The young child's gender schema: environmental input, internal organization.
The relation among children's ability to apply gender labels, their tendency to emit sex-typed behavior, and their parents' attitudes and reactions toward sex-typed behaviors was studied. The children were observed at home with their parents when the children were 18 months old, before any of them had passed the gender-labeling task, and at 27 months, when half had passed (early labelers) and half had not (late labelers). At 18 months, there were no differences in the children's sex-typed behavior, but parents of future early labelers gave more positive and negative responses to sex-typed toy play. By 27 months, early labelers showed more traditional sex-typed behavior than late labelers; parents of early and late labelers no longer differed in their responses. At age 4, when given an inventory of sex stereotyping, early labelers scored higher on Sex Role Discrimination; there were no differeces on Sex Role Preference scores.
Fagot
B I
BI
University of Oregon.
Leinbach
M D
MD
D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007062:Identification, Psychological; D007223:Infant; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D011606:Psychosexual Development; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012931:Social Environment