The Developmental Course of Gender Differentiation: Conceptuality, Measuring and Evaluating Constructs and Pathways (Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development) - Tapa blanda

How is it that boys and girls, men and women end up with different interests, occupations, and traits? How can we distinguish real gender differences from beliefs about gender differences? How do gender-differentiated behaviors and stereotypes change from childhood to adulthood? This monograph reviews theories and methods that have been used to study gender differentiation in the past, and then offers a new suite of measures designed to assess children's and adults' gender-related attitudes towards others and gender-related characterizations of self. Two pathways for developmental change are presented, one in which children's gender attitudes are hypothesized to affect their later behaviors and the other in which children's own behaviors are hypothesized to influence their later attitudes. Closing chapters provide longitudinal data relevant to these developmental pathways and discuss implications for research and practice.

Lynn S. Liben is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Pennsylvania State University. Her research has focused on the development of gender and on the development of spatial-graphic representation. She has also studied the intersection of these topics, as in her work on sex-related differences in spatial cognition and on the gender gap in success of the National Geography Bee. Rebecca S. Bigler is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has concerned the development of gender and racial stereotypes, including how contextual factors serve to exaggerate or diminish their growth. She has also been active in developing and evaluating interventions designed to discourage the establishment and maintenance of gender and racial stereotypes.