Gender-Identity Formation

Type of psychology: Developmental psychology
Fields of study: Cognitive development; infancy and childhood
Gender-identity formation refers to the complex processes through which children come
to incorporate their gender into their behavior, attitudes, and self-understanding. This
includes the development of an inner sense of one’s femaleness or maleness; the acquisition
of knowledge about cultural expectations for females and males; and the development
of attitudes, interests, and behavior that reflect these expectations.
Key concepts
• gender constancy
• gender identity
• gender schema
• sex role
• sex-role socialization
• sex typing
The first question that is usually asked about a newborn baby is whether it is
a boy or a girl. The single fact of the child’s gender has enormous implications
for the course of his or her entire life. Gender-identity formation refers
to the complex processes through which children incorporate the biological
and social fact of their gender into their behavior, attitudes, and selfunderstanding.
This area includes ideas about two major, interrelated processes: genderidentity
development and sex typing. The term “gender-identity development,”
used in its narrower sense, refers to the process through which children
come to label themselves cognitively as boys or girls and to have an inner
sense of themselves as male or female. “Sex typing,” also called genderrole
acquisition, refers to the processes through which children learn what
is expected of members of their gender and come to exhibit primarily those
personality traits, behaviors, interests, and attitudes.