Research summary
Slaby and Frey, 1975
Social learning approaches suggested that children’s gender development was largely based on observation of same-sex models. However, Kohlberg’s (1966) cognitive-developmental theory suggested that children’s understanding of gender as a permanent, unchanging attribute was of critical importance. Slaby and Frey (1975) set out to determine whether children’s attention to same-sex models was influenced by their level of gender constancy.

Fifty-five 2- to 5-year-olds’ level of gender constancy was assessed by using a series of fourteen questions and counter-questions. Several questions tapped gender labelling. For instance:
Is this a girl or a boy? (showing boy/girl doll)
Are you a girl or a boy?

Further questions tapped gender stability. For instance:
When you were a little baby were you a little girl or a little boy?
When you grow up, will you be a mummy or a daddy?
Could you ever be a [opposite of previous response]?

A final set of questions tapped gender consistency. For instance:
If you wore [opposite of child’s sex] clothes, would you be a girl or a boy?
Could you be a [opposite of child’s sex] if you wanted to be?

Children were classified as low on gender constancy if they answered incorrectly on the gender labelling or gender stability items, and otherwise were identified as high on gender constancy. Several weeks after this interview the children were shown a short film showing a man and a woman engaging in simple parallel activities on different sides of the screen. The amount of time that children’s eyes were fixated on each side of the screen was measured.

Slaby and Frey found support for their hypothesis that children with higher levels of gender constancy would show more selective attention to same-sex models. The data in the table below show that high constancy boys watched the male model rather than the female model more than did low constancy boys, while the opposite was true for the girls. Interestingly, the selective attention to the same-sex model was much stronger among the high-constancy boys than among the high-constancy girls. In fact, both boys and girls spent more total time watching the male model than the female model. Overall, the results indicate the influence of both cognitive and social factors in gender development.

Table: Mean (SD) percentage of model-watching time spent watching the male rather than the female model (standard deviation in brackets).