Four studies establish the reliability and validity of a suite of measures that provides comparable methods for assessing attitudes toward others (attitude measures, or AM) and sex typing of self (personal measures, or PM) in three domains: occupations, activities, and traits (or OAT). The Monograph then offers alternative models of the developmental relation between attitudes toward others and characterization of self (the attitudinal and the personal pathway models), and identifies conditions expected to influence the strength of the observed other-self relation. A conceptual analysis of the specific limitations of past measures is presented.
It is argued that a major explanation of the limitations and inconsistencies evident in earlier work may be traced to restrictions in the measures available to assess key constructs. A brief review of past theory and empirical work on gender differentiation is provided. The focus of the current Monograph is on this other-self relation during middle childhood. Little work, however, has addressed the more fundamental question of how children's developing gender attitudes about others are related to developing gender characterizations of self. Past research provides considerable support for constructivist predictions concerning (a) developmental changes in gender attitudes and (b) the relation between gender attitudes and information processing. The work described here is rooted in constructivist accounts of gender differentiation.
Gender differentiation is pervasive, and understanding how and why it develops is important for both theoretical and practical reasons.