Children's Recall and Recognition of Sex Role Stereotyped and Discrepant Information 1

This research investigated the influence of differing levels of sex role stereotyped and discrepant information on immediate and delayed (one week) memory. Specifically, kindergarten and second-grade children's recall and recognition of stereotyped, moderately discrepant, and highly discrepant pic-tures were compared. In Study 1, a sorting procedure was utilized to deter-mine the level of stereotyping of34 toys. From this study 12 toys were selected as stimuli for Study 2. In Study 2, children's immediate and delayed recall and recognition was assessed. Results uggested significantly better ecall o f highly discrepant pictures than stereotyped ormoderately discrepant pictures. In addition, immediate r call was better than delayed recall and second-grade recall was better than kindergarten recall. Similar trends emerged with the recognition task. Results were discussed with respect o the schematic pro-cessing model. According to the schematic processing model, gender schemas provide an organizational network for children's memory (Martin & Halverson, 1981). Information that has gender content activates the gender schema, isprocessed within the schema, and is subject to the child's ex role conceptions. Research has provided evidence that children do utilize their gender schemas to remember sex role consistent information (Nadelman, 1970, 1974). ~This paper epresents a joint collaborative effort on the part of the authors. The authors wish to thank the principals, teachers, and children who participated in the study; the child models; the student research assistants; the photographer, Martha Putt; and the statistical consultant