Gender schema theory Flashcards
What are two factors which differentiates gender schema theory from Kohlberg’s theory?
- Argue that the process of acquiring gender-relevant information happens before gender constancy
- Goes further than Kohlberg by suggesting how the acquisition of schemas affects later behaviour (especially in terms of memory and attention)
What is a gender schema?
A mental representation of everything we know about gender and gender-appropriate behaviour derived from experience
When do children begin to develop their gender schemas?
Aged between 2 and 3-years old
What are in-group gender schemas?
Attitudes and expectations about one’s own gender
What are out-group gender schemas?
Attitudes and expectations about the other gender
What role do in and out-group schemas play in gender development?
A child will positively evaluate their own group and negatively evaluate the other group to increase self-esteem= child motivated to avoid behaviour of opposite gender and seek information about their in-group’s behaviour
What is meant by resilience of gender beliefs?
Children hold rigid schemas that are resistant to change – leads to selective attention
What is meant by selective attention?
A child’s gender schema will drive them to ignore/misremember information that conflicts with their schemas (schematic anomaly) and selectively attend to gender-consistent information
What are the three strengths of gender schema theory?
Research support for resilience of gender schemas-
Martin and Halverson (1983) asked children to recall pictures of people. Found that children under 6 years recalled more of the gender-consistent ones (male firefighter, or female teacher) than gender-inconsistent ones (male nurse or female chemist) when tested a week later.
Children tended to change the sex of the person carrying out the gender-inconsistent activity when asked to recall.
Practical applications-
GST is useful as it explains why children are frequently highly sexist despite best efforts of parents. We can use this theory to help break these sex-stereotypes. Children actively seek to acquire gender-appropriate schemas and prefer to ignore counter-stereotypes.
Hoffman (1998) found that children whose mothers work have less stereotyped views of what men do- suggests that children are not entirely fixed in their views.
GST can explain that gender schemas lead to misremembering- even when children are exposed to counter-stereotypes they don’t remember them accurately. Therefore, in order to reduce children’s gender schemas use of more direct experience of people who do not fit stereotypes should be used.
Cultural differences-
GST can account for cultural differences in stereotypically gender-appropriate behaviour. It can explain how gender schema are transmitted between members of a society and how cultural differences in gender stereotypes come about.
Cherry (2019) argues that gender schemas not only influence how people process information but what counts as culturally-appropriate gender behaviour. Traditional cultures, that believe women should take a nurturing role and that men should pursue a career, will raise children who form schema which are consistent with this view. In societies where perceptions of gender have less rigid boundaries, children are more likely to acquire more fluid gender schema.
What is the limitation for gender schema theory?
Ignores social factors-
GST has been criticised for not explaining why gender schemas develop, only how they develop; they have not paid sufficient attention to the role of social factors such as parental influence.
Tenenbaum and Leaper (2003) conducted a meta-analysis looking for a relationship between the gender schemas of parents, and those of their children. They found an overall correlation of +0.16 – weak, but significant. This indicates that gender schemas are partially learnt through socialisation by parents – this correlation was too significant to be explained by chance.
Counter-argument- culturally biased – the study took place in Western and industrialised countries such as North America and Europe, with only 1 of 43 taking place in Asia. Bearing in mind how much parenting practices differ between cultures there is imposed etic (assuming that behaviours are universal across cultures). Therefore, the study assumes that inheriting schemas from parents through socialisation is a global developmental norm, where in fact it is not.
