Children's gender categorization: An investigation of automatic processing

It is suggested that previous research examining children's social categori zation has relied on techniques which call upon controlled cognitive proces ses, chat is, processes under voluntary control. As such, this research may say little about children's spontaneous categorization of social informati on. The present study introduces an unobtrusive measure of categorization w hich enables examination of automatic processing with respect to gender cat egorization - the 'who said what!' technique (Taylor, Fiske, Etcoff, & Rude rman, 1978). A sample of 84 children aged between 7 and 12 years were prese nted with four photographs, two of boys and two of girls, together with 16 statements attributed to each of the children (i.e. four statements to each child). Subsequently, 16 statement cards each had to be assigned Eo a part icular photograph to indicate 'who said what!' Children made significantly more within-gender errors than between-gender errors, indicating that they had spontaneously assimilated social information to gender-based categories .