Gender schema theory

• who was gender schema theory developed by?


  martin and halverson
• what is gender schema theory?


  the theory that gender develops with our cognitive ability but acquiring gender information happens before constancy is achieved and only gender labeling is needed to start learning gender-appropriate behavior

  this theory also considers how the acquisition of stereotypes will affect later behaviour
• what are the 4 parts of gender schema theory?


  schemas

  ingroups and outgroups

  resilience of gender beliefs

  peer relationships
• how do schemas affect gender development?


  a schema is a mental representation of an aspect of the world from a cluster of related items and can influence behaviour

  • children learn schemas from interactions as well as media
  • schemas organise other information presented to children; eg what toys are right for each gender and can affect interests and behaviours
• how do ingroups and outgroups affect gender development?


  an ingroup is a group with which a person identifies eg females have an ingroup of girls

  • once a child has identified with a group, they negatively evaluate the outgroup because it enhances self esteem to know that your ingroup is better than other outgroups
  • this then motivates a child to be more like their own group and avoid the other groups behaviours
  • they actively seek out info about their ingroup and avoid outgroup
• how does resilience of gender beliefs affect gender development?


  • children will ignore any information that is not consistent with ingroup information eg a boy might forget a male nurse so that the boy does not alter his existing schema
  • this can alter how we percieve the world around us due to what we remember
• how do peer relationships affect gender?


  when playing with other children of the same sex, it leads children to believe that all kids of that gender have the same interests and to avoid the opposite because they are 'not like me' and less fun to play with

  children also develop knowledge of consequences of playing with the opposite sex as they may be teased for it so they avoid this interaction

  this all feeds back into ingroups which feeds back into schemas
• research support for developing schemas without constancy/stability


  Martin and little

  • found children under age of 4 showed no signs of stability or constancy but they did still display strong gender sterotypes about boys/girls aka gender schemas
• evidence against age-related predictions of gender schema theory


  Zosuls et al

  • recorded samples of childrens language and observed them at play to identify when they start labelling themselves as a boy or girl
  • concluded that children were using labels by the age of 19 months
• support for gender schemas affecting memory


  Martin and Halverson

  • when children were asked to recall pictures of people, children under 6 recalled more gender consistant ones (eg female teacher)

  Furthermore: children pay most attention to ingroup rather than outgroup schemas

  Bradbard et al

  • told 4-9 year olds that neutral items were gendered
  • children took most interest in boys labelled as ingroup
  • FURTHERMORE, a week later they remembered more details about ingroup objects
• evidence for gender schemas distorting information


  Martin and Halverson

  • children shown consistent or inconsistent pictures
  • children distorted the information eg when shown a boy holding a gun or a doll, children reported a girl holding a doll
  • the distorted memories maintain ingroup schemas

  supports the gender schema theory demonstrating how ingroup schemas can affect behaviour and perception of the world
• support for and against resilience of gender schemas


  it can help explain why children are often highly sexist despite the efforts of parentsit can help explain why children are often highly sexist despite the efforts of parents

  • resilience of gender beliefs explains children will actively ignore outgroup stereotypes

  However, Hoffman reports that children whos mums work, have less stereotyped views of what men do

  • suggesting that children are not fixed in their views and are receptive to gender-inconsistant ideas