed to investigate parents'and toddlers' initiation of play with baby dolls and astuffed clown to determine whether boys are providedwith the same opportunity for feminine play as girls are when playing with the same type oftoys. 42 parent toddler dyads from Caucasianmiddle-class families were observed playing with twobaby dolls and a soft stuffed clown for four minutes.Parent toddler play was coded for doll appropriate andinanimate object-type play. The baby dolls and the clownelicited different play behaviors from both the parentsand the toddlers. Same-sex dyads engaged in different types of play than opposite-sexparent toddler dyads. Findings of this study lendevidence that not all dolls are alike. Consequently,parents who provide their toddlers with baby dolls are providing different experiences from parentswho provide soft stuffed toys. Implications for genderrole development are discussed.
We compared the incidence of imaginary companions and impersonated characters in 152 three- and four-year-old children (75 males and 77 females). Children and their parents were interviewed about role play in two sessions. Although there were no sex differences in verbal ability or fantasy predisposition, there was a significant difference in the form of children's imaginary characters: girls were more likely to create imaginary companions, whereas boys were more likely than girls to actively impersonate their characters. There were no significant sex differences in the competence ratings of imaginary companions or impersonated characters. These results suggest that it is important to examine the form and function of children's pretense to understand sex differences in fantasy play.
Being born a girl or a boy has implications that carry considerably beyond chromosomal, hormonal, and genital differences. In this chapter, we consider the developmental processes involved in sustaining this gender system. In the first section, we update earlier reviews of developmental changes in the components of gender using a multidimensional matrix that contains four constructs (concepts/beliefs, identity/self-perception, preferences, and behavioral enactment) and six contents (biological/categorical sex, activities/interests, personal-social attributes, social relationships, styles/symbols, and values). In the second section, we analyze underlying the trends identified in the matrix review, focusing on three broad theoretical approaches: biological, socialization, and cognitive.
The objectives of the present research were to (a) provide a developmental model based on script research for describing how changes in memory for gender-related information are related to changes in gender-role stereotypes, (b) examine developmental differences in the effect of stereotype manipulations on the construction of new memories, and (c) examine the relation between stereotyped activity preferences and memory for gender-related information. 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds listened to a story in which characters performed behaviors typical and atypical of gender-role stereotypes. An introduction preceded the story in which story characters' activities and preferences were described as either consistent or inconsistent with gender-role stereotypes. Dependent variables were the percentage of typical and atypical story items correctly recognized and the percentage of false alarms made for new items. Gender-role knowledge, stereotyped preferences, and gender-role flexibility were assessed. Results for false alarms, but not hit rates, supported the hypotheses of the model: (a) 6-year-olds falsely recognized typical distractors more than atypical distractors (this effect was nonsignificant for 4- and 8-year-olds), (b) false alarms for atypical distractors decreased between ages 4 and 6, and (c) false alarms for typical distractors decreased between ages 6 and 8. Contrary to expectation, stereotype manipulation effects did not interact with age, but were influenced by gender. Stereotyped preferences were strongly related to memory for gender-related information for both males and females. Results are discussed in terms of developmental and individual differences in gender-schema strength and composition.
As children grow up they form a general sense of self and the ability to relate to others and play a part in society. In this process they also develop beliefs about the roles and expectations that are associated with each sex group (gender roles) and a self-identity as a member of one sex group or the other (gender identity). This chapter describes theories and research that are related to this general process of gender socialization. The notion of socialization is very broad. For instance, scholars may discuss occupa tional socialization, religious socialization, political socialization, or socialization to school. Yet, gender socialization appears to be one of the most basic aspects of this large and complex process. In part this reflects the fact that children's realization that they are male or female tends to come at a fairly young age. Long before children understand the nature of religious groups, occupations, or schooling, they realize that there are two sex groups and that they belong to one of these groups. The centrality of gender socialization also reflects the fact that our society, and all societies known to social scientists, are gendered. People throughout the world recognize that there are different sex groups and they assign different roles and responsibilities to members of these groups, as well as different re wards and values. The theories used to analyze gender socialization were primarily developed to deal with socialization in general. That is, theories that can explain how we develop a general sense of self or how we learn roles and expectations associated with school or work are also used to account for the development of gender identity and gender role expectations. Theory and research regarding socialization is also multidisciplinary, reflecting work in academic psychology and psychoanalysis, as well as sociology. Because gender identity and views of gender roles first begin to appear at very young ages, much of this work has focused on children.
Aspects of 40 young children's (22 boys, 18 girls; mean age = 51.00 months) recall of related and unrelated item pairs were assessed. Children were primarily white and middle SES. Consistent with previous recall research, boys recalled significantly more pairs, and individual items from pairs, of related gender-typed items than pairs containing unrelated items. Girls recalled significantly more pairs, and individual items from pairs, of related animal items than any other types of related or unrelated pairings. Congruent with the component model of gender role knowledge development, girls showed significantly greater recall of pairs, and individual items from pairs, of same-sex feminine item pairs than other-sex masculine ones. Consistent with previous memory research examining young children's pair recall, boys demonstrated significantly better recall of pairs, and individual items from pairs, containing related same-sex masculine items than pairs with two unrelated items. These data suggest young children conceptualize gender roles as social categories to organize processing of social information.
The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) and the Bem Sex-Role Inventory were given to 218 primarily middle class college students of whom 90% were Caucasian. A 2 4 2 univariate factorial analysis of variance was used to examine the association of attachment level with gender, gender-role identity, and the within subjects factor of attachment figure. Feminine and androgynous individuals reported significantly higher levels of parental attachment than those classified as masculine and undifferentiated. There were also similar multivariate differences among the gender-role categories on the IPPA subscales of Communication, Trust, and Alienation. Across all participants, attachment to mother was higher than to father. Although there were no overall gender differences in parental attachment, females reported higher peer attachment.
Geschlecht stellt, wie Alter oder Geschwisterzahl, eine überaus praktische Forschungsvariable dar, die ohne großen zusätzlichen methodischen Aufwand in zahlreichen Korrelationsstudien miterfaßt worden ist. Mit dem Geschlecht als abhängiger Forschungsvariable, die zumeist in theoretischen Teilkonstrukten und zugehörigen aufwendigen Operationalisierungen, wie Geschlechtsidentität, Geschlechtskonstanz, Geschlechtsrolle usw. untersucht wird, verhält es sich anders. Wesentlich weniger Forschungsarbeiten haben sich mit der Frage befaßt, welche Faktoren beispielsweise die kindliche Geschlechtsrollenentwicklung beeinflussen. Aus diesem Grunde ist es nicht verwunderlich, daß sowohl Theoriebildung wie auch Methodenentwicklung und empirischer Forschungsstand kaum den Kinderschuhen entwachsen sind. (SH2)
The objectives of the present research were to (a) provide a developmental model based on script research for describing how changes in memory for gender-related information are related to changes in gender-role stereotypes, (b) examine developmental differences in the effect of stereotype manipulations on the construction of new memories, and (c) examine the relation between stereotyped activity preferences and memory for gender-related information. 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds listened to a story in which characters performed behaviors typical and atypical of gender-role stereotypes. An introduction preceded the story in which story characters' activities and preferences were described as either consistent or inconsistent with gender-role stereotypes. Dependent variables were the percentage of typical and atypical story items correctly recognized and the percentage of false alarms made for new items. Gender-role knowledge, stereotyped preferences, and gender-role flexibility were assessed. Results for false alarms, but not hit rates, supported the hypotheses of the model: (a) 6-year-olds falsely recognized typical distractors more than atypical distractors (this effect was nonsignificant for 4- and 8-year-olds), (b) false alarms for atypical distractors decreased between ages 4 and 6, and (c) false alarms for typical distractors decreased between ages 6 and 8. Contrary to expectation, stereotype manipulation effects did not interact with age, but were influenced by gender. Stereotyped preferences were strongly related to memory for gender-related information for both males and females. Results are discussed in terms of developmental and individual differences in gender-schema strength and composition.
Gender differentiation is pervasive, and understanding how and why it develops is important for both theoretical and practical reasons. The work described here is rooted in constructivist accounts of gender differentiation. Past research provides considerable support for constructivist predictions concerning (a) developmental changes in gender attitudes and (b) the relation between gender attitudes and information processing. Little work, however, has addressed the more fundamental question of how children's developing gender attitudes about others are related to developing gender characterizations of self. The focus of the current Monograph is on this other-self relation during middle childhood. A brief review of past theory and empirical work on gender differentiation is provided. It is argued that a major explanation of the limitations and inconsistencies evident in earlier work may be traced to restrictions in the measures available to assess key constructs. A conceptual analysis of the specific limitations of past measures is presented. The Monograph then offers alternative models of the developmental relation between attitudes toward others and characterization of self (the attitudinal and the personal pathway models), and identifies conditions expected to influence the strength of the observed other-self relation. Four studies establish the reliability and validity of a suite of measures that provides comparable methods for assessing attitudes toward others (attitude measures, or AM) and sex typing of self (personal measures, or PM) in three domains: occupations, activities, and traits (or OAT). Parallel forms are provided for adults (the OAT-AM and OAT-PM) and for children of middle-school age, roughly 11-13 years old (the COAT-AM and COAT-PM). A fifth study provides longitudinal data from children tested at four times, beginning at the start of grade 6 (approximately age 11 years) and ending at the close of grade 7 (approximately age 13 years). These data are used to examine the developmental relation between children's sex typing of others and sex typing of the self, and to test the predictions concerning the factors hypothesized to affect the strength of the relation between the two types of sex typing. Overall, the data supported the conceptual distinctions among individuals' (a) gender attitudes toward others, (b) feminine self, and (c) masculine self, and, additionally, revealed some intriguing differences across domains. Interestingly, the data concerning the other-self relation differed by sex of participant. Among girls, analyses of concurrent relations showed that those girls who held fewer stereotypes of masculine activities for others showed greater endorsement of masculine items for self, a finding compatible with both the other-to-self attitudinal pathway model and the self-to-other personal pathway model. The prospective regression analyses, however, showed no effects. That is, preadolescent girls' gender attitudes about others did not predict their later self-endorsements, nor did self-endorsements predict later attitudes. Data from boys showed a strikingly different pattern, one consistent with the self-to-other personal pathway model: There was no evidence of concurrent other-self relations, but prospective analyses indicated that preadolescent boys who endorsed greater numbers of feminine traits as self-descriptive early in grade 6 developed increasingly egalitarian gender attitudes by the end of grade 7. The Monograph closes with discussions of additional implications of the empirical data, of preliminary work on developing parallel measures for younger children, and of the need to design research that illuminates the cognitive-developmental mechanisms underlying age-related changes in sex typing.
Gender schema theory proposes that children's acquisition of gender labels and gender stereotypes informs gender-congruent behaviour. Most previous studies have been cross-sectional and do not address the temporal relationship between knowledge and behaviour. We report the results of a longitudinal study of gender knowledge and sex-typed behaviour across three domains in children tested at 24 and 36 months (N = 56). Although both knowledge and sex-typed behaviour increased significantly between 2 and 3 years, there was no systematic pattern of cross-lagged correlations between the two, although some concurrent relationships were present at 24 months. Future longitudinal work might profitably focus on younger children using reliable preverbal measures of gender knowledge and employing a shorter lag between measurement times.
Sex-role behavior is one of the least explored areas of personality formation and development. The present study represents an attempt to investigate and analyze the nature and extent of young children's preference for objects and activities characteristic of their own or the opposite sex. In order to study this problem it was necessary to construct a scale that would facilitate the quantification of sex-role preference. Seventy-eight male and 68 female kindergarten children, ages 5-4 to 6-4 with a median age of 5-10 were used as subjects. These children were enrolled in a Denver public elementary school located in a middle-class section of the city. All results and conclusions of the present study are based on data obtained from use of the scale. The reliability of this scale was determined by the test-retest method with an interval of approximately one month between tests. The test-retest reliability was (at an interval of one month) .69 for boys and .82 for girls. Hypotheses and implications of the present investigation were briefly reviewed in terms of the nature of identification, sex differences in the acceptance of sex roles, culturally determined conflicts in sex-role behavior, and homosexuality in relation to sex-role development.
Gender schema theory proposes that the phenomenon of sex typing derives, in part, from gender-based schematic processing— a generalized readiness to process information on the basis of the sex-linked associations that constitute the gender schema. In particular, the theory proposes that sex typing results from the fact that the self-concept itself is assimilated in the gender schema. Several studies are described, including 2 experiments with 96 male and 96 female undergraduates, that demonstrate that sex-typed individuals do, in fact, have a greater readiness to process information—including information about the self—in terms of the gender schema. It is speculated that such gender-based schematic processing derives, in part, from the society's ubiquitous insistence on the functional importance of the gender dichotomy. The political implications of gender schema theory and its relationship to the concept of androgyny are discussed. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Assessed a total of 119 preschool children with the Sex Role Learning Index (SERLI), a picture-choice instrument designed to compare children's preferences to both sex role stereotypes and each child's conception of what is sex appropriate. Boys showed higher masculine preferences in the section depicting child figures than in the section depicting adult figures, while girls showed more feminine preferences in the adult figures than child figures section. Boys were more masculine in their preferences than girls were feminine in the child figures section, but not in the adult figures section. Girls were also found to adhere more to their own conceptions of what is sex appropriate than to sex role stereotypes in the child figures section. Boy's scores in the adult figures section correlated significantly with MA and IQ, while girls' scores in the child figures section correlated with CA. Boys' scores on the SERLI were significantly correlated with scores on the It Scale for Children, but girls' scores were not. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A gender-labeling task was used to test the ability of 21 girls and 22 boys ranging in age from 21 to 40 mo to discriminate between pictures of boys and girls and male and female adults. Ss who passed the gender task (mean age 30 mo) were compared with Ss who failed it (mean age 26 mo) on 3 behaviors most often categorized as sex typed (toy choice, aggression, and peer playmate selection). It was predicted that Ss who passed the task would choose more sex-typed toys and same-sex peers and that there would be a drop in aggression for girls who passed but no change for boys. Results confirm the predictions for aggression and peer choice but not for toy choice. The relation between the child's understanding of gender categories and environmental influences is discussed. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
2 measures of children's use of gender as a schematic dimension were developed, 1 measuring gender-based categorization, the other reflecting the degree to which children use the gender dimension to make personal affiliation choices when other schematic bases for responding are available. 2 samples, totaling 147 boys and girls aged 3-7, were tested on the 2 measures of gender salience to establish developmental patterns of gender-based categorization and affiliation. Relations with sex-role knowledge and gender concepts, and with measures of sex-role adoption, were also examined. A Guttman Scale analysis confirmed the developmental sequence in which a decline in gender-based categorization occurred after sex-role knowledge regarding activities and occupations was acquired. Further, once the decline in gender-based categorization occurred, children began to show more cognitive flexibility on a measure of sex-role attitudes. In contrast, use of the gender dimension to make personal affiliation choices did not decline with age but seemed to reflect individual differences in degree of sex typing. Because of these distinct underlying cognitive processes, there seems to be little relation between what a child knows about sex roles and how sex typed the child's attitudes and behavior will be during this period.
Children 5-6 years of age were shown pictures depicting males and females performing sex-consistent and sex-inconsistent activities. 1 week later, memory for activities and for sex of actor performing activities was tested using a variety of memory measures. Level of stereotyping and perceived similarity to actors were also assessed. As predicted, children tended to distort information by changing the sex of the actor in sex-inconsistent pictures and not by changing the sex of actor on sex-consistent pictures. Children were also more confident of memory for pictures remembered as sex consistent (whether distorted or not) than for inconsistent pictures. Children's ratings of perceived similarity followed gender of actor and did not influence memory or distortion. Results were discussed in terms of a schematic processing model of sex stereotyping and in terms of the influence sex reversals could have on the development and maintenance of sex stereotypes.
The thesis of the present paper is that sex stereotyping is a normal cognitive process and is best examined in terms of information-processing constructs. A model is proposed in which stereotypes are assumed to function as schemas that serve to organize and structure information. The particular schemas involved in stereotyping are described, and the functions and biases associated with these schemas are elaborated. Both the development and maintenance of stereotypes are explained using the schematic processing model. The schematic model is found to be useful for explaining many of the results from sex-typing and stereotyping studies, as well as indicating areas needing further investigation. To describe the relation between sex schemas and other types of schemas, a typology is proposed which divides schemas according to whether they are potentially self-defining and according to their salience or availability. Using the typology, stereotyping and sex stereotyping are said to occur because the schemas involved are self-defining and salient. The role of salience in mediating the use of schemas is discussed.
A test of gender discrimination in response to familiar labels was developed and given to 17- to 42-month-old children. A pretest employing pictures of familiar objects was presented first to ensure that subjects could perform a discrimination task, followed by separate gender tests comprised of photographs of stereotypically masculine and feminine children and adults. There were no sex differences in performance for the gender tests, but among the youngest children, more boys than girls could not be tested. Psychometric aspects of the tests were investigated and found adequate. The tests allow individual children to be classified as to gender-labeling ability and provide a useful tool for investigating gender knowledge.
The relation among children's ability to apply gender labels, their tendency to emit sex-typed behavior, and their parents' attitudes and reactions toward sex-typed behaviors was studied. The children were observed at home with their parents when the children were 18 months old, before any of them had passed the gender-labeling task, and at 27 months, when half had passed (early labelers) and half had not (late labelers). At 18 months, there were no differences in the children's sex-typed behavior, but parents of future early labelers gave more positive and negative responses to sex-typed toy play. By 27 months, early labelers showed more traditional sex-typed behavior than late labelers; parents of early and late labelers no longer differed in their responses. At age 4, when given an inventory of sex stereotyping, early labelers scored higher on Sex Role Discrimination; there were no differeces on Sex Role Preference scores.
Preschoolers' (2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds) understanding of attributes and dimensions was examined in 3 experiments. Attribute knowledge is the knowledge that a particular attribute--for example, red--can be instantiated in a variety of distinct objects. Dimension knowledge is the knowledge that there are qualitatively distinct kinds of attributes; for example, red and blue are attributes of the same kind, a kind that is different from that of big. Preschoolers' understanding of attributes and dimensions was assessed by both a conceptual measure and a linguistic measure. A language-free follow-the-leader task served as the conceptual measure. In this task, all the children showed strong attribute knowledge. However, 2-year-olds did not appear to differentiate attributes into their dimensional kinds. The observed trend in the linguistic task was not isomorphic to that observed in the conceptual task. The acquisition of some attribute and dimension labels appears to follow closely the trend in conceptual development, whereas the acquisition of others (specifically, size-attribute labels) lags severely behind the attainment of the basic concepts. The results provide new information about the development of object comparison and the acquisition of dimensional terms.
A sex difference in the strategies for categorizing social information: Differential socialization or developmental decalage? Unpublished manuscript
- B E Hort
- M D Leinbach
- B I Fagot
- B. E. Hort
Identification and child rearing
- R R Sears
- L Rau
- R Alpert
- R. R. Sears
Sex-role learning of five-year-olds
- L B Fauls
- W D Smith
- L. B. Fauls