A03

• What are the strengths of gender schema theory?

  1. Research support for resilience of gender schemas
  2. Cultural differences
• What are the limitations of gender schema theory?

  1. Ignores social factors
  2. Uncertainty regarding gender identity development
• Strength = research support for resilience of gender schemas

  • Martin + Halverson (1983) asked 5 + 6 year olds to look at pictures of children playing
  • Some were schema-consistent + some schema-inconsistent
  • After a week, children had switched the schema inconsistent images around, e.g. remembering a boy playing with a toy gun not a girl
  • Asked children to recall pictures of people depicting variety of professions
  • Those under the age of 6 recalled more gender-consistent pictures than gender-inconsistent when tested 1 week later
  • Appeared to absorb in-group information more than out-group
• Strength = cultural differences

  • Cherry (2019) - gender schemas influence how people process information and 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 consistent with this
  • In societies where perceptions of gender have less rigid boundaries children are likely to form more fluid gender schema
  • Theory can explain how gender schemas are transmitted between members of a society and how cultural differences in gender stereotypes come about
• Limitation = ignores social factors

  • Criticised for not explaining why gender schemas develop, only how
  • Tennenbaum and Leaper (2002) conducted a meta-analysis of 43 studies to determine if there was an overall relationship between parents’ gender schemas and various types of their offspring‘s gender-related cognitions
  • Overall effect was statistically significant (+0.16)
  • Found that parents’ gender schemas were most strongly related to measures of offspring’s gender-related attitudes toward others and work-related attitudes than on their children’s gender-self concepts
  • Influence of parents
• Limitation = uncertainty regarding gender identity development

  • Evidence suggests gender identity may develop earlier
  • Zosuls et al. (2009) longitudinally examined 82 children focusing on 2 key aspects children’s early gender development - production of gender labels and sex-typed play
  • Examined onset of children’s gender labelling using mothers’ biweekly reports on childrens’ language development and videotaped analyses of children‘s play with gender stereotyped and neutral toys
  • Found children started using gender labels on average at 19 months + girls began labelling earlier than boys
• What does Zosuls et al. (2009) study suggest about the uncertainty regarding gender identity development?

  • Gender labelling predicted increases in sex-typed play, suggesting that knowledge of gender categories might influence sex-typing before the age of 2
  • This suggests Martin and Halverson likely underestimated children’s ability to use gender labels about themselves and engage in gender-typical play as evidence shows these behaviours occur before they‘ve reached gender identity age