A study of preschool children's linking of genitals and gender.
The author describes a study that investigated what three- and four-year-old girls and boys know about the link between genital difference and gender difference by asking them to construct both a girl doll and a boy doll, using any of an assortment of anatomical features, including both male and female genitals. The results were interpreted as supporting the assumption of a normal early developmental period of psychological bisexuality; as contradicting the theory that when genital difference is discovered, girls are more distressed than boys about their genitals; and as evidence that both girls and boys envy the genital of the opposite sex.
Senet
Nancie V
NV
nsenet@earthlink.net
D001828:Body Image; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D005835:Genitalia; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D009626:Terminology as Topic