IS THERE COHERENCE AMONG THE COGNITIVE COMPONENTS OF GENDER ACQUISITION

This study examined the relationships among five measures that assess various cognitive components of the child's acquisition of gender. At around 2 years of age, children were given a task assessing their ability to accurately label as "a boy" or "a girl" some head-and-shoulders pictures of boys and girls. At 4 years of age, these children were given tasks measuring (1) the degree to which they found gender a salient parameter of categorization, (2) the amount of gender-related knowledge they could display (SERLI-SRD), (3) the degree to which their preferences were gender-typed (SERLI-SRP) and (4) the accuracy of their memory for gender-typed information. There was no consistent pattern of relationship among the children's scores on these five tools for measuring gender acquisition. Our findings suggest that gender is a multidimensional construct in children's development, and thus these results challenge the undimensional manner in which gender is repeatedly addressed in developmental theory and research. © 1991 Plenum Publishing Corporation.