Gender Differences in Behavior

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In order to determine the gender differences in behavior in boys and girls, I observed seven activities for ten minutes, taking a total of five observations of the numbers of boys and girls each activity. This experiment took place on October 9th from 4’ o’clock to 4’ ten at County Elementary School. I performed this experiment in the school’s After School Program because having a smaller sample size is easier to keep count and observe. From the beginning of this experiment, there was a total of twenty-two boys and thirty girls, age ranging from six to eleven. Seven activities I recorded were basketball, four squares, jump rope, sliding, swinging, talking, and tetherball.

According to Bjorklund, the process of incorporating gender roles and values is referred to as gender identification. This is important, since this allows children to label, behave, and perform the appropriate gender role. Factors that contribute to gender identification are gender constancy, knowing that a person’s gender does not change despite physical changes and gender stereotypes. Once children are able to achieve gender constancy, it would help them know that there are certain things boys do and certain things girls do. This accomplishment leads to gender schemas, an “interrelated networks of mental association representing information about the sexes (430-431).”

According to Martin and Halverson’s model, developed gender schemas help children label objects and activities that are for their gender or for the other gender (431). For example, a boy knows that trucks are for them while Barbie dolls are for girls. In my observation, I have noticed that the children have already developed gender schemas because they were in activities that we...

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...hemata that would help them learn how to label, behave, and perform the appropriate gender role. They used tools such as imitation and emulation to help them get toward their desired goal. I also learned that there is definitely an aggression and competition difference in what activities boys and girls plays. Activities that are considered less aggressive, such as jump roping, sliding, swinging, and socializing is considered a female activities because there is neither aggression nor competitions evoked from these activities. While activities such as basketball, four square, and tetherball are labeled as male activities because of the aggression and competition it evokes.

Works Cited

Bjorklund, David F. "Social Cognition." Children's Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. 424- 38. Print.

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