Attitudes affect behaviors, and behaviors can affect attitudes

A second area of study concerns self-perceptions and interests. Recently, we have examined the effects of children’s intergroup attitudes on conceptions of the self, and the reciprocal effects of self-conceptions on the formation and maintenance of intergroup attitudes. For example, many prominent theories posit that children’s internalization of cultural stereotypes guides and shapes their gender role behavior. These internalized stereotypes, along with children's other ideas about gender, form their gender schemas. However, children do not always use a gender schema to decide how to behave. This can happen because the child is not thinking about gender, or simply because the child does not have a gender schema for the particular activity yet. A model that takes this important fact into account is below:

It is also possible that children’s self-perceptions of their own gendered qualities and interests guide the development of their gender stereotyping of others. Ongoing research in our lab is examining the relations among sex typing of the self and sex typing of others. Preliminary evidence indicates that preschool children will often create a stereotype to support behaviors that they enjoy engaging in but lack a stereotype for. For example, preschool boys are likely to say "Only boys should play with balloons", while girls will say that "Only girls should play with balloons", even though a cultural stereotype does not exist. In this instance, the behavior creates the stereotype. At times, the opposite can happen: a child may enjoy interacting with a toy that is in his or her gender schema as for the other gender. After interacting with the toy, the child's schema may change to become more egalitarian. This model is illustrated below.