ABSTRACT
Along with social learning theories, cognitive development theories emphasise the social world (rather than the influence of biology) as having an impact on the development of gender identity. These theories emphasise the active role people play in the process of development by depicting the person as actively instrumental in trying to make sense of the world around him or her. However, unlike social learning theories, cognitive developmentalists believe that children develop through various stages, and each stage brings with it a different level of comprehension or ability to think and reason. This means that at any given time a child will only possess the abilities to make sense of, or draw conclusions about the world, at the level (or stage) of development they are currently at. For example, a very young child at an early stage of cognitive development may learn that boys and girls are different because of the way they look (e.g. girls wear dresses). If they are then faced with a boy wearing a dress, they will automatically assume that he must be a she because of how he looks. They will have no reason to question this assumption, as the stage of cognitive development they are at uses only particular aspects (in this case visual perception) to judge a situation, or to make sense of the world. At a later stage the child will begin to use a wider range of skills from which to draw conclusions about situations. For example, they will learn that the way something looks (its superficial features) can change without affecting its true identity. In this way children learn through this active construction of the world which gender identity and therefore gender role is appropriate for them.
