Sex-Related Comparisons: Theory 167Children learngender constancyby age 5.
That is, they can categorize themselves as
female or male and realize they cannot change
their category. But even at age 5, children
may not use biological distinctions as the ba-
sis for categorization. They are more likely
to classify people as male or female by their
size, strength, or physical appearance. I expe-
rienced an example of this confusion one day
when I was taking my 2-year-old daughter to
day care. Another girl, about 4 or 5 years old,
came over and asked, “Is she a boy?” I was a
bit surprised because my daughter was wear-
ing a Minnie Mouse outfit. I told the little
girl she was a girl. With some frustration, the
little girl replied, “Then why is she wearing
boy shoes?” My daughter was wearing blue
sandals. It is during this stage of develop-
ment that children’s gender-related beliefs
are most rigid (Martin & Ruble, 2004). Con-
duct your own experiment with young chil-
dren to identify how they decide someone is
female versus male (see Do Gender 5.6). By
age 5, children also learn the content of gen-
der categories and become aware of the dif-
ferent roles that men and women possess in
society.
According to cognitive development
theory, gender identity determines gender-
role attitudes and values. Once children
acquire their gender identity, they have a
high internal motivation to behave in ways
consistent with their self-concept. The child
identifies the self as female or male and
wants to behave in ways consistent with this
self category. Their self-concept as female or
male expands as they take in new informa-
tion from the environment.
One limitation of Kohlberg’s theory
is that he states gender constancy must be
achieved before children will value and
seek out behavior that fits their gender role.
Yet studies have shown that children whodevelopment theory is that the child is an ac-
tive interpreter of the world. Learning occurs
because the child cognitively organizes what
she or he sees; learning does not occur from
reinforcement or from conditioning. That is,
the child is acting on her or his environment;
the environment is not acting on the child.
Cognitive development theory suggests
there are a series of stages of development
that eventually lead to the acquisition of gen-
der roles. First, children develop agender
identity(Kohlberg, 1966). By age 2 or 3,
children learn the labelsboyandgirland ap-
ply these labels to themselves and to other
people. The labels are based on superficial
characteristics of people rather than biology,
however. If someone has long hair, she must
be a girl; if someone is wearing a suit, he
must be a man; and if you put a dress on the
man, he becomes a she. That is, children at
this age believe a person’s sex can change—
including their own sex. A boy may believe
he can grow up to be a mother.
Upon recognition that there are two
groups—males and females—and that the
self belongs to one of those groups, evalu-
ative and motivational consequences fol-
low (Martin & Ruble, 2004). The evaluative
consequence is a preference for the group to
which one belongs. The motivational conse-
quence is to learn about one’s own category
and identify ways in which the two categories
differ. Even at the age of 18 to 24 months,
children’s knowledge of these gender
categories is linked to sex-typed behavior
(Martin & Ruble, 2009). Children who used
more gender labels (i.e., man, woman, boy,
girl) were found to engage in more sex-typed
play. And, sex-typed play at age 2 predicts
greater sex-typed play at age 8 (Golombok
et al., 2008).
Children do not consistently use the
labelsboyandgirlcorrectly until ages 4 and 5.M05_HELG0185_04_SE_C05.indd 167 6/21/11 8:03 AM