Cognitive explanations of gender development: Gender

Question 1

What was Kohlberg’s theory of moral development?

Answer 1

Kohlberg’s theory drew on Piaget’s concept of ‘conservation’ – the ability that develops around the age of 6 to understand that despite superficial appearances the basic properties of an object stay the same.

Question 2

What is conservation: Moral development

Answer 2

Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes. This can apply to aspects such as volume, number, area etc.

To be more technical conservation is the ability to understand that redistributing material does not affect its mass, number, volume or length.

Question 3

What are the 3 stages of Kohlberg’s moral development?

Answer 3

Gender labelling

Gender stability

Gender constancy

Question 4

What is gender labelling?: moral development

Answer 4

Aged 2-3 infants label themselves and others as a boy or girl based on outward appearances such as hairstyle or dress. Children will tend to change gender labels as appearances change: i.e. a boy with long hair might be labelled a girl.

Question 5

What is gender stability?: moral development

Answer 5

Around 4 years children recognise that gender is stable over time – boys grow into men, etc. but they do not recognise that gender is consistent across situations – believing, for example, that males might change into females if they engage in female activities.

Question 6

What is gender constancy?: moral development

Answer 6

Around the age of 6 children come to realise that gender is consistent across situations: e.g. that just because a boy may dress or play like a girl they remain a boy. Gender is now a fixed rather than a fluid category in the child’s mind.

Question 7

A03: Moral development

Answer 7

• Constancy not supported

+ Age differences

• Methodological criticisms

+ Research evidence

Question 8

A03: Constancy not supported - moral development

Answer 8

Bussey and Bandura (1992) found that children may demonstrate gender-appropriate behaviour before constancy is achieved. This is because they reported children as young as 4 reported feeling good when playing with gender-appropriate toys and feeling bad about the opposite. This suggests that children absorb gender-appropriate information as soon as they identify as being male or female.

Question 9

A03: Age differences - moral development

Answer 9

Slaby and Frey did find that gender constancy appeared at a younger age than Kohlberg had suggested as young as 5. This is not a direct challenge to the theory because it still supports the idea that thinking does change over time, but it does suggest that adjustments are necessary to the actual age at which this happens. For example, if they’re exposed to social media, they may develop gender constancy at an earlier age.

Question 10

A03: Methodological criticisms - moral development

Answer 10

Developed using interviews with children who were in some cases as young as 2 or 3. Although the questions were tailored towards the age group, he may not have acknowledged that young children lack the vocabulary required to express understanding. May have relatively complex ideas about gender but do not possess the verbal ability to articulate them. This means that what they express doesn’t truly represent their full understanding of gender.

Question 11

A03: Research evidence - moral development

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What is the gender schema theory?

Answer 12

Gender schema theory was proposed by Martin and Halverson who suggested that gender schemas drive gender behaviour and that children begin to form gender schemas as soon as they notice that people are organised into male and female categories. It was based on the development of gender identity, boy or girl at age 2-3 years old where the child actively seeks the appropriate behaviours for their own gender and will ignore the behaviour that doesn’t fit with their schema. It’s a generalised representation of everything we know in terms of gender and gender-appropriate behaviour.

Question 12

What is gender identity?

Answer 12

The gender you identify with. This develops at 2-3 years old.

Question 13

What are schema?

Answer 13

These are mental constructs and are used by our cognitive systems to organise knowledge around topics and develop through our environmental interaction and experience.

Question 14

What are stereotypes?

Answer 14

A set of beliefs and ideas which comes from our environment.

Question 15

What are scripts?

Answer 15

a set of beliefs or ideas about how people behave in situations.

Question 16

What does assimilate mean?

Answer 16

Children collate information they have relating to gender.

Question 17

What is inconsistent in the gender schema theory?

Answer 17

These may just ignore information so that stereotypes or schemas don’t need to be altered.

Question 18

What are in-group and out-group?

Answer 18

In-groups refer to a group which serves to increase a child’s level of self-esteem. This can also be a group with which someone identifies. An example is if you’re a boy, you’ll identify with the in-group of boys and vice versa.

Whereas an out-group is any group to which one does not belong, or with which one does not identify. For example, if you’re a girl, the out-group would be the boys

Question 19

What is resilience in gender schema theory?

How do peer relationships link to the gender schema theory?

Answer 19

• Fixed gender beliefs are held.
• Ignore info that contradicts.
• Children learn from same-sex peers that they’re similar to their own gender and different from the opposite.

Question 20

A03: Gender schema theory

Answer 20

+ Support evidence

+ Don’t support Kohlberg’s theory

• Methodological issues
• Individual differences

Question 21

Support evidence: Gender schema theory

Answer 21

One strength of the gender schema theory is that there is supporting evidence from Martin and Little (1990). They carried out research using 4/5-year-old children who were shown a range of toys. Before they played with the toy, they were asked whether it was for girls or boys. The children were then asked if they or other children of the same gender would like to play with the toys. They found the label given to the toys affected the preference the child gave it. This supports gender schemas and how children categorise and organise objects and how they match these to gender behaviour.

Question 22

Don’t support Kohlberg’s theory: Gender schema theory

Answer 22

Another strength of the gender schema theory Is that several studies do not support Kohlberg’s ideas. For example, Bussey and Bandura (1992) found that boys and girls aged 4 said they felt good about playing with gender-appropriate toys and awful about playing with gender-inappropriate ones. Kohlberg would suggest that this wouldn’t happen until later. Thus, gender schema theory may be a more accurate explanation of a child’s gender development than Kohlberg’s theory of development.

Question 23

Methodological issues: Gender schema theory

Answer 23

A weakness of the gender schema theory is that there are methodological issues with interviewing children to investigate cognitive theories. Children may be more subject to demand characteristics, giving the answer they think will please the researcher which may not represent their true viewpoint. Therefore, this weakens the evidence for gender schema theory because of the low internal validity.

Question 24

Individual differences: Gender schema theory

Answer 24

Another weakness of the gender schema theory is that there’s a large issue of individual differences. The gender schema theory cannot explain why children with many of the same environmental influences respond differently to gender-appropriate behaviour. This theory can’t explain why some girls prefer action figures and some boys may prefer barbies. This may be due to biological differences such as gender and hormones, which the gender schema theory ignores.