100 ChapTer 3 Development Over the Life Span
really worked hard in math, Joanie, and it shows!”
The implication is that girls have to try hard but
boys have a natural gift. Messages like these are not
lost on children. Both sexes tend to lose interest in
activities that are supposedly not natural for them,
even when they all start out with equal abilities
(Dweck, 2006; Frome & Eccles, 1998).
Gender schemas reflect larger cultural con-
cepts, including metaphors. After age 4, children of
both sexes will usually say that rough, spiky, black,
or mechanical things are male and that soft, pink,
fuzzy, or flowery things are female; that black bears
are male and pink poodles are female (Leinbach,
Hort, & Fagot, 1997). But the content of these
schemas is not innate. A hundred years ago, an
article in The Ladies Home Journal advised: “The
generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and
blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a
more decided and stronger color, is more suitable
for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and
dainty, is prettier for the girl” (Paoletti, 2012). The
invention of gender-specific “rules” of clothing for
babies and young children, along with a rigid split
between “boys’ toys” and “girls’ toys,” was a cre-
ation of late twentieth-century marketing. In 1975,
few toys were marketed by gender. But as toy com-
panies realized that by segmenting their markets
into narrower demographic groups they could sellmore versions of the same toy, gender segregation
became commonplace—and then normal. And in
turn, children began demanding toys considered
appropriate for their gender (Sweet, 2012).
In today’s fast-moving world, society’s mes-
sages to men and women, and parents’ messages
to their children, keep evolving. As a result, gen-
der development has become a lifelong process,
in which gender schemas, attitudes, behavior—
and even identity—change as people have new
experiences and as society itself changes (Fausto-
Sterling, 2012; Rosin, 2012). 5-year-old children
may behave like sexist piglets while they are trying
to figure out what it means to be male or female,
but their gender-typed behavior as 5-year-olds
often has little to do with how they will behave
at 25 or 45. In fact, by early adulthood, men and
women show virtually no average differences in
cognitive abilities, personality traits, self-esteem
or psychological well-being (Hyde, 2007).
That is why children can grow up in an ex-
tremely gender-typed family and yet, as adults,
find themselves in careers or relationships or
identities they would never have imagined for
themselves. If 5-year-olds are the gender police,
many adults end up breaking the law.
explore the concept How Does
Gender Affect You? at MyPsychLabRecite & Review
Recite: Say aloud what you remember about gender identity, gender typing, intersex conditions,
and transgender and transsexual people; biological, cognitive, and learning influences on gender;
and gender schemas.
Review: Rereading this section is appropriate for all sexes and genders.now take this Quick Quiz:
- True or false: All intersexed people are transsexual.
- A biological psychologist would say that a 3-year-old boy’s love of going “vroom, vroom” with
his truck collection has a basis in__. - Which statement about gender schemas is false? (a) They are present in early form by 1 year
of age; (b) they are permanent conceptualizations of what it means to be masculine or femi-
nine; (c) they eventually expand to include many meanings and associations to being male and
female; (d) they reflect the status of women and men in society. - Herb hopes his 4-year-old daughter will become a scientist like him, but she refuses to play with
the toy microscope he bought her and insists that she will be a princess when she grows up.
What conclusions can Herb draw about his daughter’s future career?
Answers:
Study and Review at MyPsychLabNot many. His daughter’s rigid gender-typed behavior is typical 4. b 3. prenatal hormones, specifically androgen 2. false 1.when children are acquiring gender schemas, but it does not necessarily predict much of anything about her adult interests oroccupation.