Sex-typed preferences in three domains: do two-year-olds need cognitive variables?

Full Abstract

Gender schema theory proposes that sex-typed behaviour flows from the child's ability to 'tag' incoming information in terms of gender categories leading to heightened attention, recall and performance of sex-congruent behaviour. We investigate three questions in relation to this proposal:
(1) the order of emergence of the child's ability to apply gender labels in each of three domains (social behaviour, same-sex peer preference and sex-congruent toy preference) and its impact upon sex-typed behaviour, (2) the role of the child's knowledge of his or her own sex in sex-typed preferences, and (3) the generality versus specificity of sex-typed behaviour across three domains. Participants were 56 two-year old children. Correct labelling of gender was achieved by 67% of children for self, by 54% for other children, by 23% for toys and by 13% for activities. There was a significant preference for sex-congruent toys and boys engaged in significantly more negative social interaction behaviours than did girls, but same-sex peer preference was not found. There was no effect of domain-specific labelling ability on corresponding sex-typed behaviour nor did sex-of-self knowledge explain sex-typed preference. There was no evidence of domain generality in sex-typed behaviours. The findings suggest that the impact of cognitive variables may have been overestimated.

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Author information

Author/s: Campbell, Anne (A); Shirley, Louisa (L); Caygill, Lisa (L);

Affiliation: Durham University, UK.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) (Br J Psychol), published in England. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-May; vol 93 (issue Pt 2) : pp 203-17

Dates: Created 2002/05/28; Completed 2002/08/21; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12031148, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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