cognitive explanations

• Kohlberg's stage theory of gender development 


  Based on the idea that a child's understanding of gender (including what counts as appropriate gender-roles, behaviours & attitudes) becomes more sophisticated with age. A child's understanding of age also runs parallel to intellectual development as the child matures biologically.
• Kohlberg's stages of development

  Gender identity, Gender stability, Gender constancy
• Gender identity

  Age: 2-3 The child can label its own sex correctly. They can also label other people's sex but may get it wrong as they often use hair length & clothes as clues.
• Gender stability


  Age: 4-5 The child is able to understand that their own gender is stable & they will stay that sex forever. However, they are still egocentric so cannot apply the same rule to other people.
• Gender constancy

  Age: 6-7 The child is able to understand that gender is generally constant: they know that everyone stays the same sex forever even if they wear opposite-sex clothing. It is during this age that children start to seek out gender role models. They imitate & internalise the behaviours of these role models in order to help make sense of their gender.
• Slaby & Frey study: method

  Structured interview 2-7 yrs old Supports Kohlberg's 3 stages of gender development
• Slaby & Frey study: Procedure/questions for checking gender identity

  Asked what sex they are. Showing the child dolls or photos of adults & asking if they were male or female.
• Slaby & Frey study: Procedure for checking gender stability

  Asked what sex they were when they were a baby. Asked what sex they will be when they are grown up.
• Slaby & Frey study: Procedure for checking gender constancy

  Asked whether or not they would be a girl or a boy if they wore opposite sex clothes or played with opposite sex toys & the same was asked about other people too.
• Slaby & Frey study: results & conclusion

  Supported Kohlberg's stages demonstrating that as children get older they get a fuller understanding about gender & become less egocentric.
• Stages of development - evaluation: other explanations

  SLT agree that children seek out same-sex role models, but argue this happens at a much younger age. Kohlberg's cognitive development theory also ignores the role of role models in the development of gender. The biological theory argues that children do not develop in stages as they are already genetically pre-programmed to be male or female due to influence of sex chromosomes & hormones during development in the womb
• Stages of development - evaluation: weaknesses of Kohlberg's theory


  It could be argued that the cognitive development theory tends to describe the development of gender, rather than explain it. Kohlberg's theory states that children only seek out same-sex role models when they have a full understanding about their gender (after constancy stage) 7yrs old. Unsure if gender stages are actually an etic construct as theory developed in the West so unsure if gender stages are universal.
• Stages of development - Slaby & Frey: evaluation

  Younger kids may not have the vocab to express thoughts - validity issue. Maybe embarrassed to answer questions about how they know what sex they are. Reliability issue & possible researcher bias - may assign child based on age rather than their answers.
• Gender schema

  An organised set of beliefs & expectations related to gender that are derived from experience. Such schemas guide a person's understanding of their own gender & gender appropriate behaviour in general. Younger children have a more fixed gender schema as they are trying to understand the world. As they get older (over 10yrs), the schema becomes more flexible.
• When do gender schema develops?

  As soon as the child has gender identity (2-3yrs). They start to seek same-sex role models at this age.
• What do children do if they see info that doesn't fit with their gender schema?

  They don't process it as it doesn't fin their existing gender schema.
• Martin & Halverson: gender schema


  Experiment; boys & girls aged 5-6yrs. They saw pictures of males & females doing activities that were either in line with gender role schemas or inconsistent with gender role schemas. One week later, the children were asked to remember what they had seen on the pictures - children had distorted memories of pictures that weren't consistent with gender role schemas. They remembered the picture of a girl playing with a gun; this shows how information may be distorted to fit with existing schemas.
• Gender schemas - evaluations: other explanations

  SLT agrees that children seek out same-sex role models from the age of 2-3. However, SLT argues that the schema theory ignores the of role of role models. The psychoanalytic theory criticises the cognitive schema theory for only concentrating on the conscious mind. Instead the psychoanalytic theory argues that the unconscious mind plays a crucial role in a child's gender identity.
• Gender schemas - evaluations: weaknesses

  Cognitive theory doesn't explain why gender schemas start to develop when a child is 6yrs old. Gender schema theory doesn't explain why boys tend to have a more fixed idea of gender. The gender schema theory doesn't explain why some children seek out opposite-sex role models.