Psychology Department, New York University Abu Dhabi, 178B Building A3, Saadiyat Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Development, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Arch Sex Behav. 2024 May;53(5):1793-1812. doi: 10.1007/s10508-024-02824-6. Epub 2024 Mar 6.
Two components of gender identity are gender similarity, how one's self-concept relates to the major gender collectives (i.e., female, male), and felt pressure to conform to gender norms. The development of these components across ages and contexts has been understudied. The focus of this study was to examine variations in gender similarity and felt pressure across multiple intersecting contexts: developmental stage, gender, and ethnic-racial group. Six data sets were harmonized and means were compared across 2628 participants (51% girls, 49% boys) from four different developmental cohorts (childhood n = 678, early adolescence n = 1322, adolescence n = 415, and young adulthood n = 213) from diverse ethnic-racial backgrounds (45% White, 23% Latinx/Hispanic, 11% Black/African-American, 7% Asian-American, 5% American Indian, and 5% Multiracial). Results revealed nuanced patterns: Gender intensification was supported in early adolescence, primarily for boys. Young adult men reported lower levels of pressure and gender typicality than younger boys, but young adult women's levels were generally not different than younger girls. Surprisingly, young adult women's levels of own-gender similarity and pressure from parents were higher than adolescent girls. Expectations of gender differences in gender typicality and felt pressure were supported for all ages except young adults, with higher levels for boys. Finally, there were more similarities than differences across ethnic-racial groups, though when there were differences, minoritized participants reported heightened gender typicality and pressure (largely accounted for by higher scores for Black and Latinx participants and lower scores for White and Multiracial participants). These results add to what is understood about contextually dependent gender development.
性别认同有两个组成部分，一是自我概念与主要性别群体（即女性、男性）的相似程度，二是对符合性别规范的压力感受。这些组成部分在不同年龄和背景下的发展尚未得到充分研究。本研究的重点是考察多个交叉背景（发展阶段、性别和族裔-种族群体）下性别相似性和压力感受的变化。六个数据集被协调，并对来自四个不同发展队列（儿童队列 n = 678，青少年早期队列 n = 1322，青少年队列 n = 415，青年成年队列 n = 213）的 2628 名参与者（51%为女孩，49%为男孩）进行了比较。这些参与者来自不同的族裔-种族背景（45%为白人，23%为拉丁裔/西班牙裔，11%为黑人/非裔美国人，7%为亚裔美国人，5%为美国印第安人，5%为多种族）。结果显示出微妙的模式：性别强化在青少年早期得到支持，主要针对男孩。年轻成年男性报告的压力和性别典型性水平低于年轻男孩，但年轻成年女性的水平通常与年轻女孩没有区别。令人惊讶的是，年轻成年女性的自身性别相似性和来自父母的压力水平高于青少年女孩。除了年轻成年人之外，所有年龄段都支持性别典型性和感受到的压力方面的性别差异期望，男孩的水平更高。最后，不同族裔-种族群体之间的相似性多于差异，尽管存在差异时，少数族裔参与者报告的性别典型性和压力更高（主要归因于黑人和拉丁裔参与者的得分较高，而白人和多种族参与者的得分较低）。这些结果增加了对情境依赖性性别发展的理解。
