| Abstract: | Drawing upon self‐categorization theory, we predicted that the content of children's stereotypes concerning the gender ingroup would be contextually variable. Two studies are reported, each looking at five‐, seven‐, and 10‐year‐old children's stereotypes of the gender in‐group in two different contexts. Study 1 examined judgements of the perceived central tendency of the in‐group on specified dimensions. Study 2 addressed judgements of perceived variability within the gender in‐group on the same dimensions. Overall multivariate analysis of the data indicated that central tendency judgements were influenced by the context in which a group is considered, but that group variability judgements were not. Individual‐level analyses showed that the most typical pattern of response over the two conditions, in both Studies 1 and 2, was for children to provide consistent rather than varying judgements. However, in Study 1 (but not Study 2 ), among those children who changed their judgements, the nature of change was precisely as predicted by self‐categorization theory. |
