Comment
Martin’s and Halverson’s theoretical framework reminds us that stereotypes are not necessarily an abnormal or irrational way of thinking; rather, they often play a key role in simplifying a very complex world. We often use gender stereotypes as rules of thumb to guide us in our social interactions. We have to be careful, however, that we do not rely on gender stereotypes too rigidly – we need to be prepared to revise our beliefs, expectations, and behaviour when we are presented with counter stereotypical information (e.g. a girl with ‘masculine’ toy preferences). Research suggests that children become increasingly flexible in their reasoning about gender as they grow older.

At the core of the theory is the notion of ‘schema’, a mental structure that guides the processing of information and experiences. According to the initial model proposed by Martin and Halverson (1981), two key schemas are involved. The first, the ‘in-group – out-group’ schema includes a broad categorisation of attributes, activities, and objects as being either for boys or for girls. In other words, boys and girls are said to have a mental representation of what is suitable for their in-group (boys for a boy, girls for a girl) and what is appropriate for their out-group (girls for a boy, boys for a girl). A second schema, the ‘own sex’ schema, involves more detailed information about those behaviours, traits, and objects that are considered to be characteristic of their in-group. As soon as children are able to label themselves as boys or girls, they will start to form these schemas in order to make sense of the world around them.

In many ways, the basic proposition of Kohlberg (1966) still applies: “I am a boy, therefore I want to do boy things”. The difference is that the notion “I am a boy” need only reflect basic gender labelling, as opposed to a full appreciation of gender constancy. Once this understanding is present and the environment provides information about certain toys or activities as masculine or feminine (which is organised in the in-group – out-group schema), children will be driven to find out more about the in-group set of toys or activities. In this way, the in-group – out-group schema determines what information goes into the more detailed and elaborate own sex schema: if a boy views an object or activity as masculine he will approach it, interact with it, and find out more about it. Thus, unlike the SCT view that internal standards for behaviour are formed through the internalisation of social rules taught through rewards and punishment (or observed through the outcomes of others’ behaviour), children are seen here as having internal, self-regulating standards as soon as they label themselves as boys or girls.

A major advantage of the gender schema approach is that we can begin to trace stability and change in children’s gender-linked cognition and behaviour by tracking the development of children’s schemas. For example, it offers a good insight into why children seem to cling so tightly to gender stereotypes, sometimes despite the best efforts of parents who are attempting to reduce or eliminate stereotyping. Schemas govern what we pay attention to, what we try to find out more about, what we interact with, and what (and how) we remember. For example, Bradbard et al. (1986) gave 56 4- to 9-year-olds some new objects to explore for six minutes. The children explored new objects more when they were labelled as being for their own sex than for the other sex, and subsequently remembered more detail about the own-sex toys than the other-sex toys one week later. In a similar vein, Liben and Signorella (1993) showed 106 primary school children sixty drawings of male and female characters engaged in masculine, feminine, and neutral activities/occupations (e.g. firefighter, washing dishes), and then asked them to recall as many of the pictures as possible. Children recalled more pictures of men performing masculine behaviours than of men performing feminine behaviours. The influence of gender schemas can be so strong that counter stereotypical information may be distorted to make it fit in with the schemas. Martin and Halverson (1983) showed 48 5- to 6-year-olds pictures of males or females engaged in activities that were consistent or inconsistent with gender roles. A week later the children showed distorted memories of role-inconsistent pictures, for example, a picture of a girl sawing wood was remembered as a picture of a boy sawing wood.

The gender schema approach also helps us understand why younger children often seem to adhere to stereotypes more rigidly than older children. When children were asked to predict how much the characters in a story would like masculine and feminine toys the younger children relied only on the sex of the character to make their judgements (Martin, 1989). They predicted that a boy character would like to play with trucks regardless of the information given about that character’s interests. By contrast, the older children took into account both the sex of the character and the ‘individuating’ information about that particular character. So they would predict that a girl who is described as having counter stereotypical attributes (e.g. likes playing with airplanes) would be less likely to want to play with a doll than a stereotypical girl. This kind of flexibility is likely to be the result of changes in children’s cognition, such as an increased understanding of masculinity as distinct from maleness and femininity as distinct from femaleness, and an increased ability to draw on several sources of information (e.g. both sex and idiosyncratic interests) simultaneously. Younger children, with a more simplistic gender schema that links certain activities with boys and certain other activities with girls, seemed to rely only on the character’s sex when inferring his or her toy preferences.