Children’s

Search for
Gender Cues
Martin & Ruble
Presented by Walker Brown-Adams
Intro
● Children are gender detectives
Intro
● Kohlberg’s Cognitive Developmental Theory (1966)
○ Stressed active role of child in gender development
○ Understanding of gender influenced behavior
● Gender Schema Theory
○ Influences on behavior and thinking require a much less complex understanding of
gender than Kohlberg’s theory
Major Themes: Emergence of gender and its consequences

● Evaluative Consequences
○ People evaluate a group more positively when they identify with said group
○ Evaluative consequences of group identification are strongest when:
■ groups are easy to identify and distinguish
■ when they are made functionally significant by authority figures
○ Both of which are true for gender

● Motivational & Informational Consequences

○ Children remember more info about toys that they believe fit their own gender group
○ Once children recognize their gender group, they make broad assumptions regarding
similarities / differences within gender groups
Major Themes: Active, Self-Initiated View of Gender Development

● Gender identification is a motivation initiated by a child

○ Involves deliberate action to learn about a category they are actively constructing

● Errors in active construction

○ Children sometimes generate or exaggerate male-female differences
○ More likely to misremember gender inconsistent images
Major Themes: Developmental Patterns
● Gender stereotyping developmental
pattern
○ Children begin to learn about gender-
related characteristics
■ Takes place during toddler/ pre-k
years
○ Gender knowledge is consolidated in a
rigid either-or fashion
■ Peak rigidity around 5-7 years old
○ After rigidity, a phase of relative
flexibility.
Early Origins of Gender
● At what age do children begin to think of themselves and others in terms
of gender?
○ Studies suggest that by the time children can speak they have perceptual categories for
male and female
● How do these gender cognitions influence their behavior and thinking?
○ Girls like dolls and boys like trucks before gender cognitions develop
○ However, once children know gender stereotypes their preferences become more typed
○ In lab studies, children prefer toys that they believe are for their own sex
Conclusion
● Children’s growing knowledge about gender categories has evaluative and
motivational consequences

● Children show developmental changes in stereotyping that parallel other

cognitive developmental changes

● Knowledge about gender categories can be found in infants, before the

emergence of gender-typed behaviors
Future Directions
● How does the gender-identification process unfold for children with
ambiguous genitalia?

● What cues might children use to lead them to conclude their gender is
different from their biological sex?
○ How does this play out when a child determines their gender does not match their sex?