They process new information and their own behavior through the lens of their gender schema, resulting in sex typing of themselves and others in adulthood as well, which in turn can lead to prejudice and stereotypes.
According to the Bem Sex Role Inventory, there are four categories into which an individual may fall: sex-typed, cross-sex-typed, androgynous, and undifferentiated.
Specifically, having strong gender schemata provides a filter through which we process incoming stimuli in the environment.
[2] Within adolescent development, it is hypothesized that children must choose among a plethora of dimensions, but that gender schemas lead to the regulation of behaviors that conform to the cultural definition of what it means to be male or female.
[4] Some of the early tests of gender schema theory came in the form of memory and other cognitive tasks designed to assess facilitated processing of sex-typed information.
[6] For example, in her original research, Bem edited the books that her children read to create a more androgynous view.
This included, for example, drawing long hair and feminine body characteristics on male figures.
Therefore, Bem suggests teaching alternative schemata to children so that they are less likely to build and maintain a gender schema.
[4] Bem wished to raise consciousness that the male/female dichotomy is used as an organizing framework, often unnecessarily, especially in the school curriculum.
Bem's theory was undoubtedly informed by the cognitive revolution of the 1970s and 1980s and was coming at a time when the psychology of gender was drastically picking up interest as more and more women were entering academic fields.
"[4] Another study found the theory "weak in its description", concluding that the process of sex-typing "requires clarification and elaboration".