title: Sex-typed preferences in three domains: do two-year-olds need cognitive variables?
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.
authors.affiliation: Durham University, UK.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Louisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shirley
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Caygill
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D010988:Play and Playthings; D012919:Social Behavior