Developmental changes in self-perception: The role of gender in a preadolescent clinical population

Abstract

Research indicates that gender and psychopathology are interrelated and that the nature of this relationship changes over the course of development. Rates of incidence for psychological distress reflect both gender and age differences. Furthermore, the expression of emotional problems is also related to gender. Some symptom patterns, for example, are more likely experienced by females than males. This study examines how psychological disturbance, operationalized as magnitude of symptomatology, interacts with development, or chronological age, in order to predict a child's self-perception. Forty-eight children involved in psychotherapy and their mothers were sampled for this research. It was found that for girls and not boys self-perception diminished with age. Results were interpreted in light of recent feminist theory on female development.Clinicians have long observed that the developmental process varies according to gender. Furthermore, the ease with which one negotiates psychological tasks through the life cycle, and the amount of stress experienced during this process also appears to vary for boys and girls, men and women. Research with clinical samples confirms that gender plays a significant role in the referral rates for treatment, and in the prevalence of emotional and behavioral symptoms (