psychological integration is also a step in creating a public self—
that is, in integrating the self into society and vice versa.
The following age and grade delineations between the four
stages are somewhat arbitrary because youngsters differ considerably
in mental maturity at any given chronological age.
Stage 1: Orientation to size and power(ages three to five). Chil-
dren in preschool and kindergarten progress from magical to intu-
itive thinking and begin to achieve object constancy (for example,
they know that people cannot change their sex by changing their
outward appearance). They begin to classify people in the simplest
of ways—as big (and powerful) versus little (and weak). They also
come to recognize occupations as adult roles and cease reporting
that they would like to be animals (bunnies), fantasy characters
(princesses), or inanimate objects (rocks) when they grow up.
Children at this stage do not have stable or coherent conceptions
of sex roles or an abstract concept of male versus female. But they are
laying the groundwork for such conceptions, because they now appre-
hend the concrete, observable differences in gender (both appearance
and behavior), prefer to play with same-sex peers, orient to same-sex
adults, and report same-sex preferences for adult activities, including
employment. Their achievement is to have recognized that there is
an adult world and that working at a job is part of it.
Stage 2: Orientation to sex roles (ages six to eight). Children at
this age have progressed to thinking in concrete terms and making
simple distinctions. They are dichotomous thinkers, however, and
tend to rank everything simply as good versus bad. They have
begun to understand the concept of sex roles but focus primarily on
their most visible cues such as overt activities and clothing. Being
particularly rigid and moralistic, they often treat adherence to sex
roles as a moral imperative. Vocational aspirations at this stage
reflect a concern with doing what is appropriate for one’s sex. Both
sexes believe their own sex is superior. Although the predominance
of same-sex occupational preferences in Stage 2 may be primarily a
by-product of children’s orientation to same-sex adults and their
96 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT