Affecting Girls’ Activity and Job Interests Through Play: The Moderating Roles of Personal Gender Salience and Game Characteristics

Abstract

Gender schema theory (GST) posits that children approach opportunities perceived as gender appropriate, avoiding those deemed gender inappropriate, in turn affecting gender-differentiated career trajectories. To test the hypothesis that children's gender salience filters (GSF-tendency to attend to gender) moderate these processes, 62 preschool girls (M = 4.5 years) were given GSF measures. Two weeks later, they played a computer game about occupations that manipulated the game-character's femininity (hyperfeminized Barbie vs. less feminized Playmobil Jane). Following game play, girls' interests in feminine activities showed an interaction of game condition and GSF: High-GSF girls showed intensified feminine activity interests only with Barbie; low-GSF girls showed no change with either character. Neither GSF nor game condition affected occupational interests. Implications for GST, individual differences, and occupational interventions are discussed.

The Cognitive Construction of Gender Stereotypes: Evidence for the Dual Pathways Model of Gender Differentiation

“…For the attitudinal pathway model, research supports the distinction in schematicity, finding within-gender differences in toy, activity, and occupation preferences between genderschematic and gender-aschematic children (Carter and Levy 1988;Coyle and Liben 2016;Lobel and Menashri 1993, in Isreal;Martin and Dinella 2012;Patterson 2012;WilanskyTraynor and Lobel 2008, in Isreal). Although much research has been conducted using assessments of gender-typed interests and gender attitudes about culturally stereotyped activities, occupations, and behaviors (Liben and Bigler 2002;Signorella and Frieze 2008), research with novel items is necessary to disentangle the cultural stereotypes of an item from the properties of the item itself.…”

“…These models are considered constructivist because children are actively, cognitively constructing stereotypes through interaction with their environment (Coyle and Liben 2016;Liben and Bigler 2002). Prominent constructivist models of gender stereotyping include social cognitive theory (Bussey and Bandura 1999), cognitive developmental theory (Kohlberg 1966), and gender schema theory (Bem 1981;Martin and Halverson 1981).…”

We've Come a Long Way, Baby (But We're Not There Yet): Gender Past, Present, and Future

“…Empirical findings have demonstrated the value of studying effects of individual differences and dual pathways. For example, as discussed in greater detail later, findings from an experimental study (Coyle & Liben, in press) showed that under some conditions, preschool girls respond differently to a game about occupations in relation to individual differences in their general attentiveness to gender. Findings from a longitudinal study (Liben & Bigler, ) showed support for the hypothesized impact of the personal (self‐to‐other) pathway: Middle school boys who initially (fall of Grade 6) selected more feminine descriptors as self‐descriptive later (spring of Grade 7) reported more egalitarian gender attitudes about others.…”

“…Second, and as argued in greater detail elsewhere (see Liben, ; Liben & Coyle, ), it is also crucial to test for unintended consequences, or what I have more provocatively referred to as collateral damage (Liben, ). One can well imagine that there would be unintended lessons about what it means to be a woman when the models who tout science are women who might be labeled in scholarly terminology as “hyperfeminized” (Coyle & Liben, in press) or in common parlance as “sexy.” What will men who watch the Science: It's a Girl Thing! video think about the contributions women colleagues will make to collaborative projects?…”

“…Although I know of no research that addresses these or similar questions about the field‐initiated interventions just discussed, findings from two recent laboratory studies buttress the claim that such research is sorely needed. In one relevant study, we (Coyle & Liben, in press) invited preschool girls into the laboratory to play a computer game in which a female character engages in various jobs, including traditionally masculine ones such as chemist. We were interested in studying the impact of game play in relation to two variables.…”