Observations of Parent Reactions to Sex-Stereotyped Behaviors: Age and Sex Effects

Fagot, Beverly I.; Hagan, Richard

doi:10.2307/1131135

Cited by 163 publications

(84 citation statements)

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“…Our third hypothesis was in line with theoretical and empirical work that describes how parents and other adults preferentially foster a sense of connection and responsibility in girls (Chodorow, 1989;Fagot & Hagan, 1991;Gilligan, 1982). For example, girls are encouraged to remain close to their mothers, and the formation of a feminine identity (i.e., being like their mothers) is viewed as being based on a continuation of the mother-child bond.…”

Section: Research Hypothesessupporting

confidence: 67%

Being Brave, Being Nice: Themes of Agency and Communion in Children’s Narratives

Ely

Melzi

Hadge

et al. 1998

Journal of Personality

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Although much is known about the presence of themes of agency and communion in adults' autobiographical stories, little is known about the presence of these themes in children's autobiographical stories. In this paper we examine the extent to which children describe themselves and others as agentic and communal beings in ordinary conversational narratives. Subjects were 96 rural, working-class children between the ages of 4 and 9 years. Personal narratives were elicited in the course of informal conversations with an adult experimenter. Narratives were analyzed for the presence of storyworld participants, and for the presence of themes of agency and communion. For both genders, themes of agency were more common than were themes of communion. Girls, however, were more likely to describe themes of communion than were boys, and were more likely to include family members in their narratives than were boys. Finally, correlations between themes of agency and communion were generally low. The findings extend the age to which the concepts of agency and communion can be productively applied to personal narratives. Implications for future theoretical and empirical work are also discussed. Agency and Communion 2591. All examples come from the data.

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Section: Research Hypothesessupporting

confidence: 67%

Being Brave, Being Nice: Themes of Agency and Communion in Children’s Narratives

Ely

Melzi

Hadge

et al. 1998

Journal of Personality

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“…Such demand effects could have led to the low observed levels of sex-typed play among boys, but not girls during this play session. It also remains possible that fathers influenced both labeling and gender-typed play, especially because fathers have been shown to be important socializers of gender-typed behavior (Caldera & Sciaraffa, 1998; Fagot & Hagan, 1991; Langlois & Downs, 1980; Leaper, Anderson, & Sanders, 1998) and language and cognitive development more generally (Tamis-LeMonda, Shannon, Cabrera, & Lamb, 2004). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The acquisition of gender labels in infancy: Implications for gender-typed play.

Zosuls

Ruble

Tamis-LeMonda³

et al. 2009

Developmental Psychology

213

185

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Two aspects of children's early gender development -the spontaneous production of gender labels and sex-typed play -were examined longitudinally in a sample of 82 children. Survival analysis, a statistical technique well suited to questions involving developmental transitions, was used to investigate the timing of the onset of children's gender labeling as based on mothers' biweekly reports on their children's language from 9 through 21 months. Videotapes of children's play both alone and with mother at 17 and 21 months were independently analyzed for play with gender stereotyped and neutral toys. Finally, the relation between gender labeling and sex-typed play was examined. Children transitioned to using gender labels at approximately 19 months on average. Although girls and boys showed similar patterns in the development of gender labeling, girls began labeling significantly earlier than boys. Modest sex differences in play were present at 17 months and increased at 21 months. Gender labeling predicted increases in sex-typed play, suggesting that knowledge of gender categories might influence sex-typing before the age of 2.Keywords gender development; self-socialization; language development; play; sex differences A growing body of research in social and developmental psychology demonstrates that the salience of social categories and, in particular, the verbal labeling of social groups, affect perceptions of social category distinctions. Category labels signal the importance of categoryrelevant information and influence inferences made about social group members (e.g., Bigler, 1995;Diesendruck & haLevi, 2006;Gelman & Heyman, 1999;Katz & Seavey, 1973). From a developmental perspective, it is important to examine children's understanding of gender as Address for Correspondence: Kristina M. Zosuls, Psychology Department, New York University, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, E-mail: kmz205@nyu.edu. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript a social category because it is typically the first collective social identity that children learn and is associated with a range of stereotypes used by children and adults to make inferences about others . Even as early as preschool, children demonstrate knowledge of gender stereotypes (Martin, Ruble, & Szkrybalo, 2002), and use gender category information to make inferences about ambiguous behavior (Giles & Heyman, 2004). It is therefore important to ask: When do children first label gender categories? What are some consequences of this ability?In addition to visual cues, such as physical appearance, verbal labels might be important cues for learning social categories at a very young age (Baron, Dunham, Banaji, & Carey, 2007;Gelman, Taylor, & Nguyen, 2004). For instance, when parents use gender labels when they point out the actions of other people (e.g., "See that boy running fast!") rather than gender neutral labels (e.g., "child"), they make gender category information salient. Thus, an examination of childre...

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“…Some findings have indicated that boys are encouraged by parents to play with masculine-typical toys and discouraged from playing with feminine-typical toys (Fagot 1978;Fagot and Hagan 1991). Girls, on the other hand, are also encouraged to play with feminine-typical toys but not necessarily discouraged from playing with masculine-typical toys (Fagot 1978;Fagot and Hagan 1991).…”

Section: Factors That Influence the Development Of Sex Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Children’s Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient: Sex Differences in Typical Development and in Autism Spectrum Conditions

Auyeung

Wheelwright

Allison

et al. 2009

J Autism Dev Disord

273

227

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Children's versions of the Empathy Quotient (EQ-C) and Systemizing Quotient (SQ-C) were developed and administered to n = 1,256 parents of typically developing children, aged 4-11 years. Both measures showed good test-retest reliability and high internal consistency. As predicted, girls scored significantly higher on the EQ-C, and boys scored significantly higher on the SQ-C. A further sample of n = 265 children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) scored significantly lower on the EQ-C, and significantly higher on the SQ-C, compared to typical boys. Empathy and systemizing in children show similar patterns of sex differences to those observed in adults. Children with ASC tend towards a 'hyper-masculinized' profile, irrespective of sex.

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Observations of Parent Reactions to Sex-Stereotyped Behaviors: Age and Sex Effects

Cited by 163 publications

References 0 publications

Being Brave, Being Nice: Themes of Agency and Communion in Children’s Narratives

Being Brave, Being Nice: Themes of Agency and Communion in Children’s Narratives

The acquisition of gender labels in infancy: Implications for gender-typed play.

The Children’s Empathy Quotient and Systemizing Quotient: Sex Differences in Typical Development and in Autism Spectrum Conditions

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