Sex typing in nursery school children's play interests.

Abstract

The authors investigated (a) different components of sex typing in play interests, (b) a potential masculine bias in Brown's It Scale for Children, and (c) selected social learning concepts of sex-role development. Subjects were 32 white, 4-year-old, upper-class children and 56 of their parents. To measure sex-role orientation, preference, and adoption, respectively, the children were given an "imaginary It" and a "you" version of the It Scale for Children and were scored at home on play interests. On all three measures, boys and girls differed in direction, but not in degree, of sex typing. The Orientation and Preference scores were positively correlated, but subjects were more sex typed on Preference. Significant tendencies for subjects to label an "imaginary It" as their same sex, but the standard It figure as a boy, indicated a masculine bias in the latter. Parental responses on a modified It test and interview were scored for differential reinforcement and modeling of sex-typed interests. Correlations between parents' scores and their children's failed to support social learning concepts of sex typing. Parents discouraged cross-sexed interests in boys more than in girls. Parents of the same sex as their child reported more encouragement of sex typing than did opposite-sexed parents.Using the standard administration of Brown's (1956) It Scale for Children, it is typically reported (Kohlberg, 1966) that boys are more sex typed than girls, that is, more masculine than girls are feminine. Brown (1962), Thompson and McCandless (1970), and others have suggested that the It figure may actually appear more masculine than "neuter" and thus bias results.Several investigators eliminated this possible bias by administering the test with "It" concealed in an envelope (Endsley, 1967;Lansky & McKay, 1963; Sher & Lansky, 1968;Thompson & McCandless, 1970). Endsley found no significant difference between the mean scores on the concealed and the standard version for boys and girls combined. In the other three studies, a nonsignificant tendency was found for girls to be more feminine on the concealed test than on

Differential Effects of an Adult Observer’s Presence on Sex-Typed Play Behavior: A Comparison Between Gender-Schematic and Gender-Aschematic Preschool Children

“…This finding is in accordance with previous literature that found that boys from many countries are more stereotyped in their preferences than girls (e.g., Eisenberg et al, 1982;Fling & Manosevitz, 1972;Turner et al, 1993). These findings may be explained by the greater social pressure for boys to exhibit gender typical behavior and to avoid gender atypical behavior at an earlier age (Fling & Manosevitz, 1972;Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987).…”

“…For example, boys are more stereotyped than girls in their choice of child and adult sex roles (Edelbrock & Sugawara, 1978;Turner et al, 1993), play style (Eisenberg, Murray, & Hite, 1982;Fling & Manosevitz, 1972), friendship appraisals (Zucker, Wilson-Smith, Kurita, & Stern, 1995), and toy preferences (Turner et al, 1993). Like gender, gender schematicity is thought to influence gender typical behaviors in general (e.g., gender transformational errors and gender-relevant memories; Bradbard & Endsley, 1983;Bradbard, Martin, Endsley, & Halverson, 1986) and toy preferences in particular.…”

Parental Influence and Socialization Into Sport for Male and Female Intercollegiate Athletes

“…However, parents have traditionally responded to their sons and daughters in quite different ways. Sons have been more often encouraged to participate in more active activities while females have been more often reinforced for engaging in sedentary activities (Fling & Manosevitz, 1972;Lansky, 1967;Lever, 1976;Saegert & Hart, 1977). Thus, it appears that parents hold different ideas about the importance of sport involvement for their sons and daughters.…”

A Comparative Analysis of Female-Male Communication Style as a Function of Organizational Level

“…Since the male role has been narrowly defined, the male transgresses more than the female and receives more negative responses from significant others. This hypothesis was supported by Lansky (1967) and Fling and Manosevitz (1972). Lansky used hypothetical situations to test parental reactions to sex-typed behavior.…”