Sex role stereotypes and children's memory for story content

This investigation examined children's memory for stereotypic and reverse-stereotypic sex role content in their reading material. In experiment 1, lists of traits and behaviors deemed typical of boys and girls were obtained from 2 classrooms of fifth-grade students. 4 experimental stories were developed from these lists of stereotypic items, each depicting a male and female character who exhibited an equal number of masculine and feminine characteristics. In experiment 2, 24 fifth-grade students of each sex read 2 experimental stories and were administered a choice-recognition test. Results revealed that both sexes remembered more of the masculine sex typed characteristics of male characters and more of the feminine sex-typed characteristics of female characters. Moreover, the subjects were less proficient in remembering trait than behavioral descriptions and were particularly unlikely to remember the feminine traits of male characters. On the basis of these findings, it was speculated that children use the sex role stereotype as an organizational framework in reading comprehension. Possible implications of this research for children's reading programs were discussed.