Bem-style researchers show 5- and 8-year-olds pictures of gender-stereotyped (a girl baking) and counter-stereotyped (a boy baking) activities. A week later, children are asked to recall what they saw. Both age groups recall stereotyped images accurately but distort counter-stereotyped images—often "remembering" that the boy was a girl.
These memory distortions best illustrate:
- A
Operant reinforcement of stereotyped behavior
- B
A failure of working memory capacity
- C
Sensorimotor object permanence
- Dcheck_circle
Assimilation of new information into existing gender schemas
Explanation
Gender schema theory predicts schema-inconsistent information is reshaped to fit existing gender categories—precisely the distortion observed.