Sex Roles, Vol. 11, Nos. 5/6, 1984

Gender Identity and Social Competence 1 John C. Condry Cornell University

The process o f gender identity, described as the self-attribution o f culturally bound concepts of masculinity and femininity, is traced throughout the period o f development and finked to social competence. Three stages in the development o f conscious gender identity are described-gender awareness, gender orientation, and gender identity-and the characteristics o f each stage are outlined. Finally, the impfications o f this view o f the process o f gender identity formation are discussed, especially in relation to Bem's concept o f androgyny. We are all born with certain characteristics which separate us from the other animate species of the planet, and from each other in specific ways. We are human, for example, not cows, horses, or pigs. And we are, within the human species, of one gender or another. We have other categorical defining traits at the physical, cultural, and behavioral levels. But gender is a primary defining trait: it cuts across all of the other categories and is, for many of us, a central feature of our identity. The question I wish to address is this: How does gender become an organizing feature of our identity, and why does it do so? That is, what purpose or purposes does the acquisition of a gender identity serve in allowing the human being to adapt to the social-cultural environment in which it finds itself? In every culture some social roles are played primarily by males and other primarily by females, although there is a wide variation in the content of these roles across the planet (Mead, 1935; Rosaldo & Lamphere, 1974). No culture of either the present or the past is or has been free of some form of gender-role differentiation. Within a culture in which certain

'This article was originally presented as the invited address for the Annual Conference of the Association for W o m e n in Psychology, Pittsburgh, 1978.

4s.s 0360-0025/84/0900~0485503.50/0 @ 1984 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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occupational and social roles are thus sex-typed, individuals commonly ascribe to themselves, throughout the course of development, certain gender-appropriate attitudes, values, and behaviors. This conscious awareness of sex differentiation and the changes it goes through define the process I hope to describe.

Gender Differentiation The entire process of sexual differentiation may be seen to develop in five stages. The development of conscious gender identity takes place during the last three of these stages. The developmental process involves an interweaving of biological, social, and psychological forces, all of which play different roles in the five stages of development. Stage Stage Stage Stage Stage

I, in utero: from conception to birth. II, preawareness: from birth to 18 months. III, gender awareness: from 18 months to 6 years. IV, gender orientation: from 6 years to adolescence. V, gender identity: begins at adolescence.

The term "stage" designates a period of development different from the one preceding and following it. The five-stage scheme described above covers the period from conception to sexual maturity. In all likelihood, gender identity development continues into maturity, but the adult development of this process is beyond the scope of this paper. I assume that the stages and the dynamic processes that form them are universal to human social life, while the ideational and behavioral content of the roles varies from culture to culture. StageL The first stage of gender differentiation begins at conception, with the production of a fertilized zygote having either a set of " X X " chromosomes and destined to be a female, or a set of " X Y " chromosomes and destined to be a male. Physiologically, no differences appear until the sixth to eighth week of gestation when fetuses with an XY chromosome pair receive an "androgen bath" (Money & Ehrhardt, 1972; Hoyenga & Hoyenga, 1979). From this point on, the male and female fetus begin a differentiation that result in typical male and female physical prototypes at birth (see Luria & Rose, 1979). That is, if all goes well. Some male fetuses are insensitive to androgen and do not develop properly. A comparable pattern for females called adrenogenital syndrome (AGS) results in equally

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incorrect assignment of a gender label at birth. Money and colleagues (Money & Ehrhardt, 1972) have studied these syndromes as well as other biological-sexual anomalies, and the results of their research are important for what they tell us about sex assignment at birth. The three findings of Money's research, may be summarized as follows: (1) Children accept whatever gender they are assigned, regardless of their genetic sex. (2) Changing the child's gender assignment prior to 2½ years may be accomplished without stress or trauma. (3) Changing the child's gender after the age of 3 may result in psychological damage. These findings, although based on a small number of cases and recently questioned (Imperato-McGinley, Peterson, Gautier, & Sturla, 1979), focus our attention on the importance of the next stage of gender differentiation, the stage of preawareness. They also underline the importance of the gender label before the label has meaning to the child. Stage II. The second stage of gender differentiation begins at birth. The infant is at this time assigned a label as "male" or "female" and is taken into the home environment. While the first stage of development was characterized by the centrality of biological forces, the next two years are characterized by the centrality of social forces. I have labeled this stage "preawareness," because although the child is treated differently because of its gender, the child is not yet aware of gender as an important category, and thus cannot code or comprehend such differential treatment. It is difficult to be precise about the direction of effects when studying differential treatment of males and females because the treatment differences could result from the behavior of the child. To hold this factor constant, some researchers have studied the effect of different gender labels applied to the same child in the same situation. In most of these studies, males rate the children in more stereotypical ways than females (J. Condry & Condry, 1976; Gurwitz & Dodge, 1975; J. Meyer & Sobieszek, 1972; Sobieszek; 1978). Actual parents see girls as more "feminine" (softer, smaller, less alert), regardless of the children's actual appearance (Rubin, Provenzeno, & Luria, 1974), with fathers showing more of a tendency to do so than mothers. Adults offered sex-stereotyped toys to children (dolls for females, hammers for males), encouraged more motor activity for boys and "nurturance play" for girls (Frisch, 1977; Seavey, Katz, & Zalk, 1975; Sidorowicz & Lunney, 1980; Smith & Lloyd, 1978). In one study, females sought aid for a crying baby girl more quickly than a crying baby boy, while male subjects responded equally slowly to both (S. Condry, Condry, & Pogatshnik, 1978). Although parents engage in many similar patterns of social interaction for male and female children (Field, 1978; Lamb, 1977), fathers engage in more rough-and-tumble play with their sons than their daughters (Block, 1979; Parke & Suomi, 1980; Power & Parke, 1981). Thus, the first

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two years of life are characterized by some amount of differential treatment of children by gender. Boys are perceived to have more masculine characteristics than girls and are played with more roughly, while girls are seen to display "feminine" characteristics and are encouraged in doll play. Fathers appear to be more likely than mothers to treat children differently. These treatment effects may result in the early expression of gender differences in toy and activity preferences, which are described in more detail later. Stage 1II. The first period of conscious gender awareness begins the third stage of gender differentiation, around the end of the second year of life. At this time children become aware of themselves as separate elements in the environment (Lewis & Brooks, 1974; Bertenthal & Fischer, 1978), and one of the first labels they apply to themselves is the gender label (Thompson, 1975). This early conception of gender goes through several transformations which are described in some detail later. I have called this period one of "gender awareness" because the child is coming to an understanding of the category of gender, but as yet shows little preference for one gender rather than the other. Stage IV. The fourth stage of gender differentiation begins about 6 years of age once the child has a firmly established awareness of the social categories of gender, and begins to move away from the home to take part in a more extended social life. As the child experiences a broader and more demanding social life than was available at home, he or she begins to orient toward gender in order to learn the specific content of the separate gender roles. As children do so, they become oriented to their own gender for purposes of imitation and modeling (Perry & Bussey, 1979; Slaby & Frey, 1975). Much of this learning occurs in settings removed from parental influence--the peer group, school, and watching television. The stage of gender orientation lasts from approximately 6 years of age until adolescence, when the final stage of gender identity development begins. Stage tl. The final stage of gender differentiation, for the period from conception to sexual maturity, begins during adolescence as social demands change the focus of the individual's interest. While stage IV of gender orientation was characterized by a focus on learning the behaviors and values associated with gender in the society, the final stage of gender identity is characterized by a selection of a subset of traits to be applied uniquely to the self. This change in focus from a social to an individuated orientation is due to a variety of forces, and is the primary means of differentiating this stage of gender differentiation from the preceding stage.

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The Process of Gender Identity Formation

Sex roles are part of the wider variety of social roles (organized patterns of behavior) we acquire because they allow us to act competently in the world. They afford control of the social world. The term "controF' requires definition, as does the motivation to acquire it. The motive is inherent in the child to pick up the organization inherent in the world. The child does not structure reality so much as he or she discovers and comes to comprehend and represent the structure that is already there (Condry, 1978; Gibson, 1978; Neisser, 1976). The value of this organization, once acquired is that it affords the organism some measure of control and competence. " C o n t r o l " is defined as the ability to anticipate and manipulate the correlational and causal structure of the world. Each of these terms requires brief elaboration. (1) Anticipation is, for example, a measure of control to be able to predict that something will happen, to know what " t o expect." To know that males are expected to act in one way, and females in another, helps the organism avoid surprise, and allows attention to be directed to other events. This is the prime value of control. Once we know what to expect of something, we do not need to attend to the same features all the time. We can direct our attention elsewhere in the hopes of organizing other information and discovering additional structure. The progressive growth and elaboration of this type of competence is a hallmark of childhood (White, 1959). (2) Manipulation, the ability to act in a way to bring about the outcomes one intends is another measure of competence. This is the next most important value of control, it allows us to set our own plans and carry out intended actions (Perlmuter & Monty, 1979). As we learn that certain behaviors are preferred to others (by the other human begins in our habitat), we may seek attention, recognition, and approval by an outward display of socially appropriate behavior. The ability to utilize one's skills and knowledge in the service of one's intentions represents a sophisticated level of organization. Typically, we must first recognize the existence of a structure in the world, then be able to correctly predict what will happen, before we are able to manipulate the social world so as to bring about the type of outcomes we prefer.

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In the course of growing up, both of these aspects of competence are developed and elaborated. We develop both ways of perceiving the world and thinking about the world which are accurate and efficient, and we develop skilled patterns of interaction with the world, which we are able to use in order to carry out our intentions (Condry, 1978). If development may be said to have a purpose, the purpose of the period from birth to adolescence is to develop the kinds of skilled perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral control we will need in society as mature adults. An important part of this process involves broad organizing concepts that act to " f r a m e " (Goffman, 1974) the actions we take. Gender is one such concept, because much of the world really is structured along lines associated with gender. So development of a gender identity is a process of acquiring social skills associated with a person of our sex. We use these skills to exert control within a specific real environment (i.e., a culture such as our own). This is why we develop a gender identity. The question " h o w ? " is next.

STAGES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER IDENTITY The development of gender identity involves the acquisition and elaboration of a set of concepts about masculinity and femininity, and an associated set of social skills related to these conceptual foundations. The way children conceive of gender goes through various transformations throughout the course of development. We can identify three periods, or stages in this conscious developmental sequence: gender awareness, gender orientation, and finally gender identity.

Gender Awareness

Around the end of the second year of life, children become aware of gender as a category (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; 1980; Kohlberg & Ullian, 1974; Thompson, 1975). That is, they correctly label and differentiate between males and females. Many children know their own gender before this, in the sense of being able to answer the question, "Are you a boy or a girl?" Like Rosch's (1975) first stage of categorization, young children make a "basic category cut" of the human race into two "types" of persons: males and females. At this age, children are aware of the distinction between the sexes, but as yet have little "orientation" or preference for one or the other category. It is reasonable to ask at this point:

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Why gender? Why not race or eye color or any of the other categories that allow us to differentiate one human being from another? I do not have an easy answer to this question. Rosch (1975) contends that in the categorization of nonhuman physical objects children make the broadest differentiations first. She calls this a basic category cut. So perhaps gender is chosen because it is the one trait that seems to divide the species most completely into mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories. But there is probably more to it than this alone. How can the child of 2 know that gender is so pervasive and basic a cut? Perhaps all the child "knows" is that gender is a very salient and important category. Inquiring about a child's gender, especially an infant's, is one of the earliest questions asked about a child. Surely, the child, as he or she begins to understand language, comes to recognize the social importance of this distinction. Even in speaking about a child, the gender tag is commonly mentioned: "what a pretty little girl...what a handsome little b o y . . . " (Constantinople, 1979). Moreover, there is the evidence, alluded to earlier, of differential treatment of the sexes during the first two years of life. Thus, the broad social concern expressed about gender and the differential treatment directed to children on the basis of sex may well leave enough of a mark on the child so that with the dawning of self-awareness, around the age of 2, there comes an initial placement of the self in one of the two available gender categories. If we were as interested in race as we are in gender, then perhaps racial categories would appear early in our scheme of self-identification. The same would be true of eye color, hair color, or any other definitional category, if it were sufficiently salient. What these other categories would not share with gender is the ease with which they can be sorted into mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories. What they do share with gender is a similarity of conceptual development once the category is recognized. It is worth noting that by the age of 2 ½ to 3 children have already established stereotypical patterns of toy and play activities (Blakemore, LaRue, & Oljnik, 1979; Edelbrock & Sugawara, 1978; Faulkender, 1980; Flerx, Fidler, & Rogers, 1976; Kuhn, Nash & Brucken, 1978; Marantz & Mansfield, 1977; Masters & Wilkinson, 1976; Ruble & Ruble, 1980; Schau, Kahn, Diepold, & Cherry, 1980; Thompson, 1975). Since this form of early sex-typing occurs before children have established a pattern of conscious gender awareness, it is likely to be the result of direct treatment effects during Stage II, rather than a consequence of cognitive awareness of gender (see Huston, 1983, for a more detailed discussion of this issue). Conceptual development during the period of gender awareness follows a more or less orderly sequence form (a) an initial distinction of gender to (b) seeing the self as a member of one category or another to (c)

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noticing that membership in the category extends across age and class to (d) realizing that category membership is permanent (DeVries, 1969; Kohlbert & Ullian, 1974; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Marchu & Overton, 1978; McConaghy, 1979; Slaby & Frey, 1975). Thus, a child first learns to distinguish men and women, and to do so accurately, typically by labeling one set "mommies" and the other "daddies." Next the child uses the same categorical distinction of gender to divide boys from girls, and to place the self in the proper category. Interestingly, during this period the child does not express a clear awareness of the fact that girls grow up to be "mommies" and boys grow up to be "daddies." Rather, children initially treat these categories (man-woman, boy-girl) as separate, but reflective of a basic gender difference that is quite widespread. There is a striking similarity between this developmental sequence of gender and the development of ethnic attitudes described by Proshansky (1966). During the first stage of the development of ethnic attitudes, for example, children become aware of different ethnic groups and are able to differentiate among them. Next, they find that they themselves "belong" in one category or another, and they tend to "orient" more toward their own category than to categories of which they are not members. The same sequence is found in the development of gender concepts, suggesting a common underlying process of conceptual development regarding social role. The child first recognizes and differentiates the human social categories (male and female, black or white), later recognizes his/her own place in the scheme, and finally orients more toward one categorY than the other by attending more to one and learning the habits and values associated with one more than the other. The final period of this stage, gender awareness, is ushered in by the child's realization of the permanence of gender categories (Kohlberg & Ullian, 1974). From this point on, the child is able to distinguish males from females, place himself/herself in the proper category, and know that he/she will remain in this category once "grown up." This final realization is an important one, because it means that adults of one's own gender are more useful sources of social comparison than adults of the other gender. In this way observation and learning become more selective, and the process of acquiring gender-appropriate skills is begun. Although the knowledge of gender performance in 6-year-olds may be an important cognitive milestone, it appears to be unrelated to knowledge of sex-role stereotypes (Katz & Rank, 1981) or to the degree to which the child is attracted to same-sex models (Emmerich, 1981; Katz & Rank, 1981; Marcus & Overton, 1978). Using televised material, investigators have found some evidence for children high in knowledge of gender permanence to be more attentive to

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same-sex models (Frey & Ruble, 1981; Ruble, Balaban, & Cooper, 1979; Slaby & Frey, 1975). Both Huston (1983) and Emmerich (1981) suggest that knowledge of the permanence of gender leads the child to focus on the sex of the model in order to choose sex-appropriate behavior. We will return to this issue in discussing the next stage of gender orientation, because it is during the period from 6-12 years that selective imitation becomes a central issue. During the stage of gender awareness, apparently each sex is seen in quite "stereotypical" ways, and the child perceives the correspondence between gender and social role as necessitated by gender (Kohlberg & Ullian, 1974). Once again, the research on the development of children's attitudes toward ethnic groups shows a similar developmental pattern. Soon after the distinction is made between, say, Black and White, the child sees each group in stereotypical terms. Over the years these attitudes become more complex and differentiated (Proshansky, 1966, p. 322), as is also the case with attitudes toward gender. Rosch (1975) suggests that the categorization of the nonhuman world ("the world of concrete objects") follows a similar path. The child's first categories are mutually exclusive and tend to be of the "all or nothing" type. If we assume the categorization of social objects follows a similar course, we would expect children at this stage of gender awareness to see roles in such an all-or-nothing fashion. For example. "All judges are men and all nurses are women" (Constantinople, 1979). Moreover, if Kohlberg is correct, then if the child is female, she will believe that she cannot be a judge, even if she wants to, because she is not the correct gender. Kohlberg contends that young children believe that gender irrevocably determines membership in all social categories. Gender categories are seen as mutually exclusive and exhaustive. Children make stereotypical statements of this sort about gender, often to the consternation of their parents and nursery school teachers. Fortunately, this early stage soon gives way to a more complex stage of conceptualization (Garrett, Ein, & Tremaine, 1977; Kleinke & Nicholson, 1979; Marantz & Mansfield, 1977; Cummings & Taebel, 1980; B. Meyer, 1980; Nemerowicz, 1979).

Gender Orientation The years of middle childhood are devoted to acquiring the skills, attitudes, and values appropriate to establishing a social identity. The child begins the process by establishing his/her membership in various social

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categories, such as gender, but a great deal is still to be learned about the behavior characteristic of a given category. If roles are divided by gender, as they are in all cultures, then children of different sexes observe and learn separate sets of social skills. They do so by "orienting" more to one sex than the other. Observational learning (Bandura, 1977; Bandura & Walters, 1963; Mischel, 1966, 1970) and practice in the form of play (Bruner, 1972; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974) are central features of this period of social development. The child is oriented toward his/her gender both in terms of where attention and interest are directed and also in terms of preference (Perry & Bussey, 1979; Slaby & Frey, 1975). During this period boys form all-boy clubs, play atexclusively male activities, and " h a t e " girls. Girls act much the same, although as we will see in a moment their preferences for their own gender may be less than that of boys during the stage of gender orientation. This strong orientation and preference may result initially from the strongly stereotypical views held by the child about gender categories. As the stereotypes give way to "prototypes," the child's preference and values also change. In her theory of the development of categorization, Rosch (1975) suggest that categories are initially seen as mutually exclusive, but, with experience, are eventually viewed as being continuous (rather than discrete) and are coded in the mind as "prototypes," or best examples, rather than as stereotypes. When children reach this stage of development they say that although men and women are different, they are not as different as they originally seemed to be. There is a degree of "fuzziness" to some of the earlier, clear distinctions. The child who earlier said she could not be a judge because all judges are men, now learns that some women are judges, so the masculine gender is not a necessary precondition. The child still believes that gender plays some role, because most judges are men, but the category no longer is seen as exclusive. During this period of gender orientation, the child comes to see many of the same distinctions between the roles occupied by the different sexes, but arrives at a different way of viewing them. The child now believes that social roles are "demanded" by society and social pressure, not by gender alone. This awareness comes part and parcel with a growing awareness of social factors as causal agents in other aspects of life (e.g., moral values, Kohlberg, 1976; ethnic attitudes, Proshansky, 1966). Although children become more flexible and adult-like in the conceptions about gender roles during the years from 6 to 12, there is an asymmetry between the sexes in terms of preference for one's own gender. The more boys learn what it is like to be a boy, the more they come to prefer masculine things. But girls also prefer masculine activities and interests, and

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they do not increase their preference for "feminine" activities and interests (Huston, 1983), at least during this period. This may result from the greater perceived value placed on masculine activities. In a sense, girls of this age, like Blacks, come to discover that they are permanently and irrevocably female (or Black) and that their particular social category is less valued than the " o t h e r " category (males, Whites) to which they do not belong. During the period of gender orientation, the development of social skills, attitudes, and values associated with gender is accomplished by the "trying o n " of a variety of social roles which the child sees as potential roles for himself/herself in the future. As mentioned, observational learning and play are central features of this period. Frequently observed scenes are imitated and acted out, and the very act of matching behavior to a model and playing a social role seems to be a large part of the pleasure involved, as Bruner (1972) suggests. No widely accepted taxonomy of play exists, although a good deal of research is now being directed to this issue (see Bruner, Jolly, & Sylvia, 1976). We know that the range of children's games is quite diverse and extensive and is typically reflective of cultural skills needed for adulthood (Bruner, 1972). The acting out of sex-typed roles, for example, appears early in the repertoire of spontaneous games (Grief, 1976). By way of illustration, in the three weeks just preceding the writing of this article, the following games were observed in a group of female children ranging in age from 8-14: 1. The wedding. A game of several days duration, in which a bride is dressed for the wedding and the attendants are properly attired, and preparations are made for the honeymoon. Although I have observed this game played off and on for about five years, I have never seen a groom, only the bride. All the players are female. 2. Running a business/being a secretary. An office is set up with a "boss," a secretary, and an assortment of paper, typewriters, files, and the like. Most of this game involves the boss yelling at the secretary, and the secretary being overworked. 3. Having a birthday party. Preparations are made for a party which includes presents, decorations, snacks, and games to play. The room is decorated and a party is held. An interesting series of questions about this long period of trying on roles can be asked: Where do the models and scenes which are imitated come from? Why does the child select the particular part he/she chooses to play? How are the social "scripts," observable in play, actually learned? We will return to the last question later.

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One of the most important characteristics of play is that it allows choices to be made which do not have long lasting or important consequences (Bruner, 1972; Vygotsky, 1976). In play, time is infinite and reversible. A choice may be made and then undone, and the consequences are minimal. Life differs from play in this respect. Choices made have real and long-lasting consequences, and the need to make such long-standing commitments, to set agendas over a longer period of fife, brings about the final stage of development of gender identity.

Individuated Gender Identity As the child enters puberty, around the twelfth year of life, sex hormones come into play again to complete the biological transformation to adult physical forms. These physical changes are accompanied by cognitive changes and increased social demands to adopt adult standards of behavior. The youngster is now faced with the demand to make long-range plans and goals that will have real and lasting consequences. These changes, especially the last, usher in the final stage of gender identity development. In the final analysis, a gender identity is chosen by the adolescent as he/she enters adulthood. This is not a choice that is made at any single moment, but a series of choices made over a period. It is important to underline the fact that the adolescent selects features of a sex-role identity from among the options he/she has available, and to some extent has practiced for the last 10 years or so. The child who at an earlier stage of development saw social roles as demanded by the society (Kohlberg & Ullian, 1974) now sees the roles as chosen by the individual. For any given human being, the nearly infinite combination of possibilities makes predictions difficult, but in a general way the range of options should be specifiable, at least within a single culture. We may make statistical predictions, based on the availability of role options, regarding the potential roles available to each sex. Thus, in terms of occupational roles, more women will chose to be secretaries, nurses, and "housewives" than men, and more men will chose to be judges, doctors, and engineers than women. Of course, if the distribution of these options should change, then comparable changes in the choices made by adolescents would be expected. Relatively little is known about gender identity development during adolescence and about how biological, social, and psychological forces interact during this period. Increased level of sex-appropriate hormones (testosterone) may be responsible for some increases in aggression in adolescent boys (Hoyenga & Hoyenga, 1979). There is, in addition, some evidence to indicate a greater preference for the female gender and more

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positive attitudes toward female body characteristics in postmenarcheal girls (Koff, Rierdan, & Silverstone, 1978, cited by Huston, 1983). But for both males and females, these hormonal changes result in adult physical types which are in turn likely to be related to differences in social treatment. We need to know a good deal more about differential treatment of adolescent males and females, and how such social interactions change from the period of middle childhood to puberty. Surely, such differences exist--it is hard to imagine otherwise. As children move from childhood to become sexually mature adults, what we need from and expect of them changes radically, and these changes must be reflected in treatment differences. But more than this, we need to know how these bodily changes and social treatment changes are seen by the adolescent as representing a " n e w " set of environmental demands which, I have suggested, bring abouts a desire to establish and elaborate and "individuated" gender identity. For the adolescent to meet these new demands, he or she must now select and act, yet the competence with which this "final fitting" is accomplished is to a great extent dependent upon the quality of the environment experienced up to now. If the information our children have received from us, the adults in their environment, is false or incomplete, then the quality of their competence is lessened no matter how carefully and wisely they choose. In the next two sections, we examine more closely the role of choice and the role of environmental information in the resultant social competence of males and females.

THE ROLE OF CHOICE Choice, or "perceived choice" (Steiner, 1970) as it is often called, is a powerful and intriguing variable in research. People who perceive themselves to be free to choose tend to work harder on the chosen task (Aronson & Carlsmith, 1963); persist longer or return when possible (Deci, 1975; Lepper & Greene, 1975); have greater confidence in the outcome (Langer, 1975; Nyce & Condry, 1978); do better on the task(s) (Perlmuter & Monty, 1977); and are better able to cope with stress, pain, and deprivation (Glass & Singer, 1972; Zimbardo, 1969) than comparable subjects doing comparable tasks who believe themselves to be less free to choose. These studies and many others like them (cf., Lefcourt, 1973) suggest that the perception of free choice is a very important concept to the human being; it is not to be taken lightly. The individual's active choice in the process of gender identity formation is evident for each of the three conscious periods of development discussed. This is not to say that the choice is completely free, nor that the

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choice is made from representative or accurate information. But it is important not to underestimate the centrality of an active organism consciously making sense out of the world available. Gender roles are not forced upon us, they are selected by the individual. To say this is not to deny the existence of social reinforcement, since it clearly plays a role. Parents reward children for showing sex-role appropriate behavior, and they punish children for inappropriate behavior and the result of these endeavors are seen in the anxiety evidenced by children (especially boys) and adults who are asked to perform sex-inappropriate tasks (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Bern & Lenney, 1976). But this process alone cannot account for the enormous diversity of gender-specific roles, attitudes, and values learned by the child during the course of development. The earliest "choice" made by the child, beginning around 2 years of age, is to sort himself or herself into one of the two gender categories available i n the social environment. Apparently, the child makes these differentiations on the basis of clothing and hair styles rather than on the basis of physiological (genital) differences. But the importance of this early self-sorting is underlined by the research of Money and Ehrhardt (1972), which suggests that attempting to alter gender categorization after this point may lead to serious psychopathology. Once gender conceptualization is stable, the choices of the next period of development (the period I have called gender orientation) are made as the child selectively imitates individuals of the same gender (Slaby & Frey, 1975; Perry & Bussey, 1979), thus acquiring the behaviors, attitudes, and values characteristic of the category. Finally, during adolescence, the individual makes a more specific choice from the options now known to be available within a gender category to form his or her individuated gender identity. To deny the importance of choice as I have described it here, to suggest to a man or woman that gender roles are forced upon them, is thus to trivialize a long and critical period of development. Most theories of sex-role identity acquisition, however, focus on the child as he or she identifies with the parent (Sears, Maccoby, & Levin, 1957; Sears, Rau, & Alpert, 1965)models the parents, and/or is differentially reinforced by them (Mischel, 1966, 1970) or develops cognitive schemata (Kohlberg, 1966; Kohlberg & UUian, 1974). Both Pleck (1975) and Constantinople (1979) criticize these theories, with Pleck offering an alternative model based on Chomsky's theory of language acquisition, and Constantinople focusing on sex roles as rules learned by the child in much the same way as any other socially important set of rules is learned. While I believe both of these positions are correct in their views of the process of gender differentiation, I believe, in addition, that we need to shift the focus of our attention from the child to the environment. The proper question is not "why does the child acquire gender specific roles and

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values?" because the proper answer is that he or she could not do otherwise, given the structure o f the social environment. Rather, we should ask about the sources of environmental information available to the child and how they are utilized in forming the choices made and the comprehension arrived at during each period o f development.

T H E R O L E OF T H E E N V I R O N M E N T

The choices individuals make throughout this process are not made in a vacuum, but in the context of the information available in the real world. The extent to which these choices afford competence is determined by the adequacy of the information and the wisdom of the choice. If the information is representative and accurate, and if the child chooses wisely, then the result should be an individual both aware of the range of options associated with gender within a given society and able to exercise some o f these options to fulfill his/her own intentions. The person should be able to set agendas and see that they are carried out. If the options available to the child are distorted or in some way misrepresentative of the real world, the person is faced with the "illusion of control." Skills and cognitive schemata developed by virtue o f interaction with a distorted world will prove inapplicable, and control o f the world is weakened, regardless of how carefully the choice is made. So the quality o f the information available is a central issue, especially as it relates to the kind of control that is possible. These considerations lead to a question mentioned earlier: What sources of environmental information are available to the child throughout the period of gender orientation? For this time of life, it is possible to divide the world of the American child into units or blocks of time. Time is a convenient and revealing measure, because everyone has the same amount of it. When we look at the amount of time children spend in activity, some interesting facts emerge: In the i0 years from 4 to 14, there are 3,650 days, or 87,600 hours. If we assume that youngsters of this age range sleep about 8 hours a day, this leaves 58,400 waking or conscious hours left, during the decade of middle childhood. For nine months of the year children are in school, a total o f 16,200 hours; and the American child spends approximately 4 hours a day watching television, which for the 10 years in question works out to 14,600 hours. The remainder of the time (27,600 hours) is spent in the home and in the environs of the home. If we assume that of the 27,600 hours in the home and neighborhood, the average child in this age range spends at least two hours a day playing, either alone or with others, then the distribution of environmental sources of information is divided in about

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equal quarters among the parents, the peers, the school, and the television set. Although parents are traditionally accorded a great deal of responsibility for the development of gender identity, particularly from the perspective of Freudian theory, intercorrelations between parents and children on scales of gender identity are typically low or nonexistent (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Huston, 1983). This may be due to the fact that parents are only one of four important sources of information available to the child in selecting options for his/her gender identity. The school, peer groups, and television form three additional constellations of information available to the child, which are separate from (not necessarily "independent of") parents. While there is at least some research on the effect of parents in forming a child's gender identity, there is relatively little on the role of the school, television, or the peer group. In the next two sections we look at how both the school and television may present distorted information to youngsters regarding gender, and at the consequences of this distortion.

Mathemat&al A nxiety The extent to which schools intentionally or unintentionally affect gender specific behavior is largely unknown (see Huston, 1981), but one special case, that of mathematical anxiety, has received substantial research attention. While it is still a hotly debated topic (Science, 1980), an analysis of the development of mathematical anxiety illustrates the potential for gender-specific misinformation to affect later competence. For example, young women, entering college, are relegated to fewer potential majors because they lack ability in mathematics. In a well-known study done in 1973 on the entering class at the University of California at Berkeley, Sells (1975) reported that while more than half of the entering males (57%) had taken four years of high school math and thus were prepared for the entering (Math 1A) course, a prerequisite to most (15 of 20) majors, only 8% of the entering females had such preparation. Thus, most entering women were relegated, from the outset, to the five majors that did not require a strong mathematical background. If we trace this difference between boys and girls back in time, it does not go back to birth or before. Rather, it goes back only to seventh grade (Aiken, 1971, 1976), suggesting a social or cultural rather than a biological explanation. From early grades on, females seem to have the same aptitude for mathematics as males. They use the same strategies of reasoning (Ginsburg, 1977) and thinking about numbers as do males, and they do as well in every grade

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(Aiken, 1971; 1976). But around seventh grade, females begin to lose interest. They take fewer courses, and now speak disparagingly of mathematical problem solving. Their attitudes about math become more negative. If this does not happen because some nerve cells have just matured, then what other forces should we study? The analysis we have just outlined suggests that we look at features of gender identity, and the information in the world that serves as a basis for the child's conceptualizing what is appropriate for his/her gender. Girls have lower expectancies for success in math, even when their performance is the same as boys (Brush, 1979; Kaczala, Futterman, Mecce, & Parsons, 1979) and these differences are apparently important in selecting what courses to take (Sherman & Fennema, 1977; Sherman, 1980; Steel & Wise, 1979). In general, there is substantial evidence that gender stereotypes affect the choice youngsters make, their perceptions of competence, and the persistence they will devote to specific activities. If we know relatively little about the way these stereotypes are socially transmitted in school or the peer group, then we know even less about the mass media-especially television.

Television as a Source o f Environmental Information

Television is new to our culture, and its impact is not understood. It has become a major source Of environmental information for children, simply because of its widespread availability and because children watch so much of it. The average American child watches 3-4 hours a day from about 4 years of age through adolescence (Comstock, Chaffee, Katzman, McCombs, & Robers, 1978; Gross & Jefferies-Fox, 1978). By adolescence, the average American child will have spent more time with television than he or she spends with parents, peers, or in school. From the earliest years, children are exposed to programs which, however inadvertently, teach them about gender roles, attitudes, and values. The content of these programs has been studied by many researchers (Aronoff, 1974; Barcus, 1977; Bushby, 1975; Cantor, 1978; Courtney & Whipple, 1974; Dohrmann, 1975; Franzwa, 1978; Gerbner, 1966; Lemon, 1977; McArthur & Eisen, 1976; Schuetz & Sprafkin, 1978; Stein & Friedrich, 1975; Streicher, 1974; Tedesco, 1974), and these studies show that television is a "male" world. Males play the majority of roles and 'both sexes are depicted in genderstereotypical ways. Males are shown to be active, lively, and in control of the situation (McArthur & Eisen, 1976), while females are, if anything, passive and deferent to males (Sternglanz & Serbin, 1974; Streicher, 1974).

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Even if television isn't "reality," its stories may have real and lasting effects. Gerbner and his colleagues (Gerbner & Gross, 1976; Gerbner et al., 1979) have, demonstrated that heavy viewers of television live in the "mainstream" of the television world and come to believe, possibly unconsciously, that the truths of this imaginative world are the same of those of the real world in which we all live. The impact of this phenomenon is especially strong when a class of individuals (women, Blacks, older people) is both a heavy viewer and widely misrepresented in the world of television. Gerbner et al. (1979) call this phenomenon "resonance" because the "facts" of television resonate with some realities more than others. Thus, older people (65 and over) constitute a far larger percentage of victims of crime on television than in reality. When older individuals are questioned regarding the likelihood of being involved in crime, heavy viewers rate this likelihood higher (and less accurately) than light viewers. There is as yet little evidence of this same phenomenon in children with respect to gender-related views. While the content of television is unquestionably stereotypical, heavy viewers have no more sex-stereotypical or sexist attitudes and values than do light viewers (Greer, 1980; Gross & Jefferies-Fox, 1978; Perloff, 1977). It must be stressed that research on television and its effects is still at a very early stage. Children learn from practically everything they are exposed to, but the reflections of what is learned--the expression of that knowledge--is often difficult to predict and demonstrate. This is certainly an area where more research is urgently needed.

IMPLICATIONS Several implications arise from the description of gender identity offered here. First and foremost, the process of gender identity formation is a long and complicated one, going through several stages of development before reaching an adult plateau. It is a process not so much of being "taught" a gender role as of the child observing what is available in the culture, organizing and making sense of this information, and coming to understand where he/she fits in the scheme. The earlier stages tend to be stereotypical (in the sense of being "all or nothing," black or white), as do other early attitudes and concepts acquired by children. These initial conceptions are eventually abandoned, however, for a more complex and, relatively speaking, accurate view of the different gender (Stein & Smithells, 1969). It is important to recognize the layered nature of development and to remind ourselves that the process normally takes time to unfold.

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A second implication, related to the first, is that accurate and representative information about true options is necessary for individuals to develop competence and control over their lives. False information may result in very poor control. To ascertain the representativeness of the information available to children about sex roles, we need to know much more about the " e n v i r o n m e n t s " of school and television. These activities play a central role in the child's life while he/she is developing a notion o f what role options are available in the society. When role choices are not symmetrical--as we have every reason to expect them to be from a purely biological point of view--then we shall want to know why they are not, in order to advance our understanding o f human psychology, and o f the effects of social pressures. Thus, while there is at the moment no good reason to believe that females and males are differentially competent to acquire mathematical knowledge, the fact that more females than males choose to retire from study in this area o f knowledge is worthy of close inspection. Learning why this happens may advance our understanding of the way social identity works to narrow role options when the available information is of poor quality. Finally, the relationship between gender identity and control should tell us one other thing, this time about the future. If gender identity serves the function o f establishing a foothold of control over the social world, then to the extent that gender was only minimally definitive and useful, it would be less important and less central in our notions o f ourselves. Under these circumstances, an effort to " o r g a n i z e " or make sense of gender, or to see where we fit in this scheme, would be less important. This is the case now, apparently, with at least some individuals--those Bern (1974, 1975, 1977) labels " a n d r o g y n o u s . " We can speculate about the appearance of androgyny, given our analysis of the development o f gender identity. First and foremost, we would be surprised to see androgynous children, so long as the society remains mostly sex-typed. A person may choose to be androgynous as he/she emerges into the final stage o f this process, but he or she will likely go through the earlier stages o f gender awareness and gender orientation much as all children do. This is because the society really is sex-typed in many roles and expectations, and apparently the child's first concern is with a comprehension o f the world as it is. It is only after we have this well in hand that we can choose to ignore what is in favor of what "might b e . " If the society were completely and totally sex-typed, then it would be surprising to find any androgynous people at all, because androgyny would not afford as much control as one may achieve by being sex-typed. But this is not the case. Some parts o f our society are less sex-typed than others, and in them one would expect to find more androgynous individuals. This

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suggests that the less gender is a defining characteristic, the more individuals will ignore gender in favor of other "explanations." As in the case of mathematical thinking, we now have information that certain long-standing social beliefs regarding gender differences are false, but the beliefs themselves continue to affect behavior of children developing their conceptions of themselves.

SUMMARY

The formation of a conscious gender identity may be located within the broader topic of gender differentiation. This process represents an interweaving of biological, social, and psychological factors which are causally related to the outcome of sexually mature adults having different preferences, skills, attitudes, and values which covary with gender. Biological forces are of particular importance during the first and last stages of this process. In-utero gender differentiation is profoundly affected by androgen released during the sixth to eighth week of gestation in male fetuses only. Androgen-insensitive males often appear to be females at birth, and thus may be incorrectly assigned a gender label. A comparable pattern for females called andrenogenital syndrome (AGS) results in equally incorrect gender labels at birth. Attempts to reassign gender after 18 to 24 months may result in confusion and later problems of gender identity in children so affected. This evidence suggests that differential treatment of males and females during their initial 2 years of life plays a Central role in later sex-typing and perhaps psychosexual preference as well. Thus, social rather than biological forces are predominant during the second stage of gender differentiation. I have labeled this stage preawareness because while differential treatment occurs, it is not consciously perceived or represented cognitively by the child during this period. The process of forming a conscious gender identity begins around 18-24 months as the child attains self-awareness and comes to recognize his or her own gender category and to comprehend that similar gender labels are applied to others. I have labeled this stage gender awareness because while children of this age are aware of gender, they have not yet begun to selectively attend to and imitate their own more so than the other. The next stage of gender identity formation, called gender orientation, is characterized by an increased preference for and attention to

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members of one's own gender category. If toy, clothing, and activity preferences are important indicators, however, then females show less preference for their gender (and its artifacts) than males show for theirs. While direct treatment effects (e.g., social reinforcement) continue to play an important role, the central features of this period (approximately the years from 6 to 12) are the "psychological" factors of selective attention, imitation, and spontaneous learning of the social role characteristics of one's own gender. During this period, the child "tries o n " various gender-role appropriate behaviors and begins to express gender-typical attitudes and values. The final stage of the process of gender differentiation begins, like the first, with increased level of sex hormones and physical transformations which complete the process begun during the sixth to eighth week of gestation. The biological changes, in addition to the social pressure to assume an adult role, bring about the final stage where specific role characteristics were chosen by the individual. This "individuated" gender identity is different from the social gender identity of the foregoing stage in that the adolescent is now adopting the role-specific characteristics he or she expects to develop and elaborate rather than "trying on" the variety of social roles available. I have argued that the conscious adoption of gender-specific role characteristics is the result of an inherent motive to organize the world and act effectively within it, and the availability of a salient stimulus configuration surrounding gender within the society. We acquire a gender identity because to understand various social activities as gender specific allows the individual more "control" over the world and an enhanced likelihood of acting competently within it. Specifically, organizing the world (and ourselves as well) along gender lines allows us to both predict and manipulate the social world around us and, in the long run, to organize our conceptions of ourselves in meaningful and socially useful ways. Thus, as children we discover that various role options are available to us (and that others are not). We learn that acting out one configuration brings about certain outcomes, while a different configuration has other consequences. After observing and practicing these options for some years, in a variety of social situations, we eventually select some subset from the entire range of available options to continue to elaborate as components of our own unique, individuated identity. One of the implications of this view is that we are very dependent upon an adequate and representative array of information available to us, )articularly during the middle years from 6 to 12. American children extract this information in four specific developmental "contexts": the home, the school, the peer group, and from television. Analysis of the information

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available in these different developmental contexts is ongoing, but is as yet insufficient to draw firm conclusions regarding its impact upon children. The final implication of the view presented here is that to the extent that gender is not so easily differentiated into roles, attitudes, and values, its usefulness as a psychological category will diminish. We are all either male or female, but we are also right-handed or left-handed, brown- or blue-eyed, from one ethnic group or another, and so forth. All of these facts are components of our identity, although (for reasons we have been discussing) some are more salient than others. The salience of gender is maintained by many social institutions. As this changes--as we come to treat the sexes more equally, as social roles come to be more widely shared--the value of gender will decrease proportionately, and its position as hallmark of our social identity will recede as well. Gender does not have to be a central fulcrum of our identity, and it does not have to carry the baggage it does today. But sex differences will continue to exist, as will sexuality and all that it implies about human social relationships. When we succeed in relegating gender to its proper and smaller place, we will still be left with problems of sex, sexuality, and power.

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