No highlights yet. Use the Highlight button in the article.
Explore how gender identity, gender roles, and gender-typed behavior develop across childhood and adolescence through biological, cognitive, and social processes.
Reading short version (4 min)
Gender development is the process by which children come to understand themselves as gendered beings, acquire gender-typed behaviors and preferences, and develop beliefs about gender roles. It is one of the most fundamental aspects of human development, beginning before birth and unfolding across the lifespan through the interplay of biological, cognitive, and social processes.
Biological sex differentiation begins with chromosomal determination (XX or XY) and proceeds through hormonal cascades that shape gonadal development, internal reproductive structures, and external genitalia during prenatal development.
Prenatal hormones play a significant role in gender development. Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) research shows that genetic females exposed to elevated androgens prenatally show more male-typical toy preferences, activity levels, and spatial abilities.
Brain sex differences are modest, overlapping, and debated. While some structural and functional differences exist, they are small relative to within-sex variation, and their causal relationship to behavior remains unclear.
Biological factors set predispositions but do not determine gender identity or behavior, cultural context shapes how biological tendencies are expressed.
Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental theory (1966) proposed that gender understanding develops in three stages: gender identity (recognizing one's own gender, ~2-3 years), gender stability (understanding gender is stable over time, ~4 years), and gender constancy (understanding gender is consistent across situations, ~6-7 years).
Gender schema theory (Bem, 1981; Martin & Halverson, 1981) explains how children develop cognitive frameworks (schemas) for organizing gender-related information, which then guide attention, memory, and behavior.
Once children learn their gender category, they actively seek information about what their gender group does, preferentially remember schema-consistent information, and apply gender schemas to evaluate themselves and others.
These cognitive frameworks become self-reinforcing as children selectively attend to and remember gender-consistent information while ignoring or distorting inconsistent information.
Gender stereotypes are culturally shared beliefs about the attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with males and females. Children acquire these stereotypes early and apply them broadly.
Stereotype development follows a developmental pattern: rigid adherence in early childhood (ages 3-5), peak rigidity around ages 5-7, followed by increasing flexibility in middle childhood as cognitive sophistication develops.
Stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson) can impair performance when individuals are aware of negative stereotypes about their gender group in a particular domain (e.g., girls and math).
Individual differences in gender stereotype flexibility are influenced by cognitive development, parenting, education, cultural context, and personal experience with counter-stereotypical models.
Gender-diverse children are those whose gender identity, expression, or behavior differs from cultural expectations associated with their assigned sex. This includes children who identify as transgender, non-binary, or gender-expansive.
Research indicates that many transgender children show consistent, persistent, and insistent cross-gender identification from early childhood. Prospective studies suggest that strongly gender-diverse children are more likely to maintain cross-gender identity into adolescence and adulthood.
Supportive approaches for gender-diverse children include allowing gender exploration, using affirmed names and pronouns, and connecting families with knowledgeable professionals. The gender-affirmative model supports children's expressed gender identity.
Societal attitudes toward gender diversity in children are evolving rapidly, with growing recognition that diverse gender expression is a natural part of human development.
Gender development varies substantially across cultures. While some gender differences appear cross-culturally, the content of gender roles, the degree of gender differentiation, and attitudes toward gender non-conformity vary enormously.
Some cultures recognize more than two genders, Two-Spirit identities in some Indigenous North American cultures, hijra in South Asia, fa'afafine in Samoa, challenging the Western gender binary.
Contemporary issues include the impact of changing gender norms on children's development, the role of social media in gender identity exploration, educational approaches to gender diversity, and policy debates about gender-diverse youth.
Feminist developmental psychology critiques traditional gender development research for treating male development as normative and for insufficiently questioning whether observed gender differences reflect natural categories or socially constructed ones.
Comparing the key features, strengths, and limitations of major theoretical approaches
| Biological | Cognitive-Developmental | Gender Schema | Social Learning | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary mechanism | Genes, hormones, brain | Cognitive maturation stages | Schema formation & processing | Modeling, reinforcement, observation |
| Child's role | Passive (biology shapes) | Active constructor of understanding | Active organizer of information | Active observer and imitator |
| Onset of gender typing | Prenatal | After gender constancy (~6-7) | After gender labeling (~2-3) | From birth (reinforcement begins) |
| Key strength | Explains cross-cultural regularities | Explains cognitive prerequisites | Explains early rigid stereotyping | Explains cultural variation |
| Key limitation | Cannot explain cultural variation alone | Underestimates early gender typing | Less attention to individual differences | Cannot explain all cross-gender behavior |
| View of gender flexibility | Limited by biology | Increases with cognitive development | Schemas can be modified | Changes with social environment |
4 questions to test your understanding of this topic
Martin, C. L., & Halverson, C. F. (1981). A schematic processing model of sex typing and stereotyping in children. Child Development, 52(4), 1119-1134.
Kohlberg, L. (1966). A cognitive-developmental analysis of children's sex-role concepts and attitudes. In E. E. Maccoby (Ed.), The Development of Sex Differences, Stanford University Press.
Bem, S. L. (1981). Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review, 88(4), 354-364.
Bussey, K., & Bandura, A. (1999). Social cognitive theory of gender development and differentiation. Psychological Review, 106(4), 676-713.
Joel, D., et al. (2015). Sex beyond the genitalia: The human brain mosaic. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(50), 15468-15473.
Olson, K. R., et al. (2016). Mental health of transgender children who are supported in their identities. Pediatrics, 137(3), e20153223.
Bigler, R. S., & Liben, L. S. (2007). Developmental intergroup theory: Explaining and reducing children's social stereotyping and prejudice. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(3), 162-166.
Join the conversation about this article
Social Learning & Socialization
Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977; Bussey & Bandura, 1999) emphasizes observational learning, reinforcement, and modeling in gender development. Children learn gender-typed behaviors by observing same-gender models and receiving differential reinforcement.
Parents shape gender development through differential treatment (buying gender-typed toys, encouraging gender-typed activities), modeling gender roles, and communicating gender expectations. Fathers tend to enforce gender conformity more strongly than mothers, particularly for boys.
Peers become increasingly powerful gender socializers from preschool onward. Gender segregation (preference for same-gender playmates) emerges by age 3 and intensifies through middle childhood, creating distinct male and female peer cultures.
Media provides pervasive gender modeling. Despite improvements, children's media still tends to overrepresent male characters, portray gender stereotypes, and underrepresent gender diversity.