"God made me a girl": sex-category constancy judgments and explanations revisited

To examine reasons for inconsistent findings in the development of sex-category constancy, children's constancy judgments and their accompanying explanations were studied over a 3-year period. Preschool, kindergarten, and 1st-grade children (N = 195) completed a sex-category constancy measure that elicited explanations and assessed constancy for the self and others across changes in gender-typed clothing, activities, and traits. Improvements in sex-category constancy performance were linked to explanations based on operational reasoning. Lower constancy scores were linked to explanations that emphasized gender role norms and external appearances. A separate analysis revealed that judgment-explanation relationships were stronger for questions about gender role changes in the self as opposed to others and for changes in gender-typed clothing as opposed to activities and traits. Findings suggest that the salience and personal relevance of gender role changes have important effects on children's sex-category constancy judgments and explanations.