Effects Of Gender Stereotypes On Children And Adolescents' Spontaneous Trait Association And Spontaneous Trait Transference: The Moderating Role Of Gender Schematicity

Reasearches on trait inferences showed that,The spontaneous trait Assciation(STA)emerge when Individual ascribes the trait implied by the description to the actor at the case that indibiduals perceived the behavior of the actor.Perceivers attribute traits to informants based on the behaviors they describe,even when the informants are not the perpetrators of those behaviors,The term spontaneous trait transference(STT)has been used to characterize this tendency.As important ways of impression formation,spontaneous trait association and spontaneous trait transference are important for adapting to society.So investigating on spontaneous trait association and spontaneous trait transference of child and adolescent of spontaneous trait is of great significance.Spontaneous trait transference phenomenon has aroused the researchers of comparative study of the processing mechanism.There have been two views about the processing mechanism,one is that,both of the SAT and STT are simple linking processes;the other is that,spontaneous trait association is attribution processes,spontaneous trait transference is a simple linking processes.Because there is always controversial,so it needed more researches to explore the problems of the internal process.Existing studies on STAs and STTs spontaneous trait and comparative study of spontaneous trait transference were carried by adults subjects,few studies have investigated STA and STT from a developmental perspective.In order to further explore the nature of the internal process,it is necessary to adopt the method of development and research from the perspective of development of inspection of the existing research subjects for adults.Therefore,this study selected the 9 to 14 years old children as subjects for the comparative study of spontaneous trait transference and spontaneous trait association.It says that cognitive process could be influenced by the cognitive object(agents)?cognitive(observers)and the interaction between the characteristics of actors and perceivers.It is necessary to study spontaneous trait transference and spontaneous trait association from two angles of behavioral and cognitive.Existing researches from the perspective of actor investigated the social stereotype activated from by the behavior of social tags(such as gender)' influences on the spontaneous connection and spontaneous trait transference.However,this research did not describe the development tendency of which,the gender stereotypes effects of different age children on STA and STT.Researches on gender stereotypes showed that,Individual showed the gender stereotypes in 2 years old,but young children's understanding of gender is relatively rigid till to middle childhood.At middle childhood,childrenbegan understanding gender more flexible,and then become rigid again due to the awakening of sexual consciousness its rigid again(Blakemore,2003;Ruble,Martin Berenbaum,2006).Gender stereotypes effect of different age children on STA and STT is different as the flexibility varied with age,is one of the important problems have not been discussed in this field.So,we tend to examining the age characteristics of gender stereotype effect in our study,this can not only fill the blank in this field,but also by comparing the differences in the gender stereotypes effects on the two processes to compare the nature differences of STA and STT.In addition,the existing research has not examined the on STA and STT from the perspective of perceptual person.Based on Gender schema theory,degree of processing information from the dimension of gender of individuals is different.Compared with the schematization individuals,schematization individuals tend to be according to the gender dimension processing information,also more sensitive to gender information.Existing studies have found that gender stereotypes effects of different types of gender schema individuals on social cognitive process is different.In view of this,this study intends to investigate wether the gender stereotype effect on spontaneous trait association and spontaneous trait transference between individual of different gender schema is different,to provide a new basis for the nature of the process.To sum up,this study intends to use error recognition paradigm to study the effects of spontaneous trait association and spontaneous trait transference for 9,10,11,12,13,14 years old children,the possible differences in different ages of gender stereotype effect,and the moderating role of gender schematicity in the effect of gender stereotypes on perceivers' STA and STT from actors' behaviors.It's useful for us to shet light on the development of child and adolescent' reasoning ability more comprehensive and deeply.Meanwhile,investigating the STA and STT simultaneously also helps us to reveal the internal processing mechanism of spontaneous trait association and spontaneous trait transference.The findings in the studies were as follows:1 9-14 years old children all could make be spontaneous trait association spontaneously,and the strength of STA increased during 9 to 11 years old,at 11 years reaching the highest level,then slow down;At the age of 9-14 children all chould make spontaneous trait transference,but the strength of spontaneous trait transference does not change with age.2 The spontaneous trait association of 9-14 years old children existed gender stereotype effect,and the effects of gender stereotype on Spontaneous trait association could vary with age.For 9 years old group,When the gender stereotype information consistent with the actors act,the spontaneous trait association was promoted,but when the gender stereotype information in inconsistent behavior and behavior,9 years old group of children's spontaneous trait association were not impeded;10 years old children could make spontaneous trait inference not effected by the gender stereotypes;For 11-14 years old group of children,spontaneous trait of the connection were all hindered by the gender stereotype when the gender stereotype information in inconsistent with the actor behavior.3 9-14 years old children of spontaneous trait transference also existed gender stereotype effect,to be specially,when the gender stereotype information was consistent with the actors act,the STT were promoted,on the other hand,the STT were inhibited.But the gender stereotype effect on 9 and 14 years old children's spontaneous trait transference does not exist significant age difference.4 The moderator role of gender schema in the STA mainly displayed in the group of children at the age of 9.To be specific,For group 9 years of age,the gender schema played a moderator role in the stereotype effect on spontaneous trait association,to be specially,for the gender schema individuals,gender stereotypes promoted their spontaneous trait association of rigid consistent action,but not hinder their spontaneous trait association of the inconsistent actions;for the gender aschematic individuals,their spontaneous trait association were not affected by the gender stereotypes.However,For 9-14 years old,the effects of gender stereotype on the spontaneous trait transference were not be moderated by the gender schema.