Gender Schema

Gender-schema theory is a way of explaining gender-identity formation,
which is closely related to the cognitive developmental approach. The concept
of a schema or a general knowledge framework comes from the field of
cognitive psychology. Sandra Bem proposed that each person develops a set
of gender-linked associations, or a gender schema, as part of a personal
knowledge structure. This gender schema filters and interprets new information,
and as a result, people have a basic predisposition to process information
on the basis of gender. People tend to dichotomize objects and attributes
on the basis of gender, even including qualitites such as color, which
has no relevance to biological sex.
Bem proposed that sex typing develops as children learn the content of
society’s gender schema and as they begin to link that schema to their selfconcept
or view of themselves. Individuals vary in the degree to which the
gender schema is central to their self-concept; it is most central to the selfconcept
of highly sex-typed individuals (traditionally masculine males or
traditionally feminine females).