This explanation shows that experiences have strong influence to boys and girls‟ attitudes and beliefs. The attitudes and beliefs are related to their roles in the
society, especially to the access to get education equally. Martin Halverson 1981 states that gender schemas are interrelated
networks of mental associations representing information about the sexes. Schemas are not passive copies of the environment, but instead they are active
constructions, prone to errors and distortions. Two types of schemas are initially formulated as the superordinate schema and the own-sex schema. The
superordinate schema contains listlike information about the sexes. The own-sex schema is defined as a narrow schema containing detailed action plans for self-
relevant information as cited in Lamb, 2015. Golombok 2002 states that gender schemas refer to organized bodies of
knowledge about gender, and are functionally similar to gender stereotypes. Gender schemas influence the way we perceive and remember information about
everything around us. As a result, we pay greater attention and are more likely to remember information that is in line with our gender schemas than the opposing
information p. 130. This gender schema has a relation to gender stereotypes and it influences our way of thinking towards everything around us.
Valian 2005 assumes that one way that gender schemas affect women is in women‟s perception of themselves as worth less and entitled to less. The
schemas conversely affect men by leading them to see themselves as worth more and entitled to more. Also, through the chores they are given to do in childhood,
w omen become accustomed to act for others‟ good and to labor for love; while
men become accustomed to be recompensed for their labors p.205. The core content of the psychological gender schemas for females does not logically entail
any of the beliefs making up hostile or benevolent sexism. The content of gender schemas can be used to shore up hostile and benevolent sexism, but it does not
imply any form of sexism. Even individuals whose explicit beliefs are not hostilely or benevolently sexist are subject to gender schemas p.200.
2. Theory of Mind
According to Bukatko 2008 theory of mind is the awareness of the concept of mental states of a person and the others p.288. Some researchers,
Baron-Cohen 1995, Fodor 1992, Leslie 1994 argue that the theory of mind is an innate, prepackaged, modular form of knowledge that becomes more
elaborated as child‟s cognitive sklls developed as cited in Bukatko, 2008, p.288.
Other researchers, Ruffman et al. 2002 believe that a theory of mind arises from the child‟s socialization experiences, especially those that encourage an
apprec iation of others‟ mental states as cited in Bukatko, 2008, p.288. This
theory is a key cognitive attainment that becomes the bridge between someone and his social world.
According to Silva 2014, the mind is defined and represented in terms of the interplay of dynamic instincts: the drive for sensual gratification, the drive
towards egoistic and narcissistic pursuits and the drive towards both aggression and self-destruction p. 121-122. On the contrary,
Perner 1991 explains that the children must appreciate the relation between a symbolic representation which
means conceptualizing beliefs as representations that stand for situations in the PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
world and may differ from the actual state of affairs, and its referent to understand the mind as cited in Pillow, 2012, p. 85. Others have argued that the executive
function is related to the development of children‟s theory of mind. Executive function includes abilities involved in self-regulation, such as directing attention,
resisting distraction, controlling motor responses, inhibiting inappropriate responses, and planning. Carlson and Moses 2001, in Pillow, 2012 suggests:
One aspect of executive function, inhibitory control, is particularly important for children‟s understanding of beliefs. They view inhibitory
control and understanding of beliefs as related in two ways: a inhibitory control enables the acquisition of the concept of belief, and b inhibitory
control facilitates the expression of childr
en‟s false belief understanding p. 85.
There is a belief-desire understanding of mind and action. According to Davidson 1963, beliefs are defined as a general category of thoughts
encompassing knowledge, opinions, guesses, convictions, and hunches, that is, all mental states that attempt to reflect something true about the world. More broadly,
thoughts include not only serious beliefs but also fanciful ideas, states of imagination, and dreams
—mental states that represent fictional worlds. Desires are also to be understood as a general category including wants, urges, and states
of caring about something; that is, a whole range of pro-attitudes toward or about something as cited in Bartsch, 1995, p. 5. The underlying structure of our
common sense conception of mind requires consideration of both desires and beliefs. People do things because they
desire
something and
believe
some acts will achieve it. According to this sort of analysis, the center of a theory of mind is
