Order effects in children's gender-constancy responses.

Michael Siegal · Judith A. Robinson

62 citations0/0 files storedDevelopmental Psychology

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Gender Roles and Identity Studies Social and Intergroup Psychology Child and Animal Learning Development

Abstract

According to the cognitive-developmental approach to sex role development, sex-typed behavior is influenced by the establishment of a stable concept of gender identity that emerges after the age of 4-5 years. Young children, however, have been shown to have a considerable understanding of sex roles and stereotypes. In this study, we examined the Slaby and Frey (1975) gender-constancy interview, which has been widely used in tests of the cognitive-developmental account. Sixty children aged between 42 and 54 months were given the interview either in the traditional order or a reversed-order condition. They were also asked to make causal attributions for the presence or absence of gender consistency in the responses of 4-year-old characters described in stories. The majority (76.7%) of children who received the interviews in the reversed order gave gender-constant (i.e., gender-consistent) responses, compared with a third of the children who received the interview in the traditional order. As predicted, the children also gave significantly more external attributions, involving a desire to please an adult interviewer, for the responses of story characters who were not gender-constant than for the responses of characters who were gender-constant. Methodological issues in the assessment of gender concepts are discussed with regard to the results and scope of this study.

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References

1966A cognitive-development analysis of children's sex-role concepts and attitudes 1981A Schematic Processing Model of Sex Typing and Stereotyping in Children 1975Development of Gender Constancy and Selective Attention to Same-Sex Models 1984The development of sex role stereotypes in the third year: relationships to gender labeling, gender identity, sex-typed toy preference, and family characteristics.1985Children's Concepts of Cross-Gender Activities 1974The Potency of Context in Children's Cognition: An Illustration Through Conservation 1978The Development of Cognitive Gender Constancy and Sex Role Preferences 1981Gender Constancy and the Effects of Sex-Typed Televised Toy Commercials

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2002What do children learn from testimony?2002Human evolution and the cognitive basis of science 2002Emotions and epistemic evaluations 1990The role of gender identity and gender constancy in sex-differentiated development 1991A clash of conversational worlds: Interpreting cognitive development through communication.

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