Sex and age difference in adolescents' value judgements of historically important events: theory, stereotypes and...

The extent to which younger and older adolescents differed in their value judgments of historically important events was examined. Subjects were asked to list the ten most important events that happened in or to the U.S. since 1990. The subjects' choices were analyzed as a function of sex, age, political and religious orientation, and family size. In addition, 100 undergraduates were asked to serve as judges and predict which categories would be cited more frequently by males and which by females. Results indicated that the judges' predictions did not match the data. Age was a much better predictor of value judgments than sex. Further, several additional differences in value judgments were revealed that would have been missed had only the variables of sex and age been included in the analyses.