Gender Schema and Social Judgments: A Developmental Study of Children from Hong Kong

Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,  July, 2000  by Thalma E. Lobel,  Eva Bar-David,  Reut Gruber,  Sing Lau,  Yoram Bar-Tal

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In conclusion, although the importance of individual differences in gender schema elaboration has been recognized (Ruble & Martin, 1998), most studies have focused on age differences. The current study indicates the greater complexity of the issue and suggests that individual differences in gender schematicity should also be considered. Our results suggest that there is a difference between cognitive and emotional--motivational judgments. They further suggest that at a young age when the schema is less elaborated, the more schematic a child is, the more he or she will rely on the gender label. At an older age, when the schema is more elaborated and complex, the more schematic the child is, the more he or she will rely on the individuating information. It should be noted that these results were reached in Hong Kong, a collectivistic culture. In such a culture, individuals are expected to behave according to the social norms, including the gender role norms. Therefore, any transgression from the norm is less a ccepted. In contrast, in the Western cultures of the 1990s, there is a movement toward androgyny and individuals are encouraged to express not only characteristics of their own sex, but those of the other sex as well. One can speculate that children in individualistic societies such as the United States will be more flexible in their inferences and judgments. Consequently, the relationship between gender schematicity and inferences and judgments might differ in individualistic cultures more than in collectivistic ones, especially for older children since they are more likely to have internalized their culture's expectations. The fact that there were such clear differences between the inferences and judgments made by schematic and aschematic children even in a collectivistic society such as Hong Kong lends additional support to our conclusion that individual differences in gender schematicity play an important part in information processing. Future studies should examine the questions raised in this study with in Western individualistic cultures.

(1.) To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel 69697, e-mail: talma@freud.tau.ac.il.

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