Cognitive explanations of gender development: Gender schema theory

Question 1

Gender schema theory

Answer 1

Martin and Halverson suggest the process of acquiring gender-related information happens before gender constancy.

Question 2

Schemas

Answer 2

Children learn schemas about gender from interactions with peers and adults, as well as television or videos.

Question 3

Ingroup and outgroups schemas

Answer 3

Ingroup refers to the groups an individual identifies with. Once a child has identified with any group, they positively evaluate their own group and negatively evaluate the outgroup. This motivated the child to be like their own group and avoid and ignore behaviours of the outgroup.

Question 4

Resilience of gender beliefs

Answer 4

Gender beliefs lead children to hold very fixed gender attitudes because they ignore any information they encounter than is inconsistent with ingroup information.