The formative factors of gender conception and its relationship with a selection of gender roles in adolescents

Abstract

This study investigated the formative factors of gender conception as a cognitive frame concerning gender and its influence on a selection of gender roles (career patterns) using a multiple regression analysis. High school students, composed of 747 females and 726 males, were asked their gender conception measured by how much they agreed to stereotypical behaviors and affairs according to gender. The factors contributing to reinforcement of the gender conception were as follows : (a) the contact with magazines proper to gender, (b) awareness of sex/gender differences in an early period of life, (c) encouragement of femininity (masculinity) by parents, and in addition, (d) a gender separated educational environment in males. Otherwise, from the pass analysis it was indicated that the attitudes of gender roles were made by the medium of the gender conception composed by those factors, and that the gender roles were selected on those attitudes. The Scale of Gender Conception was available as a measure for a gender schematic process except the self concepts.