"God made me a girl": Sex-category constancy judgments and explanations revisited

To examine reasons for inconsistent findings in the development of sex-cate gory constancy, children's constancy judgments and their accompanying expla nations were studied over a 3-year period. preschool, kindergarten, and Ist -grade children (N = 195) completed a sex-category constancy measure that e licited explanations and assessed constancy for the self and others across changes in gender-typed clothing, activities, and traits. Improvements in s ex-category constancy performance were linked to explanations based on oper ational reasoning. Lower constancy scores were linked to explanations that emphasized gender role norms and external appearances. A separate analysis revealed that judgment-explanation relationships were stronger for question s about gender role changes in the self as opposed to others and for change s in gender-typed clothing as opposed to activities and traits. findings su ggest that the salience and personal relevance of gender role changes have important effects on children's sex-category constancy judgments and explan ations.