Gender Self-Socialization Model

Gender self-socialization typically refers to people’s adoption of the attributes (personal characteristics, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings) that they perceive to be appropriate for their gender. This process figures in most cognitive theories of children’s development of gender differentiated attributes, including the theories advanced by Sandra Bem, Lawrence Kohlberg, Eleanor Maccoby, Carol Martin, and Janet Spence. The process is believed to contribute not only to differences in diverse gendered attributes between the genders as groups but also to individual differences in such attributes within each gender (presumably, children of a given gender differ in the degree to which they identify with a gender and thus differ in their motivation to adopt the attributes associated with their gender). The gender self-socialization model (GSSM) is a comprehensive theory ...