Poster #190 - Gendered Memory in a Gender Diverse Population

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Sex, Gender

Integrative Statement

An increasing number of youth in the US express gender identities that do not align with traditional binary “boy” and “girl” labels (Dunham & Olson, 2016; Rider, McMorris, Gower, Coleman, & Eisenberg, 2018). These youth are largely absent from psychological research, and models of gender development often do not fit their developmental trajectories. One exception is the Personal Pathways model, which addresses variation in development (Liben & Bigler, 2002). This constructive approach integrates a flexibility that allows for prediction of diverse outcomes. In this model, the relationship between one’s own gender and the cultural gender associations of items is key. If the relationship is concordant, the child engages with the item and incorporates it into their own-gender schema. If it is discordant, the child ignores the item and it becomes part of the less detailed “other gender” schema (Liben & Bigler, 2002). The increased interaction with items that are self-relevant results in a more detailed own-gender schema, which is evidenced in a superior memory for own-gender items (Signorella, Bigler, & Liben, 1997; Signorella & Liben, 1984).
For cisgender youth, this model will be followed in a consistent manner, resulting in a bias toward own-gender relevant stimuli. However, for transgender children, this decision point has not been researched. If it is an affective sense of identity that a child reflects upon at this point in the model, the degree to which a child endorses a masculine or feminine identity should be directly related to the masculine and feminine composition of their own-gender schema.
In this study, I propose that it is affective identification with a gender identity that contributes to gender schema formation, and that variance in endorsement of masculine and feminine identities is the process that contributes to diversity in schematic thinking. A memory task including masculine, feminine, and neutral items was administered to 50 youth aged 9-14 in a Midwest metro area (24% cisgender girls, 26% cisgender boys, 14% transgender girls, 8% transgender boys, 28% genderqueer youth). Participants also indicated how well a gender label fit their affective identity on a scale from 1-7. Data on cisgender or transgender status, activity preferences, stereotype endorsement, and history of gender expression was also collected. Preliminary data indicate no significant correlations between identity score and memory for masculine items, r(48)=.27, p=.06. Feminine identity and memory score are also not significantly correlated, r(48)=.02, p=.87. Multiple regression analyses will be used to further examine the relationship between of gender identification, activities, expression, and stereotype endorsement and gendered recall.

Authors

• Catherine Schaefer, The Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author

• Margaret Signorella, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lynn S Liben, Penn State
  Non-Presenting Author