Gender Development 2: stereotypes/ family influences

Question 1

Development of gender-stereotyped preferences:
- when do they emerge?
- what age do children avoid other-sex toys?
- what increase with age?
- when do girls’ feminine preferences increase until?

Answer 1

• Gender-based preferences emerge by 3 years of age
• By 4-5 years old, children avoid other-sex toys
• Boys’ masculine preferences increase with age
• Girls’ feminine preferences increase until 5/6 years, then they show less interest in feminine activities, and increasing interest in masculine activities

Question 2

Preferences: cont …
- what gender avoids the other gender activities
- Levy et al (1995)
- What is Gender boundary maintenance
- who are more likely to initiate quite firm boundaries about what they will and won’t tolerate?

Answer 2

• Boys avoid feminine activities to a greater extent than girls avoid masculine activities (girls are more free to explore feminine and masculine activities whereas boys are more encouraged to explore masculine activities)
• Levy et al (1995): both boys and girls viewed boys with feminine preferences more negatively than girls with masculine preferences
• ‘Gender boundary maintenance’: process by which gender group boundaries are maintained. Boys are more likely to initiate and maintain group boundaries than girls. (Strict boundaries for what you think is appropriate behaviour for your gender).

— boys are more likely to initiate quite firm boundaries about what they will and won’t tolerate in terms of masculine or feminine.

Question 3

Development of gender-stereotyped knowledge
- when do children learn stereotypes?
- when do stereotypes about activities and occupation increase till and peak?
- when do stereotypes about personality traits emerge?

Answer 3

• Children learn stereotypes very early - by 3 years old they know stereotypes about objects and activities
• Stereotypes about activities and occupations increases between 3-5 years. Ceiling levels are typically reached by 7 years old.
• Stereotypes about personality traits emerges later (e.g., 5-year-olds think boys are more independent, aggressive, and assertive than girls, and girls are more dependent, emotional, and submissive than boys)

Question 4

Family Influences

Answer 4

1. Parents as key socialisation agents in their children’s gender development
2. The role of siblings

Question 5

Parental influences:
- are parents the only influence?
- conceptual vagueness in what?
- What does Trautner (1996) points out about researchers not distinguishing between factors

Answer 5

• Parents aren’t the only influence! (friends and media can be socialisers)
• Conceptual vagueness in definition and focus of research, e.g., Trautner (1996) points out that researchers often don’t distinguish between factors that:

(i) are responsible for developmental changes shared by boys and girls
(ii) produce differences between boys and girls
(iii) produce differences within boys and girls (i.e., there is considerable within-sex, as well as between-sex variation)
(iv) gender is multi-dimensional – parental influence may have differential effects depend on aspect under consideration

Question 6

Parental influences:
Do parents treat sons and daughters differently?
Wills et al (1976)

Answer 6

Wills et al (1976): parents smiled more at 6-month-old ‘Beth’ and were more likely to give ‘her’ a doll to play with than ‘Adam’

The way that parents interact with children is different

Question 7

Video showing differences in gender stereotyping due to clothing

Answer 7

Point here is that the personality or temperament of that child is obviously the same - but the clothing is different.

Goes back to the gender schema- the idea that there are shortcuts we take in order to process ect.

You find this effect in a laboratory setting

Question 8

Parental influences:
- Rubin, Provenano, & Luria (1974)
- Fagot (1978)
How did they display differences in the way parents interact with their children

Answer 8

Rubin, Provenano, & Luria (1974): new parents (particularly dads) described their babies stereotypically, despite no real differences in birth weight etc. Girls described as more delicate and finer featured. Boys described as heavier, stronger, larger featured

Fagot (1978): girls encouraged to dance, playing with dolls etc, but discouraged from climbing, running etc. Boys encouraged to play with trucks, building blocks etc., but discouraged from playing with dolls, or engaging in ‘feminine’ activities

Question 9

Evidence for parental influences is very mixed:
How do Maccoby & Jacklin (1974) and Lytton & Romney (1991) demonstrate this?

Answer 9

Maccoby & Jacklin (1974): meta-analysis found no evidence of sex differences for parental influence. Very little difference between how parents socialised their sons and daughters (based largely on mothers)

Lytton & Romney (1991): no reliable differences according to sex of child apart from the activities parents encouraged sons and daughters to do (this meta-analysis included fathers). Age of child was a crucial variable in the extent of parental influence

Question 10

How do parents influence their children’s activities?
What did Eccles believe?

Answer 10

Eccles believes parents’ beliefs and stereotypes can affect their children’s gender-role socialisation by influencing:
(i) the goals & expectations that they have for their children
(ii) how they perceive their children’s interests
(iii) how they interact with their children

Focus on Eccles’ longitudinal research on gender-role socialisation in the family

Question 11

What is Eccles, 2005, model

Answer 11

Highlights how complex the relationship between the parents own beliefs and behaviours and the way that might influence things such as what the children achieve, what they’re expected to do and what they want to do themselves.

Question 12

Eccles’ Expectancy Value Theory
Model and findings

Answer 12

Eccles (2005): theoretical model to account for how gender is linked to parents’ beliefs, and how these are linked to children’s involvement in, and competence beliefs about, different activities

(i) Parents’ gender-role beliefs affect judgements make about children’s competence in stereotyped activity domains
(ii) These judgements affect parents’ expectations about children’s future performance
(iii) These expectations affect types of opportunities parents then give their children

Question 13

Parental influence: Gender and Achievement:
Michigan Study of Childhood and Beyond
Results

Answer 13

Longitudinal study of 600 children. There were differences in parents’ ratings of sons’ and daughters’ competence and interest in activity domains
- daughters considered more competent and interested in English than sports
- daughters considered more talented in instrumental music (even though few children actually played instruments!)
- sons more competent and interested in sports than English

Question 14

Why do parents hold gender-differentiated beliefs about girls’ and boys’ competence?
(i) True differences in aptitude?
(ii) Gendered attributional patterns

Answer 14

sum- shows how gender stereotypes can influence parents thinking which then can impact opportunities that are available later on down the line.

Opportunities that are available can have a big impact

(i) True differences in aptitude?
No, because boys and girls have had different opportunities to develop skills AND parents’ beliefs about maths competence are influenced by their child’s gender independent of the child’s actual performance

(ii) Gendered attributional patterns
- are important mediators of gender-stereotyped perceptions of children’s competence
- Yee & Eccles (1988): parents of boys rated natural talent as more important reason for maths success than effort. Parents of girls rated effort as more important reason for maths success than natural talent

Question 15

Lone-mother families

Answer 15

Fathers are often thought to have a unique influence on children’s gender-role development (e.g., Block, 1976) BUT, father absence actually seems to make little difference

Question 16

Lone-mother families
Stevenson & Black (1988)

Answer 16

• meta-analysis comparing father-present and father-absent families
• preschoolers in father-absent families were less stereotyped BUT older boys in father-absent families were more stereotyped
• effect size varied with SES, age, reason for father absence
• But, father-absent families are a very heterogeneous group

Question 17

Stevens et al (2002):
Method and results

Answer 17

Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALPAC): general population study of 14000 mothers and children since early pregnancy

• 3½ year-olds
• 6420 intact, two-parent families
• 283 lone-mother families (no resident male partner since 12 months of age), subdivided into those in which child had contact with father, and in which child had had NO contact with dad since 12 months old
• No differences in gender-role behaviour between lone-mother families with/without contact, and two-parent families
• This suggests that whether or not dad is present or absent doesn’t really appear to have an impact on the way that, gender types behaviors develop.

Question 18

The Role of Siblings

Answer 18

Both social learning and cognitive theories are consistent with children being influenced by having same- or other-sex siblings (e.g., siblings can provide examples of gender-related behaviour from which to develop gender-schemas, and can act as reinforcers of gender-related behaviour)

Question 19

Golombok, Hines, & Johnston (2000):

Answer 19

3-year-olds with older sibling:
~527 boys with older sister
~582 girls with older sister
~500 girls with older brother
~550 boys with older brother

1665 girls & 1707 boys without siblings

• Sex of older sibling was associated with gender-role behaviour of the younger sibling
• boys with older brother, & girls with older sisters were more gender-typed than children with other-sex siblings
• having an older brother was associated with more masculine behaviour and less feminine behaviour for both boys and girls
• boys with an older sister were more feminine but not less masculine
• girls and an older sister were less masculine but not more feminine

Theres perhaps more freedom for girls to express more masculine traits compared to boys

Therefore it does matter whether you have a sibling and what gender they are (but this doesn’t capture the siblings’ preferences)

Question 20

McHale, Updegraff, Helms-Erikson, & Crouter (2001)
Method

Answer 20

• Longitudinal study of sibling (N=198, 2 siblings, mean ages 10 years 9 months, and 8 years 3 months) and parental influence
• Assessed parents’ and children’s gender-role attitudes, personality characteristics, and gender-stereotyped interests/activities

Question 21

McHale, Updegraff, Helms-Erikson, & Crouter (2001)
Results

Answer 21

• For second-born siblings (younger siblings), greater evidence for sibling influences than for parent influences. First-born siblings’ qualities in Year 1 of study predicted gender-role attitudes, personality characteristics and interests of second-born sibling in Year 3 of study, even when controlling for parent influences.
• For first-born siblings, there was more evidence of parental influence (and less evidence of sibling influence) compared to the second-born sibling), i.e., first-born siblings become increasingly less like their siblings (de-identification process of sibling influence)

Sum- parents have a direct impact on first born child and then this child has a greater impact on the younger child

Question 22

McHale et al (2001) explored the role that parents and siblings have on gender stereotyped behaviour and found that for second born children the characteristics of their ________ was more important than the characteristics of their ______ in predicting gendered characteristics

Answer 22

Older siblings
Parents