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.