Psychological explanations of gender development Cognitive theories

Learning objectives  Describe Kohlberg’s cognitive explanation of how children develop an understanding of gender.  Describe gender schema theory.  Assess the evidence on which cognitive theories are based.

Kohlberg’s cognitive developmental theory (1966)  Gender awareness develops through 3 stages  Gender identity  Gender stability  Gender constancy

Stage 1 – gender identity  About 2 ½ - 3 ½ years  The child grasps they are a girl or a boy  Limited understanding  The boy may claim that they are going to be a ‘mummy’ when they grow up.

Stage 2 – gender stability  About 3 ½  The child begins to realise their own sex will not change.  May still be misled by superficial changes in appearance.

Stage 3 – gender constancy  Between 4 ½ - 7 years  Understands that Britney Spears is not a man just because she shaved her head.

Implication  Gender role behaviours should appear at around or after the age of 5years.

Evidence  Kohlberg’s theory provides the basis for thinking about children’s understanding of gender  Various studies find support for Kohlberg’s theory – that children of about 4 use hair length and clothes to decide on the sex of a doll (McConaghy, 1979)

 Slaby and Frey (1975)  Children who had reached high levels of gender constancy spent more time watching the same- sex model than those who had low levels of gender constancy.

Ruble (1981)  Children who had reached gender constancy were sensitive to the implicit message in adverts that certain toys were ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for boys or girls.

Gender Schema theory  Martin and Halverson (1981) based their work on Bem (1981)  In agreement with Kohlberg BUT  Argue that gender identity is developed much earlier than he suggested.

‘In groups’ and ‘out groups’  Between 2 and 3 years  Schemas begin to develop for what is ‘for boys’ and what is ‘for girls’.

Campbell et al. (2000)  Used visual preference technique with babies aged 3 months, 9 months and 18 months old.  3 month old babies showed preference watching babies of the same sex (especially boys)

By 9 months  Boys preferred to look at and watch ‘boy toys’.

By 18 months  Both girls and boys preferred to watch male activities.  Especially boys

Conclusion  Babies develop schemas about gender long before they talk.  Schemas drive their attention  Young children are ‘tuned in’ to pay attention to the group they belong to (especially boys)

Second study (2004)  Longitudinal  56 children  27 months and again at 39 months  In the children’s homes  Seated on parent’s lap and shown photo album  Asked to point to:

 The boy or girl

 The girls’ or boys’ toy

 The boys’ or girls’ game / activity

 Campbell found  At 2 years 53% could label gender  At 3 years 94% could label gender  This supports Kohlberg’s theory  And shows rapid development between 2 and 3 years.

Poulin-Dubois et al. (2002)  63 Canadian children between 2 -3 years  Asked to choose a doll to carry out tasks  Shaving  Vacuuming  sleeping

 Girls aged 24 months chose gender appropriate doll  Boys didn’t until about 31 months.  Campbell concluded that young children between 2 and 3 select and pay attention to models on the basis of their sex.

Where do schemas come from?  Tenenbaum and Leaper  Meta-analysis  Found correlation between parents’ gender schema and that of their child (any age or sex).

Main difference  Between Kohlberg’s theory and schema theory is  The age at which is takes place.  Tennenbaum’s meta-analysis shows the importance of parents’ beliefs on where schemas come from.