The salience of gender and the process of sex typing in three- to seven-year-old children.

SERBIN, LISA A., and SPRAFKIN, CAROL. The Salience of Gender and the Process of Sex Typing in Threeto Seven-Year-Old Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1986, 57, 1188-1199. 2 measures of children's use of gender as a schematic dimension were developed, 1 measuring gender-based categorization, the other reflecting the degree to which children use the gender dimension to make personal affiliation choices when other schematic bases for responding are available. 2 samples, totaling 147 boys and girls aged 3-7, were tested on the 2 measures of gender salience to establish developmental patterns of gender-based categorization and affiliation. Relations with sex-role knowledge and gender concepts, and with measures of sex-role adoption, were also examined. A Guttman Scale analysis confirmed the developmental sequence in which a decline in gender-based categorization occurred after sex-role knowledge regarding activities and occupations was acquired. Further, once the decline in gender-based categorization occurred, children began to show more cognitive flexibility on a measure of sex-role attitudes. In contrast, use of the gender dimension to make personal affiliation choices did not decline with age but seemed to reflect individual differences in degree of sex typing. Because of these distinct underlying cognitive processes, there seems to be little relation between what a child knows about sex roles and how sex typed the child's attitudes and behavior will be during this period.