Part of The Student Room Group

  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

Outline and Evaluate 2 Cognitive Developmental Explanations of Gender Development

Extracts from this document...

Introduction

Outline and Evaluate 2 Cognitive Developmental Explanations of Gender Development There are two cognitive explanations of gender development. These theories share the view that the child's thinking and understanding of their gender identity as boys or girls is what leads to the adoption of gender role behaviours. Kohlberg's cognitive developmental theory (1966) argued that the child develops an understanding of gender in three stages and it is only after the child has fully understood that gender is constant, at around age 5, that they show gender role behaviour. Martin and Halverson's gender schema theory (1981) agrees with the cognitive nature of gender development, but argues that children develop schemas about gender and gender role behaviours earlier than Kohlberg suggested. According to Kohlberg (1966), the child's understanding of their own gender identity forms the basis of their enactment of gender role behaviours. Kohlberg argued that the child's understanding of gender develops gradually through three stages which are loosely linked to age across early childhood. ...read more.

Middle

They were shown a silent film in which two adult models - one male and one female carried out simple stereotyped gender role activity such as baking a cake or changing a wheel. The film was constructed using a split-screen model so the child could watch both films and their eye movement and direction of gaze were recorded to assess which film they looked at most. Slaby and Frey found that the child who had reached high levels of gender constancy spent more time watching the same-sex model than those who had low levels of gender constancy, supporting Kohlberg's claim that children pay attention to same-sex models after the stage of constancy has been reached. In a more realistic study, Ruble (1981) considered the relationship between gender constancy and the child's responsiveness to television adverts for 'girl' and 'boy' toys. Children who had reached their gender constancy were sensitive to the implicit message of the advert that certain toys were 'right or wrong' for boys or girls. ...read more.

Conclusion

Therefore children look to the environment to develop and build their gender schemas, which become progressively more complex. So toys, from being neutral, become categorised as boys' or girls' toys; games, sports, school lessons, even musical instruments are categorised as 'right' for girls or boys. Poulin-Dubois et al. (2002) studied a group of 63 Canadian toddlers aged two to three years. They were asked to choose a doll to carry out a series of tasks which were classed as male (shaving), female (vacuuming) and neutral (sleeping). Girls aged 24 months chose the gender-appropriate doll for the tasks while girls did not, implying that girls as young as two had identified their gender stereotypes. Boys were around 31 months old before they demonstrated similar stereotypes. This study shows that young children between two and three years old select and pay attention to models on the basis of their sex. Both of these cognitive theories I have discussed see the child as active, seeking out information about gender and trying to make sense of the gendered world they live in. In both of these theories, the direction of development goes from cognitive concept (i.e. ...read more.

The above preview is unformatted text

This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our AS and A Level Developmental Psychology section.

Found what you're looking for?

  • Start learning 29% faster today
  • 150,000+ documents available
  • Just £6.99 a month

or


Here's what a teacher thought of this essay

4 star(s)

Applications of these theories can be added to this essay - how is this useful in the real world? The essay considers with some reflection on the contribution of two theories - perhaps it could supply a little more detail on the sampling and conclusions to be drawn. 4*

Marked by teacher Stephanie Duckworth 16/07/2013

Not the one? Search for your essay title...
  • Join over 1.2 million students every month
  • Accelerate your learning by 29%
  • Unlimited access from just £6.99 per month

See related essaysSee related essays

Related AS and A Level Developmental Psychology essays

  1. Free essay

    CHILD ABUSE, CHILDHOOD & HISTORY

    4 star(s)

    Wilson (1980: 139) remarks, "One may ask how the illiterate would record their ideas and feelings; how the poor would commission works of art". Another critic was Lloyd DeMause (1974). Goldson (1997) feels that DeMause has provided the theoretical case for what was termed the 'psychogenic' approach to childhood.

  2. Marked by a teacher

    Smacking Children right or wrong

    3 star(s)

    If they teach their children rules are enforced for reason then when their child grows up into the world he or she will be able to follow those rules. Though smacking children is portrayed, as abuse is it not equally an abuse to children if they are not brought up with clear moral guidelines.

  1. Describe And Evaluate Two Approaches In Psychology - Sigmund Freud

    Consequently, Watson proposed that psychologist should confine themselves to studying behaviour, since only this was measurable by more than one person. For Watson the only way psychology could be taken seriously was to emulate the natural sciences and become objective.

  2. Physical, Social and Emotional Development of Children.

    When a child is born, parents are given a personal Child Health Record book, which contains charts on which the child's height, weight and head circumference are plotted and any advice offered by a health visitor. Information is gained through: * Growth monitoring * Discussions with parents * Physical examinations * Observations.

  1. Describe and Evaluate Bowlby's and Ainsworth's ideas about parent-child relationships.

    Type A or anxious avoidant infants largely ignore their mother; because of their indifference towards her, play is little affected by whether or not she is present. The baby shows either very few or no signs of distress when the mother leaves and actively ignores or avoids her on her return.

  2. Discuss the effects of parenting style on children's development.

    These children are not very socially competent, rate in the middle on being respectful and responsible, and have an average academic performance. They have very little problem behaviour. Children of uninvolved parents tend to do the worst in all of the areas studied.

  1. Every child is unique: a developmental perspective

    Whether it is the main caregiver or a material object such as a blanket, the fearful child will cling to it until they feel comfortable with the new situation.

  2. Outline and evaluate Bowlby's maternal deprivation hypothesis.

    Goldfarb (1943) looked at the effects of children being raised in institutions. He compared 2 groups of 15 children. The 1st group was directly from their natural mothers to foster parents before the age of one. The 2nd group were raised in a residential nursery and then later fostered.

  • Over 160,000 pieces
    of student written work
  • Annotated by
    experienced teachers
  • Ideas and feedback to
    improve your own work