Used meta-analysis to examine relationship of parents' gender schemas and their offspring's gender-related cognitions, with samples ranging in age from infancy through early adulthood. Found a small but meaningful effect size (r=.16) indicating a positive correlation between parent gender schema and offspring measures. Effect sizes were influenced…

Describes differences in the socialization setting provided by all-boy and all-girl play groups, and explores possible reasons for children's tendency to congregate in same-sex groups. Considers three classes of possible explanatory processes: biological factors, socialization pressures from adults, and gender cognitions. (RH)

Noting the fascination of both researchers and the general public with possible gender differences in human cognition and whether these differences originate in biology, childhood influences, or cultural stereotypes, this book summarizes research studies on gender differences in cognition. The book examines social and cultural implications of this…

Proposes that humans may have evolved a special sensitivity to certain types of social information during rough-and-tumble play that facilitates social cognition. Describes the cognitive benefits of physical play as providing a break from demanding intellectual tasks and hypothesizes that physical play is related to gender differences in spatial…

Discusses the current state of philosophy of education and future research directions. Reviews relevancy problems and attendant role changes in education schools. Reviews four promising areas: gender issues, educational research methodology, teacher cognition and reasoning issues, and critical perspectives on education and schooling. Includes 103…

Young children acquire a knowledge of, and beliefs about, gender-roles at a rapid rate. A total of four studies were conducted to examine some of the factors thought to mediate the impact of examiner's sex on children's gender-typed activities and cognitions. The first two studies looked at children's ratings of videotaped male and female adults…

Investigated preschool children's sex-typical variation in gender labeling, gender role knowledge, and schematicity. Boys were less able to label gender and less knowledgeable about gender roles than girls and knew more about male than female stereotypes. Girls knew more than boys about female roles and as much as boys about male roles. Both…

Two experiments involving 112 college students, half male and half female, examined the spatial nature of mental-image rotation (MIR) tasks and the use of MIR in stereotypically male or female tasks. Results add to the evidence that instructional and stimulus effects may exacerbate or eliminate sex differences in spatial cognition. (SLD)

Examined whether gender discrepancy in late adolescents' antisocial behavior may be attributed to gender differences in other moral cognitive variables. Found that mature moral judgment and higher moral self-relevance were associated with lower self-serving cognitive distortion, partially mediating the relationship between those variables and…

Two studies with 139 male and 149 female undergraduate students and 79 female college students, respectively, assessed the development and validation of the Need for Cognition (NFC) Scale, which has 45 true/false items. Three subscales (Cognitive Persistence, Cognitive Confidence, and Cognitive Complexity) were identified. Some results concerning…

The question as to whether males and females have different kinds of intellectual abilities is addressed. The evidence that there are some differences in cognition and perception between men and women is reviewed. (KR)

Spatial cognition entails the ability to mentally represent spatial relations and to anticipate the course and outcome of transformations applied to those relations. The developmental histories of four tasks used to assess the maturity of spatial cognition in children are described. Significant effects were found for age, gender, task, and for…

Drawing on a model of wisdom that includes components in three domains (personality, cognition, and conation) and across three levels (intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal), highlights potential differences in the ways women and men attain and express wisdom; and examines interactive patterns across the components of wisdom. (BC)

Examination of (n=186) eighth-grade students found marked differences between boys and girls on a mathematics test that were paralleled by differences in both trait-like self-referenced cognitions (academic self-concept of mathematical ability, goal orientation, and attribution) and task-specific appraisals. Contains 77 references. (Author/MKR)

Administered the Life Stress Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Automatic Thought Questionnaire to 140 students. Results showed significant sex differences. Men reported more stressful life change, but women rated the impact of stressors more severely and had higher depression. Men exhibited greater distortions in cognitive…