We explored how gender and gender similarity affects friendship dissolution following the transition to middle school. We predicted that both gender and gender similarity (measured by perceived similarity to own-gender and other-gender peers) explain dissolution trends and that less own-gender similarity or more other-gender similarity predicts…

During adolescence, gender identity (GI) develops through a dialectic process of personal reflection and with input from the social environment. Peers play an important role in the socialization of gendered behavior, but no studies to-date have assessed peer influences on GI. Thus, the goal of the present study was to examine peer influences on…

With 72 children between 4 and 10 years of age, researchers tested how children use information about others' sex, sex-typed interests, and cross-sex labels to make predictions. Both younger and older children liked same-sex children and disliked tomboys and sissies. In contrast, younger and older children used information differently when…