ABSTRACT
Looking back on the preceding 12 chapters, two main themes can be identified. First, evolutionary constraints, environmental input, cognitive processes, and social roles all seem to converge in pulling an individual ' s concepts or beliefs, sense o f identity or self-perception, preferences, and behavioral enactment into a gendered direction. Second, gender processes cannot be adequately understood without making reference to their developmental history and to their permanent modulation through various social forces; that is, gender-related cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors change over time and interact with features of social contexts. In other words, developmental change and social influence do not merely coexist, rather they are viewed as fundamentally interdependent, as dynamically building on each other. Both themes, as wel l as their various ramifications that have been examined in the chapters of this book, provide a promising perspective on coming to terms with the bewilderingly large spectrum of sex differences and similarities that can be observed across context, time, and culture. It is to these themes that we now tum.
