Gender Identity
Gender identity refers to the concepts of an individual as male or female. The flexibility if this concept is a critical point of consideration due to the complexity of assigned gender and the role of this gender. The concept is understood different across the age pattern establishing diverse knowledge in the course of gender development. Gender understanding plays an essential role in the emergence of gender-related behaviors (Martin and Ruble 2).
Development of Stereotypes
At the age of three stereotypes development is evident to children. In that case, they can show understanding of gender or sex differences allied with adult possessions, roles, toys, physical appearance, activities, and the recognition of some abstract associations with gender such as softness as female (Martin and Ruble 3). At this lower, gender judgment is vertical relating category labels (boys or girls) with qualities (buys like trucks and girls dolls). However, at the age of eight years old, horizontal inferences about gender tend to appear, and that is when they start appreciating that trucks and airplanes are associated with being masculine (Martin and Ruble 4). For instance, when an eight year old child is told about another sex-unspecified child who likes trucks, would predict that this child also likes airplane (Martin and Ruble 4).
Progress in Gender Understanding
The progress in the course of development among children establishes more knowledge on the status differences in the two genders. For instance, between the ages of 5 to 10 the perception of gender seems to be evident in somewhat profound ways. At this age, they perceive that male is likely to have jobs that are higher in status than female (Martin and Ruble 6).
Gender Perception during Adolescence
Finally at the age of 16 which is also in the gap of adolescence, becomes the landmark of sexuality. The perception of gender at this time is more prevalent as an individual is more concerned about their body image and appearance (Kar, Choudhury, and Singh). At this moment the concept of gender is based on rational knowledge due to increased development in abstract thinking and reasoning.
Work cited
Kar, Sujita Kumar, Ananya Choudhury and Abhishek Pratap Singh. Understanding the normal development of adolescent sexuality: A bumpy ride. June 2015. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4477452/. 30 March 2018.
Martin, Carol Lynn, and Diane N Ruble. "Patterns of Gender Development." Annual Review Psychology (2010): 1-30.
