The Development of Gender Understanding: Judgments and Explanations

Wehren, Aileen; Lisi, Richard De

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1983.tb00073.x

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Instead, we found that the revised scales linearly increased with age consistent with expectations. This finding supports earlier suggestions that exploring children's reasoning behind their constancy responses (as well as including items that highlight the act of gender transformation) enables a more accurate and thorough depiction of the relationship between constancy and age (Emmerich et al, 1977;Wehren & De Lisi, 1983). This is important in interpreting inconsistencies across studies and differences between the present findings and past research.…”

Section: Stages Of Gender Constancysupporting

confidence: 90%

“…First, relations in very young children may sometimes be misleading because many young children appear to show a phase of ''pseudoconstancy'' (Emmerich, Goldman, Kirsh, & Sharabany, 1977;Szkrybalo & Ruble, 1999;Wehren & De Lisi, 1983). According to this idea, many children answer all items of a forcedchoice gender-constancy measure correctly, but they do so without really understanding the meaning of gender permanence.…”

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confidence: 95%

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The Role of Gender Constancy in Early Gender Development

et al. 2007

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Kohlberg's (1966) hypothesis that the attainment of gender constancy motivates children to attend to gender norms was reevaluated by examining these links in relation to age. Ninety-four 3- to 7-year-old children were interviewed to assess whether and how constancy mediates age-related changes in gender-related beliefs. As expected, results indicated a general pattern of an increase in stereotype knowledge, the importance and positive evaluation of one's own gender category, and rigidity of beliefs between the ages of 3 and 5. Moreover, the stability phase, rather than full constancy, mediated some of these relations. After age 5, rigidity generally decreased with age, with relations primarily mediated by consistency.

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Section: Stages Of Gender Constancysupporting

confidence: 90%

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confidence: 95%

The Role of Gender Constancy in Early Gender Development

et al. 2007

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“…Children acquire the notion of biological gender around the age of 2;6 (Fagot et al 1986) and the ability to recognise the invariance of gender identity between the age of 5;0 and 7;0 (Wehren and De Lisi 1983). Nevertheless, children learning a gendered language, such as Hebrew, appear to be able to recognize their own and other sexual identities earlier than those learning languages with no gender, such as English or Finnish (Guiora et al 1982).…”

Section: Categorization and Grammatical Gender In Childrenmentioning

confidence: 84%

Implicit Knowledge of Grammatical Gender in Preschool Children

Belacchi

Cubelli

2011

J Psycholinguist Res

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The study aimed at investigating the role of nominal gender in animal categorization in preschoolers. Given the regularities characterizing gender system, at both syntactical and morphological level, Italian language is suitable to address this issue. In three experiments, participants were asked to classify pictures of animals as male or female. Half stimuli had names of feminine gender and half of masculine gender. In Experiment 1, Italian speaking adults and preschoolers classified animals according to the nominal gender. This effect was not found with English speaking participants (Experiment 2) but confirmed with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old Italian-speaking children (Experiment 3). These results showed an implicit knowledge of grammatical gender in preschoolers, suggesting that semantic processing may be modulated by linguistic information.

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“…One reason is that examining relations in very young children may sometimes be misleading because many young children appear to show a phase of "pseudoconstancy" (Emmerich, Goldman, Kirsh, & Sharabany, 1977;Szkrybalo & Ruble, 1999;Wehren & De Lisi, 1983). Many 3-4-year-olds get all of the answers to a forced-choice gender constancy measure correct, but they do not appear to really understand the constancy of being a boy or a girl.…”

Section: Evaluation Of Gender Constancymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like social learning theory, cognitive-developmental theory was subsequently tinkered with and reformulated in important ways (e.g., Emmerich, 1982;Frey & Ruble, 1992;Maccoby, 1990;Stangor & Ruble, 1989;Wehren & De Lisi, 1983). For example, the understanding of gender constancy is no longer viewed as an antecedent to all gender knowledge and gender differentiation.…”

Section: Discounting Cognition: Moving Against Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive theories of early gender development.

Martin¹,

Ruble

Szkrybalo

2002

Psychological Bulletin

533

514

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The contribution of cognitive perspectives (cognitive-developmental theory and gender schema theory) to a contemporary understanding of gender development is evaluated. Recent critiques of cognitive approaches are discussed and empirical evidence is presented to counter these critiques. Because of the centrality of early gender development to the cognitive perspective, the latest research is reviewed on how infants and toddlers discriminate the sexes and learn the attributes correlated with sex. The essence of cognitive approaches-emphasis on motivational consequences of gender concepts; the active, self-initiated view of development; and focus on developmental patterns-is highlighted and contrasted with social-cognitive views. The value of cognitive theories to the field is illustrated, and recommendations are made concerning how to construct comprehensive, integrative perspectives of gender development.How individuals develop a "gendered" self and gender-typed differentiation has intrigued researchers of human behavior for as long as social development has been a field of empirical study. Initially, observations of clear gender typing in children as young as 5 years old led researchers to examine how socialization processes in the home might contribute to this early acquisition of gender-linked behavior (e.g., Sears, Maccoby, & Levin, 1957). In 1966, several important theories of gender development, including Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental approach and Mischel's social learning approach, were outlined in Maccoby's book on the development of sex differences. In the mid-1970s, a groundbreaking book by Maccoby and Jacklin (1974) broadened the discussion about the etiology of sex differences and gender typing and questioned the significance of socialization processes, thereby invigorating the field and generating considerable controversy. In the 1980s, Huston (1983Huston ( , 1985 called for researchers to develop a more integrative, comprehensive approach to the study of gender development. This integration was to include consideration of the many facets of gender that needed investigation, such as concepts, identity, preferences, and behavior, as well as a wide variety of factors that influence the development of these facets, including biology, cognitions, and social influences. This idea resonated with gender researchers and has been a driving force in the field ever since, leading to an expansion of theoretical approaches and the inclusion of multiple measures in empirical studies.Recently, Bussey and Bandura (1999) presented a socialcognitive theory (SCT) of gender development and differentiation. This theory represents a particular view of how gender-related behavior is acquired and maintained, based on contemporary social learning theory (Bandura, 1986). Because the theory has now integrated cognitive constructs and makes reference to biological underpinnings and sociostructural factors, Bussey and Bandura described their theory as comprehensive and integrative, consistent with Huston's (1983) proposal,...

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The Development of Gender Understanding: Judgments and Explanations

Cited by 3 publications

References 14 publications

The Role of Gender Constancy in Early Gender Development

The Role of Gender Constancy in Early Gender Development

Implicit Knowledge of Grammatical Gender in Preschool Children

Cognitive theories of early gender development.

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