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A longitudinal study of gender‐related cognition and behaviour
Author(s) -
Campbell Anne,
Shirley Louisa,
Candy Julia
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00316.x
Subject(s) - psychology , schema (genetic algorithms) , gender schema theory , developmental psychology , longitudinal study , cognition , cognitive psychology , statistics , mathematics , machine learning , neuroscience , computer science
Gender schema theory proposes that children's acquisition of gender labels and gender stereotypes informs gender‐congruent behaviour. Most previous studies have been cross‐sectional and do not address the temporal relationship between knowledge and behaviour. We report the results of a longitudinal study of gender knowledge and sex‐typed behaviour across three domains in children tested at 24 and 36 months ( N = 56). Although both knowledge and sex‐typed behaviour increased significantly between 2 and 3 years, there was no systematic pattern of cross‐lagged correlations between the two, although some concurrent relationships were present at 24 months. Future longitudinal work might profitably focus on younger children using reliable pre‐verbal measures of gender knowledge and employing a shorter lag between measurement times.