Social‐cognitive theory posits that children learn gender stereotypes through gendered information. The present study examined whether children learn new gender stereotypes from stories when unknown words are linked to a gendered protagonist or context information. In Experiment 1, 40 3‐ to 6‐year‐old preschoolers were read stories with either a gendered protagonist embedded within a non‐gendered context, or a non‐gendered protagonist embedded within a gendered context. In Experiment 2, the same sample of children were read stories with the protagonist and the context displaying congruent or incongruent gender information. Each story featured an unknown activity linked with the stereotypical content. Both experiments indicate that the children rated the activity according to both the gender of the context and of the protagonist; however, the effect of the latter was stronger. In addition, children showed higher interest in the unknown activity if the protagonist’s gender matched their own sex. Thus, gender information in stories influences how children perceive unknown words.

中文翻译：

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故事中的性别信息对学龄前儿童性别定型观念发展的影响。

社会认知理论认为，儿童通过性别信息学习性别定型观念。本研究研究了当未知单词与性别主角或上下文信息相关联时，儿童是否会从故事中学习新的性别刻板印象。在实验1中，阅读了40位3至6岁的学龄前儿童的故事，这些故事要么嵌入了非性别背景中的性别主角，要么嵌入了性别背景中的非性别主角。在实验2中，同一个儿童样本被读为故事，主角和上下文显示一致或不一致的性别信息。每个故事都带有与定型内容相关的未知活动。两项实验均表明，儿童根据情境和主角的性别对活动进行了评分；然而，后者的作用更强。此外，如果主角的性别与自己的性别相匹配，则儿童对未知活动表现出更高的兴趣。因此，故事中的性别信息会影响儿童对未知单词的感知方式。