Social and Cognitive Explanations of Gender Development

While biological explanations emphasise chromosomes, hormones, and brain structure, social and cognitive explanations argue that gender is primarily acquired — either learned through interaction with the social environment or actively constructed by the developing mind. This lesson examines two families of explanation that contrast with the biological account: first, social learning theory (SLT), which treats gender as learned through modelling, imitation, and differential and vicarious reinforcement, shaped by culture and the media; and second, the cognitive-developmental accounts of Kohlberg (gender identity, stability, and constancy) and gender schema theory (Martin & Halverson), which treat the child as an active thinker who builds and applies mental representations of gender.

Key Definition: Social learning theory (SLT) explains behaviour as being learned through observation, imitation, and reinforcement of models in the social environment. Applied to gender, SLT proposes that children learn gender-typed behaviour by observing and imitating models (especially same-sex models) and being reinforced — directly or vicariously — for gender-appropriate behaviour.

Spec Mapping

This lesson addresses the following points from the AQA A-Level Psychology (7182) specification, Paper 3, Section B: Gender:

Specification point	Coverage in this lesson
Social learning theory as applied to gender development	Bandura (1977); modelling, imitation, identification; direct, differential and vicarious reinforcement; Smith & Lloyd (1978); Fagot (1978)
The influence of culture and media on gender roles	Mead (1935); Williams (1986) "Notel"; Furnham & Farragher (2000)
Kohlberg's theory: gender identity, gender stability and gender constancy	The three stages (~2–3, ~4–5, ~6–7); Slaby & Frey (1975)
Gender schema theory	Martin & Halverson (1981); in-group/out-group schemas; resilience of schemas; Martin & Halverson (1983) memory study

These points are assessed through short-answer AO1 questions, AO2 application where a scenario stem is supplied, and 16-mark essays that frequently ask candidates to compare the social-learning and cognitive accounts, or to weigh both against the biological approach within the nature–nurture debate.

Social Learning Theory of Gender (Bandura, 1977)

Albert Bandura's (1977) social learning theory provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how children learn gender-typed behaviour. The theory identifies several key processes:

1. Observation and Modelling

Children observe the behaviour of models — parents, siblings, peers, teachers, and media figures — and learn what behaviours are associated with each gender.

Children are more likely to imitate same-sex models because they identify with them.
Modelling is most effective when the model is perceived as similar, powerful, nurturing, or rewarded for their behaviour.

2. Imitation

After observing gendered behaviour, children imitate it. For example:

A girl observes her mother cooking and imitates this behaviour in play.
A boy observes male footballers and imitates their behaviour in the playground.

3. Reinforcement (Direct and Vicarious)

Direct reinforcement occurs when the child is personally rewarded or punished for gender-typed behaviour:

A boy who plays with trucks may be praised ("Good boy!"), while playing with dolls may be discouraged ("That's a girl's toy").
A girl who is gentle and cooperative may be praised, while aggressive behaviour may be punished.

Vicarious reinforcement occurs when a child observes someone else being rewarded or punished for gendered behaviour and adjusts their own behaviour accordingly:

A boy sees another boy being praised for playing football → he imitates.
A girl sees another girl being teased for playing roughly → she avoids rough play.

4. Identification and Internalisation

Over time, children identify with same-sex models and internalise gender norms — gender-typed behaviour becomes part of their self-concept, not just a response to external reinforcement.

Key Definition: Vicarious reinforcement occurs when a person observes another person being rewarded or punished for a behaviour and adjusts their own behaviour accordingly, without experiencing the reinforcement directly. Differential reinforcement is the closely related idea that boys and girls are systematically rewarded for different behaviours, so that gender-typed conduct is selectively strengthened in each sex.

Mediational Processes

Bandura emphasised that observational learning is not purely automatic. Between observing a behaviour and reproducing it lie four mediational (cognitive) processes, which is why SLT is sometimes called a social-cognitive theory and forms a bridge to the cognitive accounts later in this lesson:

Process	Role in gender learning
Attention	The child must notice the gendered behaviour of a model (e.g. a same-sex parent's activity)
Retention	The behaviour must be stored in memory as a representation that can be recalled later
Reproduction	The child must be physically and developmentally capable of imitating the behaviour
Motivation	The child must expect a reward (or to avoid punishment) — supplied by direct, vicarious, or self-reinforcement

Because attention and retention are cognitive, SLT already concedes that the child is not a wholly passive recipient — a point developed much further by the cognitive theories below.

Key Research Studies

Smith and Lloyd (1978)

Smith and Lloyd investigated whether adults treat infants differently based on perceived gender.

Method:

Adults were given babies to play with. Some babies were dressed in "boys'" clothes and given boys' names; others were dressed in "girls'" clothes and given girls' names. The babies' actual sex did not always match the clothing.

Findings:

Adults selected gender-typed toys based on the baby's perceived sex (not actual sex).
"Boys" were given hammers and encouraged in physical activity.
"Girls" were given soft dolls and spoken to more gently.

Conclusion: Adults reinforce gender stereotypes from the earliest age, even with babies. This supports SLT's claim that differential reinforcement shapes gender-typed behaviour.

Fagot (1978)

Beverly Fagot observed parents interacting with their children (aged 20–24 months) in the home.

Findings:

Boys were reinforced for playing with "masculine" toys (blocks, trucks) and criticised for playing with "feminine" toys or seeking help.
Girls were reinforced for playing with dolls, dressing up, and asking for help, and were criticised for running, jumping, and climbing.
Fathers were more likely than mothers to reinforce gender-typed behaviour — particularly for boys.

Conclusion: Parents actively shape gender-typed behaviour through differential reinforcement, consistent with SLT. The finding that fathers enforce gender norms more strictly, especially for sons, is a noteworthy gender difference.

Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961) — The Bobo Doll Study

Although not specifically about gender, the Bobo doll study demonstrated that children learn aggressive behaviour through observation and imitation:

Children who observed an aggressive adult model were more likely to imitate the aggression.
Children were more likely to imitate same-sex models.
This provides foundational evidence for SLT's claim that children learn behaviour — including gender-typed behaviour — through observation and imitation.

Exam Tip: When using the Bobo doll study to support SLT of gender, focus on the finding that children were more likely to imitate same-sex models. This directly supports the idea that gender-typed behaviour is learned through identification with same-sex models.

Media Influences on Gender

The media is a powerful source of gender models. Children are exposed to gender stereotypes through television, films, social media, advertising, and video games.

How Does the Media Influence Gender?

Mechanism	Explanation	Example
Role models	Media presents gendered role models for children to observe and imitate	Male action heroes; female beauty influencers
Reinforcement	Characters are shown being rewarded for gender-typed behaviour	Women rewarded for beauty; men rewarded for strength
Stereotyping	Repeated exposure to gender stereotypes reinforces them as "normal"	Women shown as homemakers; men as breadwinners
Counter-stereotypes	Some media challenges gender norms	Female superheroes; male nurses

Research Evidence

Furnham and Farragher (2000): Analysed UK television advertisements and found that men were more likely to be shown as authorities and in professional roles, while women were more likely to be shown in domestic roles and as consumers of beauty products.
Williams (1986) — "Notel" study: A Canadian town ("Notel") that had previously received no television was studied before and after television was introduced. After television arrived, children's gender stereotypes increased significantly compared to towns that already had television.

Evaluation of Media Influences

Strengths:

The "Notel" study provides strong evidence of a causal link between media exposure and gender stereotypes (natural experiment design).
Consistent with SLT — media provides models for observation and vicarious reinforcement.

Limitations:

The "Notel" study is a single case and may not generalise to modern media environments (streaming, social media, etc.).
Children are not passive recipients of media — cognitive factors mediate the impact (children with strong gender schemas may selectively attend to stereotype-consistent content).
Media representation has improved since the 1980s, with more counter-stereotypical portrayals, which may reduce its stereotyping effect.

Cultural and Cross-Cultural Variations in Gender Roles

Mead's Three Tribes Study (1935)

Margaret Mead conducted anthropological research in three tribes in Papua New Guinea, arguing that gender roles are culturally constructed rather than biologically determined.

Tribe	Males	Females	Implication
Arapesh	Gentle, cooperative, nurturing	Gentle, cooperative, nurturing	Both sexes display "feminine" traits
Mundugumor	Aggressive, competitive, hostile	Aggressive, competitive, hostile	Both sexes display "masculine" traits
Tchambuli	Decorative, gossipy, concerned with appearance	Dominant, practical, decision-makers	Gender roles are reversed compared to Western norms

Mead's conclusion: Gender roles are not biologically determined but are shaped by cultural expectations. If gender were purely biological, all cultures would show the same pattern — but they do not.

Evaluation of Mead's Study

Strengths (AO3):

Provides powerful evidence against biological determinism — the enormous variation across cultures suggests social/cultural factors shape gender roles.
Influential in establishing the idea that gender is socially constructed.

Limitations (AO3):

Methodological concerns: Mead's methods were criticised by Freeman (1983), who argued that her data was selectively reported and that she may have been misled by her informants.
Observer bias: Mead may have interpreted behaviour to fit her preconceptions.
Even Mead found some universals: Despite cultural variation, she noted that in all three societies, men held more political power, suggesting some biological influence.
Ignores biological factors: The study does not explain why some cross-cultural similarities in gender roles exist (e.g., males being more physically aggressive across virtually all cultures).

Key Definition: Cultural relativism is the principle that gender roles and other behaviours should be understood in the context of the culture in which they occur, rather than judged by the standards of another culture.

Kohlberg's Cognitive-Developmental Theory (1966)

Lawrence Kohlberg offered a fundamentally different account from SLT. Where SLT casts the child as learning gender from the environment, Kohlberg — drawing on Piaget — casts the child as an active thinker whose understanding of gender matures in stages tied to cognitive development. Crucially, for Kohlberg gender-typed behaviour follows understanding: a child seeks out same-sex models and behaviours because they have grasped that they are, and will remain, a member of that sex. Maturation, not reinforcement, drives the sequence.

graph TD
    A["Gender Identity<br/>~2–3 years<br/>Can label self and others as boy/girl"] --> B["Gender Stability<br/>~4–5 years<br/>Knows gender is stable over time<br/>('I will be a man')"]
    B --> C["Gender Constancy<br/>~6–7 years<br/>Knows gender is constant across<br/>situations and appearances"]
    C --> D["Actively seeks same-sex<br/>models and information"]

Stage 1: Gender Identity (~2–3 years)

The child can label their own sex and the sex of others ("I'm a girl"; "he's a boy"), but this is a purely descriptive label. The child does not yet understand that gender is permanent — at this stage a child may believe they could grow up to be the other sex, or that putting on different clothes changes one's sex.

Stage 2: Gender Stability (~4–5 years)

The child now understands that gender is stable over time — a boy will become a man, a girl will become a woman. However, their understanding is still tied to appearances across situations: a child at this stage may think that a man who puts on a dress, or a woman who takes up a "male" job, has changed sex. Stability over time is grasped before constancy across situations.

Stage 3: Gender Constancy (~6–7 years)

The child achieves gender constancy — the understanding that gender is constant across time and situations, regardless of superficial changes in appearance, clothing, or activity. This mirrors Piaget's notion of conservation: just as the child comes to understand that the quantity of water is conserved despite a change in the shape of the glass, they come to understand that sex is conserved despite a change in outward appearance. Kohlberg argued that only once constancy is achieved does the child become strongly motivated to identify with and imitate same-sex models, because only now is gender experienced as a fixed and central part of the self.

Research Support

Slaby and Frey (1975): Asked young children questions to assess their level of gender constancy, then showed them a split-screen film with a male on one side and a female on the other performing the same activities. Children high in gender constancy spent significantly more time watching the same-sex model, supporting Kohlberg's claim that constancy precedes and motivates selective attention to same-sex models.
Damon (1977): Told children a story about "George", a boy who liked to play with dolls, and asked what they thought. Four-year-olds saw no problem; six-year-olds (who had reached constancy and absorbed gender norms) judged it wrong for George to play with dolls — showing that, with the rules now firmly grasped, children become rigid moral enforcers of gender norms.

Gender Schema Theory (Martin & Halverson, 1981)

Gender schema theory accepts Kohlberg's core insight — that the child actively constructs gender understanding — but argues that the engine of gender development is the gender schema, and it begins much earlier than Kohlberg's constancy stage. Martin and Halverson proposed that as soon as a child has basic gender identity (~2–3 years), they begin actively building gender schemas: organised clusters of knowledge about what is associated with each sex (toys, clothes, activities, traits).

Key Definition: A gender schema is an organised mental representation of everything an individual knows or believes about the two sexes. Once formed, it directs what the child attends to, how they interpret information, and what they remember.

In-Group and Out-Group Schemas

A central claim is the distinction between the in-group (the child's own sex) and the out-group (the other sex):

Schema	Function	Consequence
In-group schema	Detailed knowledge about the child's own sex, towards which they feel positive	Child seeks out and elaborates in-group-consistent information; positive in-group bias
Out-group schema	Knowledge about the other sex, often simpler and more negatively toned	Child avoids out-group activities ("that's for girls/boys") and pays them less attention

Children are motivated to expand their in-group schema (learning everything about being a boy/girl) while paying less attention to, and avoiding, out-group behaviours. This explains the often rigid, stereotyped gender behaviour of young children: schemas act as filters that organise perception and behaviour around the in-group.

Schemas Direct Memory and Distort Inconsistent Information

A powerful prediction is that schemas bias memory: information consistent with a gender schema is remembered well, while schema-inconsistent information is ignored, forgotten, or misremembered to fit the schema.

Social Explanations of Gender Development