A release from proactive interference analysis of gender schema encoding for occupations in adults and children

The present study examined gender schema encoding (activation of gender stereotypes) in the absence deliberate purposes relating to people (stereotype application). A release from proactive interference short-term-memory task was used. College (Experiment 1) and sixth-grade (Experiment 2) participants were asked to retain item identity and sequence information for briefly presented stimulus sets of occupational names. Buildup and release from PI, when the stimulus set was shifted to the alternate gender signification, was found for both age groups. This result was interpreted to reflect a change in the encoding attribute for the stimulus sets-an encoding change that occurs without intention or deliberate processing. Effect-size estimates for release from PI suggested a developmental increase in gender schema encoding. The discussion of results considers the development of an individual difference index of gender scheme processing based on the release from PI method.