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The development of gender differentiation in young children

The development of gender differentiation in young children A sample of 128 boys and girls in four age groups (three, five, seven, nine years) undertook tasks designed to assess their ability to categorize by gender, gender constancy, evaluations of gender groups, and gender discrimination in the allocation of prizes in a task performance setting. Results indicated that all children could categorize accurately by gender although nine‐year‐olds tended to adopt more complex criteria. Gender constancy increased with age, although not monotonically—seven‐year‐olds displayed less constancy than five‐year‐olds. Gender differentiation in attitudes was very marked from five years upwards, and even earlier in girls (both groups viewed their own gender more favourably). This greater own gender favouritism among girls was even clearer in the discrimination task: girls awarded girls' groups more desirable toys even when they had ostensibly performed less well than the boys' group. The boys attended more to performance information. Girls also made more negative comments about boys than vice versa. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png British Journal of Social Psychology Wiley

The development of gender differentiation in young children

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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
1994 The British Psychological Society
ISSN
0144-6665
eISSN
2044-8309
DOI
10.1111/j.2044-8309.1994.tb01017.x
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

A sample of 128 boys and girls in four age groups (three, five, seven, nine years) undertook tasks designed to assess their ability to categorize by gender, gender constancy, evaluations of gender groups, and gender discrimination in the allocation of prizes in a task performance setting. Results indicated that all children could categorize accurately by gender although nine‐year‐olds tended to adopt more complex criteria. Gender constancy increased with age, although not monotonically—seven‐year‐olds displayed less constancy than five‐year‐olds. Gender differentiation in attitudes was very marked from five years upwards, and even earlier in girls (both groups viewed their own gender more favourably). This greater own gender favouritism among girls was even clearer in the discrimination task: girls awarded girls' groups more desirable toys even when they had ostensibly performed less well than the boys' group. The boys attended more to performance information. Girls also made more negative comments about boys than vice versa.

Journal

British Journal of Social PsychologyWiley

Published: Jun 1, 1994

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