Changes in thinking about early sex role development

How do we learn to recognize ourselves and to live as beings endowed with gender? This paper discusses changes in our answer to this question over the last 15 years. As our methods of study have changed, we have been forced to see the development of sex role as an increasingly complicated process. This paper documents two studies that were attempts to bring together two methodologies: cognitive development and social learning. In the first study, 180 children were tested using the R. G. Slaby and K. S. Frey (1975, Child Development, 46, 849–856) gender identification interview. The findings documented that children's gender understanding followed the sequence predicted by L. Kohlberg (1966, in E. Maccoby (Ed.), The development of sex differences. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press): identity, stability, and constancy. However, the child's level of gender understanding was unrelated to the adoption of sex-typed behaviors. In the second study, a second group of 64 children, 20 to 30 months of age, were tested for understanding of gender labels, gender identity, and sex-typed behaviors. Sex of playmates and boys' play with feminine toys were related to understanding of verbal gender labels. Reasons for continuing problems of interpretation in the sex role area are discussed.     

Memory in pediatric patients undergoing conscious sedation for aversive medical procedures.

This study investigated preserved memory in 26 pediatric cancer patients (65% boys, 77% Caucasian, mean age = 12.5 years) undergoing midazolam-induced conscious sedation during painful medical procedures to treat hematological or oncological diseases. The sedative midazolam had a significant anterograde amnesic effect on participants' performance on a visual recognition (explicit) memory task but not on a visual perceptual facilitation (implicit) memory task. That implicit memory scores were relatively unaffected while explicit memory scores deteriorated significantly indicates that leaning occurred while participants were sedated, even when participants did not recollect the learning event. These findings, which replicate those of M. R. Polster, R. A. McCarthy, G. O'Sullivan, P. A. Gray, and G. R. Park (1993) in a study of adults, have implications for the development and treatment of conditioned anxiety reactions associated with aversive medical procedures.     

A REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMEN TEXTBOOKS: FOCUS ON THE AFRO-AMERICAN WOMAN

A review was conducted of 28 psychology of women textbooks selected from university libraries and utilizing a psychological approach. The question of whether authors of psychology of women books in their treatment of Afro-American women had replicated the errors of authors of introductory psychology books in their treatment of women was raised. Of the 28 books reviewed, 18 offered either token or no references to Afro-American women. It is concluded that race and class biases underlie the exclusion, limited inclusion, and biased treatment of Afro-American women in these works.