Cognitive Explanations of Gender Development (AQA A Level Psychology): Revision Note

Kohlberg's stage theory

• Kohlberg’s theory is a cognitive theory of gender development

• Unlike other cognitive theories of gender, such as gender schema theory, this approach views gender development as an active process, rather than something that happens passively through socialisation

• Kohlberg saw knowledge about gender identity arising from children interacting with the world and actively constructing their understanding of gender 

• Kohlberg’s stage theory is very similar to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development:

  • Both theories see development as a series of universal stages that are determined by biological changes in the brain as well as active interaction with the environment

• Kohlberg’s stage theory suggests that once children understand their gender, they begin to identify with others of the same gender

• Gender identity develops in stages over a period of time, and it is only after gender constancy is reached at about the age of seven that children start to develop ideas of gender that align with their own identities

• Children then value the behaviours and attitudes associated with their gender, and identify with adult figures who are the same sex as them

The 3 stages of Kohlberg's theory

Gender identity

• Gender identity occurs between eighteen months and three years

• Children recognise that they are female or male and learn the gender labels ‘girl’ and ‘boy’

• However, children do not realise that boys grow into men and girls grow into women

Gender stability 

• Gender stability occurs between three and five years

• Children understand that people remain the same gender for life

• Children rely on appearances to determine gender; e.g., if a woman cuts her hair very short or a man grows it long, then children at this age believe they have changed gender

Gender constancy 

• Gender constancy develops between six and seven years

• Children realise that gender is constant and does not rely just on appearances

• Children become more attentive to models who are the same sex as them

• Gender constancy is complete only when children appreciate that gender is consistent over time and in different situations

Research which investigates Kohlberg’s theory of gender development

• McConaghy (1979) conducted interviews with young children and found that if a doll was dressed in transparent clothing so its genitals were visible, 3-5-year-old children still judged its gender by its clothes

  • This supports Kohlberg’s argument that children in the gender stability stage still rely on external appearances to determine gender

• Halim et al. (2013) interviewed parents from different cultures to investigate gender appearance rigidity in children in the gender stability stage

  • The results showed that the more children aged about 3-6 years old understood that gender was constant, the more likely they were to dress rigidly according to their gender

Evaluation of Kohlberg’s theory of gender development

Strengths

• Kohlberg's theory recognises the role of the child in their gender development and includes an element of choice and free will, viewing gender development as an active process rather than something passively imposed through socialisation

  • This is consistent with research showing that children actively seek out same-sex models and engage with gender-relevant information once they understand their own gender, supporting the theory's view of gender development as cognitively driven

• Slaby and Frey (1975) divided 2–5-year-olds into high and low gender constancy groups, then showed them a split-screen film of a male and a female adult performing parallel tasks. Children high in gender constancy spent significantly more time watching the same-sex model

  • This supports Kohlberg's claim that gender constancy motivates children to attend to and imitate same-sex role models, providing empirical evidence for the theory

Limitations

• Bem (1989) showed young children photographs in which the genitals of the depicted child were visible and found that even 3-year-olds correctly identified the child's gender, suggesting gender constancy emerges earlier than Kohlberg proposed

  • This indicates that Kohlberg's methodology may underestimate younger children's understanding of gender, weakening the claim that constancy is not achieved until age six or seven

• The theory is rooted in a binary view of gender and does not account for individuals who identify as non-binary, transgender or gender fluid

  • This makes the theory culturally biased and less applicable in modern contexts where gender identities beyond the male/female binary are increasingly recognised, limiting the theory's universality

Martin & Halverson's gender schema theory

An explanation of gender schema theory

• Gender schema theory (Martin and Halverson, 1981) sees gender identity alone as providing children with the motivation to assume gender-consistent behaviour

• Gender schema theory (GST) is different from Kohlberg’s gender development theory

  • Kohlberg argued that gender constancy by seven years old is necessary for gender-consistent behaviour to emerge

  • Whereas GST argues that gender identity alone (around age 2–3) is sufficient

• A gender schema is a cognitive framework constructed through observation of older children and adults’ gendered behaviour

  • Developing a gender schema is a process of separating people into two genders and can happen between the ages of two and three years of age

• Children are socialised into a binary view of gender, as toys, clothes, their parents’ occupations, hobbies, domestic chores, and even the ‘he’ and ‘she’ pronouns all vary according to gender

• By the age of three years old, the child has in-group (my sex) and out-group (opposite sex) schemas:

  • In-group schemas socialise the child into gender-consistent behaviour

  • Out-group schemas are recognised as inconsistent with the child’s in-group and are initially ignored

  • Behaviour that is consistent with the appropriate gender schema is remembered better

• Around the age of 6–8, children develop a more detailed own-sex schema, gathering deeper information about behaviours and roles associated with their own gender

Research which investigates gender schema theory

• Martin and Halverson (1983) conducted an experiment asking young children under the age of six to recall pictures of people

  • They found that they recalled more gender-consistent pictures (such as a male footballer) than gender-inconsistent pictures (such as a female lorry driver)

  • This supports the idea that gender schema negatively affects memory for behaviour that is gender-inconsistent 

• Todd et al. (2016) carried out a naturalistic observation of children younger than 4 years old, and their toy preferences

  • The results showed that both boys and girls aged between nine and 32 months showed strongly gender-consistent preferences for toys

  • This suggests that gender identity motivates young children to engage in gender-consistent behaviour

Evaluation of gender schema theory

Strengths

• Bradbard et al. (1986) told 4–9-year-olds that gender-neutral items (e.g., burglar alarms, pizza cutters) were either 'boy' or 'girl' items, and found that children showed greater interest in items labelled as belonging to their in-group and remembered more details about them

  • This supports GST's claim that in-group schemas shape attention and learning, providing evidence that gender labelling alone is sufficient to influence children's engagement with information

• Martin and Little (1990) found that children under four already showed strong stereotypes about what boys and girls were permitted to do, despite not yet showing signs of gender stability or constancy

  • This supports GST over Kohlberg as children acquire gender-related information before reaching gender constancy, consistent with GST's claim that gender identity alone drives gendered behaviour

Limitations

• Hoffman (1998) reported that children whose mothers worked outside the home held less stereotyped views about what men and women do, suggesting that children are not entirely fixed in their gender schemas and can be influenced by counter-stereotypical experiences

  • This challenges the strength of GST's claim that gender schemas rigidly organise behaviour, and suggests that social and environmental factors play a larger role than the theory implies

• Gender schemas lack the construct validity of more general cognitive schemas because they are internal mental processes that cannot be directly observed, only inferred from behaviour

  • This means the development of gender schemas can only be described, not causally explained or measured, weakening the theory's scientific status

Issues & Debates

• These theories support a free will perspective, as children are seen as active agents in their gender development

  • This is because they construct knowledge through interaction and choice, rather than being passively shaped by external forces

  • This is in contrast with more deterministic views (e.g. biological or social learning theories), which see gendered behaviour as largely imposed

• Both Kohlberg’s and gender schema theory are culturally biased, as they are based primarily on Western norms and binary gender roles

  • This may limit their universality, as they don’t account for non-binary or culturally specific gender identities, making them ethnocentric in their assumptions about how gender develops