Constancy of Gender Identity for Self and Others in Children between the Ages of Three and Seven

Abstract

GOUZE, KAREN R., and NADELMAN, LORRAINE. Constancy of Gender Identity for Self and Others in Children between the Ages of Three and Seven. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 275278. The acquisition of constancy of gender identity of self and gender identity of others was examined in 80 white, middle-class children, 40-83 months of age. A modified version of the gender constancy task, substituting photographs of the child and unknown peers for schematic drawings, was used. The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale vocabulary test was administered. Gender-self constancy scores were found to be significantly higher than gender-other scores, p < .01. There were no significant positive correlations between age and either gender constancy score; vocabulary, however, correlated positively and significantly with both genderself and gender-other scores for the total sample. Scalogram analyses of the task items indicated the salience of perceptual changes in influencing a child's development of gender constancy, with the perceptual items consistently the most difficult.