Kohlberg's

when does Kohlberg believe gender first begins to develop

2

explain kholberg’s idea of maturation

This is the idea that as we mature cognitively our ideas of gender also mature. According to Kohlberg, children’s understanding of gender will increase in line with their cognitive abilities this is because he believed that gender was the result of inner cognitions.

when do children show strong motivation to engage in gendered behaviour

children only begin to show strong motivation to engage in gender-appropriate behaviour once they reach gender constancy, as it is only then that they fully understand gender as a fixed and permanent category.

what type of theory is kholberg’s

A stage theory

what are the stages and the ages at which they occur

1. Gender identity (2-3)

2. Gender stability (3-4)

3. Gender constancy (4-7)

Outline identity  

Stage 1: gender identity (age 2-3 years) – a child can label their own sex and label other people’s sex as ‘male’ or ‘female’. However, they believe you can reassign a person’s sex as to them, it is only a label. Therefore, they are easily fooled by outward appearance. For example, thinking a woman with short hair is a man.

summary = label own +other gender

Outline stability

Stage 2: gender stability (age 3-4 years) – children realise that sex stays the same over time (i.e. if they are a girl, they will always be a girl), yet they do not understand that it stays the same across all situations and are still egocentric in many ways. In this stage, they would still be fooled by changes in outward appearance.

summary = understand gender doesn’t change over time don’t understand stays the same in different situation 

Outline gender constancy

Stage 3: gender constancy (age 4-7 years) – children obtain a full understanding of gender, knowing that it stays the same despite changes in outward appearance e.g. a male dressed in female clothing is still biologically male.

what are some assumptions Kohlberg made

One assumption was that these stages of cognitive development were universal. This means that wherever children are in the world, they will go through the same stages at about the same age. He said that the only difference would be that they would learn different things about what it is to be ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ depending on their social norms

Another assumption is that we pass through theses stages in the same order in the set time frame.

One strength in support showing that the stages are universal 

One strength of Kohlberg’s theory is that the stages appear to be universal, which supports the validity of the explanation. Monroe found cross-cultural evidence for the three stages in countries such as Kenya, Samoa and Nepal, showing that children in these cultures progressed through gender identity, stability and constancy in the same sequence as Western children. This is important because it demonstrates that the theory is not culturally bound and avoids an imposed etic, where a model developed in one culture is incorrectly applied to another. Instead, the fact that children across such diverse cultures show the same developmental pattern suggests that Kohlberg’s stages reflect universal cognitive processes rather than Western assumptions. This reduces ethnocentrism within the research and increases confidence that the theory provides a widely generalisable and culturally fair explanation of gender development.

Empirical evidence in support

Further support for Kohlberg’s theory comes from Damon’s research demonstrating clear age-related differences in children’s reasoning about gender. Damon presented children of different ages with a scenario about a boy named George who liked to play with dolls. Younger children around 2–3 years of age in the first stage identity tended to say this behaviour was wrong or unacceptable, showing rigid thinking consistent with early stages of cognitive development. In contrast, older children who were in the final stage gender constancy recognised that although George’s behaviour was not typical, it was not necessarily wrong. Damon found that children naturally fell into the three stages described by Kohlberg, which supports the idea that gender understanding develops in line with general cognitive maturation. This strengthens the theory by showing that as children’s thinking becomes more flexible and sophisticated with age, so does their understanding of gender roles.

Limitation is cant explain gendered behaviour before 4

However, a major limitation of Kohlberg’s theory is that the stage of gender constancy is not well supported by research. Kohlberg argued that children only show strong preferences for gender-appropriate toys and behaviours after reaching gender constancy, typically around age six. Yet Bussey and Bandura found that children as young as four reported feeling good about playing with gender-appropriate toys and bad about engaging in the opposite. This contradicts Kohlberg’s predictions, as these children had not yet reached the constancy stage but were already displaying gender-typed attitudes. This suggests that children adopt gender stereotypes earlier than Kohlberg claimed, and therefore his theory may not fully explain the early emergence of gendered behaviour. Instead, these findings are more consistent with gender schema theory, which suggests that children begin to show gender-appropriate behaviour as soon as they can identify their own gender.