Final answer:
The correct answer to the question is B. Cognitive development theory. This approach, associated with Jean Piaget, explains that children understand social concepts like gender roles through active cognitive organization.
Step-by-step explanation:
Children learn gender through their mental efforts to organize their social world, primarily through a process of cognitive development. The correct answer to the question is B. Cognitive development theory.
This theory, primarily associated with Jean Piaget, suggests that children are pattern or category seekers, and as they interact with their environment, they mentally organize their experiences, which includes understanding gender roles.
Piaget's approach indicates that children actively construct their understanding of the world, including gender roles, through various cognitive stages.
They are not just passive recipients of societal norms but participants in their own development, reconciling new information with their existing cognitive frameworks.
Developmental psychologists have studied multiple theories about how children develop into adults. These theories address questions about whether development is continuous or not, varies among individuals, or is primarily affected by genetics or experiences.
Among these theories, Freud's psychoanalytic theory and Erikson's psychosocial theory differ from Piaget's cognitive development theory, as they focus more on internal drives and social interaction, respectively.
In contrast, Piaget emphasizes the importance of children's independent cognitive processes.