Walter Emmerich

Socialization and Sex-Role Development

ABSTRACT Recent secular trends have attenuated long-term continuities in sex-role socialization, but sex differences within age periods probably continue to be aspects of one or more ontogenetic series. Knowledge about sex-role development remains fragmentary at all age periods largely because underlying theoretical assumptions have not been satisfactorily incorporated into research designs. It is suggested that each theory of socialization can be translated into a distinct set of predictions for the several parameters of developmental trends in behavior (dependent variables) and for the impact of socializing influences (independent variables) upon these developmental trends. Certain concepts are suggested for sex-role measurement, including the competence-performance distinction. In illustrating these points, particular attention is given to psychodynamic and cognitive theories of sex-role identity, and to internalized normative structures as regulators of sex-role behaviors and development. Implications for a life-span developmental framework are discussed, including the issue of ontogenetic versus secular changes in sex roles, differences between early and later sex-role socialization, and the possibility that sex-role development is subordinated to other ontogenetic sequences during much of the life cycle.

Cognitive Factors in the Development of Sex-Typed Preferences.

This study considered how children coordinate their understandings of gender identity and sex stereotypes to produce sex-typed preferences. Sex-typed preferences and gender constancy were assessed at ages 4 through 8 years on a cross section of urban black and white children (N=819). Findings verified that sex-stereotyped preferences are highly developed among young children prior to the period when gender constancy is fully developed. Additionally, by age 5, most children accurately attributed sex-stereotyped preferences to peers of the opposite sex. A distinction was made between a sex stereotype and a same-sex bias as a basis for a sex-typed preference. Gender constancy was shown to strengthen the same-sex bias as a determinant of a sex-typed preference, but this effect was context specific. Under certain conditions sex-stereotyped knowledge constrained the same-sex bias as a determinant of preferential choice.