Cognitive Explanations

Question 1

What are the two cognitive explanations of gender?

Answer 1

Kohlberg’s theory and gender schema theory

Question 2

What is Kohlberg’s theory?

Answer 2

The idea that a child’s understanding of gender becomes more sophisticated with age. Gender development is thought to progress through three stages and suggests tat cognitive changes with maturation are universal.

Question 3

What are the 3 stages of gender development according to Kohlberg’s theory?

Answer 3

1 = Gender identity
2 = Gender stability
3 = Gender constancy

Question 4

What is gender identity?

Answer 4

Acquired around age 2. The child recognises that they are a boy or a girl and possesses the ability to label others as such.
Often at this stage they are no aware gender is permanent.

Question 5

What is gender stability?

Answer 5

Happens around age 4. the child understands their own gender is fixed and they will be male or female when they are older.
They are often confused by external changes in appearance.

Question 6

What is gender constancy?

Answer 6

Usually reached by age 6 or 7. The child realises that gender is consistent over time and situations; they begin to identify with people of their own gender and start to behave in gender-appropriate ways.

Question 7

What did Kohlberg say happens after gender constancy?

Answer 7

Imitation of role models

Question 8

What is imitation of role models?

Answer 8

Children begin to seek out gender-appropriate role models to identify with and imitate.
Once the child has fully developed and internalised the concept of gender at the constancy stage, they embark upon an active search for evidence which confirms that concept.

Question 9

What is the evaluation for Kohlberg’s theory?

Answer 9

Evidence to support sequence of stages
Constancy not supported
Methodological issues
Comparison with social learning theory

Question 10

Evaluation point KT: Evidence to support sequence of stages

Answer 10

Slaby and Frey
children presented with split-screen images of males and females performing the same tasks.
Younger children: roughly same amount of tie watching both sexes
Children in GC stage: spent longer looking at the model who was the same sex as them
This would suggest Kohlberg was correct in his assumption that children who have acquired constancy will actively seek gender-appropriate models.

Question 11

Evaluation point KT: Constancy not supported

Answer 11

Many children begin to demonstrate gender-appropriate behaviour before gender constancy is achieved.
Bussey and Bandura found that children as young as 4 reported feeling ‘good’ playing with G-A toys and ‘bad’ about the opposite.
This contradicts Kohlberg and supports gender-schema theory.

Question 12

Evaluation point KT: Methodological issues

Answer 12

Developed using interviews with children as young as 2 or 3.
Although the questions were tailored, he may not have acknowledged that very young children were lacking the vocabulary to express their understanding.
What they express may not represent their true understanding.

Question 13

Evaluation point KT: Comparison with social learning theory

Answer 13

SLT places much more emphasis on external influences on the child’s development, such as the role of socialisation, than Kohlberg does.

Question 14

What is gender schema?

Answer 14

An organised set of beliefs and expectations related to gender that are derived from experience. Such schema guide a person’s understanding of their own gender and gender-appropriate behaviour in general.

Question 15

What did Martin and Halverson say?

Answer 15

Once a child has established gender identity around the age of 2-3 they will begin to search the environment for information that encourages development off gender schema.

Question 16

How does schema direct behaviour and self-understanding?

Answer 16

For young children, schema are likely to be formed around stereotypes, e.g girls play with dolls and boys play with trucks, and these provide a framework that directs experience as well as the child understanding of itself. By 6 the child has a rather fixed and stereotypical idea about what is appropriate. For the reason, children are likely to misremember or disregard info that doesn’t fir with this schema.

Question 17

What is the evaluation for gender schema?

Answer 17

Evidence supports gender schema theory
Overemphasis on the role of the individual in gender devlopment
Complements Kohlberg’s theory
Key assumptions of the theory are not supported

Question 18

Evaluation point for gender schema: Evidence supports gender schema theory

Answer 18

Martin and Halverson’ own study found that children under the age of 6 were more likely to remember photos of gender-consistent behaviour than gender-inconsistent behaviour when tested a week later. Children tended to change the sex of the person carrying out gender-inconsistent behaviour.
This supports the idea that memory can be distorted to fit with existing gender schemas.

Question 19

Evaluation point for gender schema: Overemphasis on the role of the individual in gender development

Answer 19

It is likely that the importance of schemas and other cognitive factors in determining behaviour are exaggerated within the theory. As with Kohlberg’s theory, there may not be sufficient attention paid to the role of social factors such as parental influence and the role of punishments the child receives for their gendered behaviour. For this reason, the theory does not really explain why gender schemas develop and take the form they do.

Question 20

Evaluation point for gender schema: Complements Kohlberg’s theory

Answer 20

Stagnor and Ruble have suggested that gender schema and gender constancy may describe two different processes. Gender schema is concerned with how organisation of info affects memory and gender constancy is more appropriately linked to motivation. Once they have establish the gender constancy stage, they are motivated to find out more about this role and engage in gender-appropriate activities.

Question 21

Evaluation point for gender schema: Key assumptions of the theory are not supported

Answer 21

It is assumed within gender schema theory that is should be possible to change children’s behaviour by changing their schemas or stereotypes. In fact it is very difficult to change behaviour even if certain beliefs are held. This is reflected in the fact that many married couples have strong views related to equality of sexes and equal division of labour in the home, but research suggest this rarely has much effect on behaviour.