GENDER BIASES IN CHILDRENS MEMORY FOR EXPECTED AND UNEXPECTED OBJECTSIN REAL-WORLD SETTINGS

Children's memory for unexpected and expected objects in real-world se ttings were examined in three experiments. The setting of Expt 1 refle cted male interests (a doctor's examination room), whereas the setting of Expt 2 was more compatible with female interests (a beauty salon). In both studies, 6- and 9-year old boys and girls viewed objects that were consistent or inconsistent with expectations about each environm ent. The results of the experiments showed a consistency effect in tha t recognition memory for unexpected was better than that for expected objects for both age groups. However, the magnitude of the consistency effect interacted with age and gender, so that older boys, but not ol der girls, showed an absence of the consistency effect in the doctor's setting (Expt 1), whereas older girls showed a similar pattern in the beauty-salon setting (Expt 2). Experiment 3 provided independent evid ence for the assumption that the two settings induced gender-related b iases. The findings of the study indicate that the effects of expectan cies on school-age children's episodic remembering are sensitive to ge nder-related biases, and that these schematic effects may be more comp lex and dynamic than proposed by the general schema-theoretic formulat ions of the consistency effect.