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Educational Psychology
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Young children's classification, stereotyping and play behaviour for gender
neutral and ambiguous toys
Isabelle D. Cherneya; Jessica Dempseyb
a Department of Psychology, Creighton University, Omaha, USA b Department of Psychology,
University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, USA
First published on: 28 July 2010
To cite this Article Cherney, Isabelle D. and Dempsey, Jessica(2010) 'Young children's classification, stereotyping and play
behaviour for gender neutral and ambiguous toys', Educational Psychology, 30: 6, 651 — 669, First published on: 28 July
2010 (iFirst)
To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/01443410.2010.498416
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410.2010.498416
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Educational Psychology
Vol. 30, No. 6, October 2010, 651–669
ISSN 0144-3410 print/ISSN 1469-5820 online
© 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/01443410.2010.498416
http://www.informaworld.com
Young children’s classification, stereotyping and play behaviour for
gender neutral and ambiguous toys
Isabelle D. Cherneya* and Jessica Dempseyb
aDepartment of Psychology, Creighton University, Omaha, USA; bDepartment of Psychology,
University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, USA
Taylor and FrancisCEDP_A_498416.sgm10.1080/01443410.2010.498416
(Received 20 October 2009; final version received 1 June 2010)
Educational Psychology0144-3410 (print)/1469-5820 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis0000000002010IsabelleCherneycherneyi@creighton.edu
Developmental intergroup theory would predict that children develop fewer or
weaker stereotypes about toys that have less distinguishable gender attributes than
those that are clearly associated with a gender. The purpose of this study was to
investigate the role of neutral and ambiguous toys in 31 three- to five-year-old
children’s play behaviour and understanding about gender. Overall, children did
not categorise more perceptually salient (ambiguous) toys than less
distinguishable (neutral) toys to their own gender. Colour was the most frequently
used reason for the toys’ gender assignment. The findings also showed that with
age, girls’ play complexity increased linearly, whereas boys’ scores did not. A
play substitution scale measuring play creativity or maturity showed no gender
differences. The discussion highlights the role of perceptual salience in sex-
dimorphic toy preferences and behaviour and their application to educational
issues.
Keywords: developmental; preschool; gender stereotype
Introduction
Interaction with toys can be seen as one of the gateways to many aspects of
children’s socialisation and cognitive development in early childhood. As children
are socialised by parents, peers or teachers, they begin to develop categories about
gender that lead to the development of gender roles and gender stereotypes. These
early behaviours are important because they may be precursors of later behaviours
(Green, Bigler, & Catherwood, 2004), and they may influence adult occupational
choices. For example, research suggests that playing with masculine toys influences
the development of spatial skills (e.g. Blakemore & Centers, 2005; Signorella,
Jamison, & Krupa, 1989), which in turn may affect occupational choices (Cherney,
2008). These findings are particularly important for early childhood teachers who
play an important role in the development of boys’ and girls’ gender roles, and who
are instrumental in affording differential opportunities to girls and boys through the
use of gendered toys. Furthermore, causal explanations for gender differentiation in
toy play can shed some light on an essential goal of psychology: the understanding
of the interaction between biology and environment. There have been no published
*Corresponding author. Email: cherneyi@creighton.edu
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652 I.D. Cherney and J. Dempsey
meta-analyses of gender differences in play, interests and time use. Developmental
change in children’s activities and toy play is very difficult to study because the
specific toys and activities that appeal to children change with age (Blakemore,
Berenbaum, & Liben, 2009). Researchers have typically used toys as tools to elicit
various behaviours, but few have examined how toys elicit gendered behaviours,
reasoning about gender and play complexity. Thus, the purpose of the present study
was to examine young children’s gendered reasoning and play behaviour with
gender neutral and ambiguous toys.
According to Blakemore et al. (2009), there are two major kinds of cognitive
approaches to gender development: cognitive-environmental and developmental-
constructivist. Cognitive-environmental approaches focus on the role parents and
peers have in modelling and reinforcing gender-appropriate behaviours, whereas
developmental-constructivist approaches focus on the constructive processes individ-
uals use to create gender concepts and behaviours. Gender constructivist theories posit
that children’s play behaviour is guided by gender schemas that contain information
about gender-appropriate objects and activities (Liben & Bigler, 2002). A key element
of gender development theories is an emphasis on developmental features of gender-
typing. The literature suggests that the relative strength or rigidity of gender-related
knowledge and behaviour changes across development (Martin, Ruble, & Szkrybalo,
2002). For example, research shows that gender stereotyping about the kinds of toys
or activities associated with males and females emerges between two and four years
of age, reaches a peak of rigidity between five and seven years, and shows greater
flexibility during middle childhood (Serbin, Powlishta, & Gulko, 1993), but may
intensify once again during adolescence (Ruble & Martin, 1998).
Boys and girls begin making gender-typed toy selections by 18–20 months of
age (e.g. Caldera, Huston, & O’Brien, 1989; Cherney, Kelly-Vance, Glover, Ruane,
& Ryalls, 2003; O’Brien & Huston 1985). By two to three years they have begun to
form stereotypes about gender-related activities (e.g. boys like to play with cars),
traits (e.g. boys are loud) and future roles (e.g. girls will become nurses) (e.g. Fagot,
1974). They also have acquired gender identity and can accurately label pictures of
girls and boys (Campbell, Shirley, & Caygill, 2002). By the age of three, they
display knowledge of gender stereotypes for toys and gender roles (Cherney,
Harper, & Winter, 2006; Edelbrock & Sugawara, 1978). Fagot and Leinbach (1989)
showed that children, who gender stereotype objects and behaviours according to
familial interactions at an early age, remain more aware of cultural stereotypes at the
age of four. Bem (1983) found that by the age of four to five, children prefer friends
of their own sex and activities that are deemed to be appropriate for their own
gender. At the same age, children display the ‘hot potato effect’ (Blakemore &
Centers, 2005). That is, gender roles become so influential that children avoid toys
that they like if those are considered to be appropriate for the opposite sex. Children
determine appropriate or inappropriate gender-related behaviours or ways of
responding to their environment as either male or female very early in life. Accord-
ing to Martin and Halverson’s (1981) gender schema theory, as soon as children
have the ability to label themselves and others as males or females (i.e. when they
have acquired gender identity), they are ready to respond to and categorise informa-
tion on the basis of culturally reinforced gender roles. Because children live in a
sex-typed world, this process results in schemata that guide the choices of ‘sex-
appropriate’ behaviours and the knowledge of the action patterns necessary for
carrying them out. Schema formation depends on the child’s own mental effort and
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Educational Psychology 653
developmental status, but the information being processed reflects the child’s experi-
ence with sex-typing (Fagot & Leinbach, 1989). Although viewpoints differ slightly
as to the specific components of gender schemata, most researchers agree that
gender-schematic processing consists of both a knowledge component and an affec-
tive, value-laden, motivational component (e.g. Fagot & Leinbach, 1993; Levy &
Carter, 1989; Liben & Signorella, 1993; Martin & Halverson, 1981; Signorella,
Bigler, & Liben, 1993; Stangor & Ruble, 1987; Welch-Ross & Schmidt, 1996).
From this perspective, once a child accepts membership in a gender group, he or she
comes to value and adopt the social role associated with his or her own gender label,
and this gender role includes preferences for toys.
Besides gender schema theory, other developmental-constructivist theories have
been proposed to explain the development of gender-typed thinking. A recent theory,
the developmental intergroup theory (DIT), explains how social stereotypes and prej-
udice are shaped by and constructed from the environment (Bigler & Liben, 2006,
2007). DIT begins with the observation that social categories play an important role
in how people think about themselves as well as how they think about and interact
with others. Social group categories are important because they provide the founda-
tion for constructs like in-group, out-group, own-sex schemas and gender stereotypes.
DIT proposes that there are two broad factors that impact the emergence of stereo-
types and prejudice: one is linked to the environmental settings the child experiences,
and the other one is linked to the constructive processes associated with the child’s
developing cognitive skills. Bigler and Liben (2006) proposed that one of the key
processes involved in the formation of stereotypes was the establishment of psycho-
logical salience of person attributes. However, these attributes of people (such as skin
colour, sex, body build, etc.) do not automatically carry psychological salience, but
instead have to be made salient in some way. For instance, when individuals use
explicit labelling or have distinguishable personal attributes, stereotypes are more
likely to develop. In other words, the mere act of categorisation triggers processes
involved in the construction of social stereotypes (Bigler & Liben, 2007). Another
factor that makes something relevant is the degree to which it is perceptually distin-
guishable or easy to see. Thus, when children choose which toy belongs to which
gender category, they form a social stereotype. The stereotype presumably develops
more easily with gendered toys that have been explicitly reinforced or that have
perceptually salient characteristics. However, it is unclear how stereotypes might
develop with neutral or ambiguously gendered toys. For example, ‘ambiguous’ toys,
which are toys that possess characteristics of both sexes (e.g. a pink airplane: the
colour is associated with the feminine gender and the toy’s function is associated with
the masculine gender), provide mixed messages to children about which is the appro-
priate toy category while neutral toys do not possess attributes suggesting one gender
or the other.
Children tend to display preferences for gendered toys. These preferences are
likely influenced by both biological and environmental factors. Alexander (2003)
reported that toy preference might be related to prenatal androgen levels in the
womb. Berenbaum and Hines (1992) found that girls exposed to higher levels of
androgen were more likely to play with masculine toys. Environmental factors, such
as family, peers and media, also influence children’s toy choices. For example,
parents tend to reinforce children’s play with same-sex toys rather than with oppo-
site-sex toys (Caldera et al., 1989). They also typically buy gender-appropriate toys
and influence the play of their children by modelling which toys are more
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654 I.D. Cherney and J. Dempsey
acceptable. These findings and children’s knowledge of gender stereotypes may
explain why even when parental interactions are controlled for, children still play
longer with same-sex toys than opposite-sex toys (Caldera et al., 1989).
Overall, boys engage in stronger same-sex toy preferences compared to girls
(Carter & Levy, 1988). Several studies indicate that boys display gender-typing earlier
(Blakemore, LaRue, & Olejnik, 1979) and are less flexible in their toy choices and
play behaviours (e.g. Ashton, 1983; Kourilsky & Campbell, 1984). In other words,
boys tend to avoid play with feminine toys, whereas girls do not mind playing with
masculine toys (e.g. Bussey, 1983; Green, Bigler, & Catherwood, 2004). Similarly,
studies indicate that girls show more variability in masculine and feminine toy play
than boys. For example, Wood, Desmarais, and Gugula (2002) showed that girls
displayed more flexibility and engaged in playing with feminine and neutral toys for
an equal amount of time, whereas boys spent the majority of the time playing with
masculine toys. Similarly, in a series of studies girls showed more variability in
masculine and feminine toy play and a greater behavioural change following the read-
ing of counterstereotyped vignettes than did boys (Cherney, 2009; Cherney, McKillip,
& Villanueva, 2009; Green et al., 2004).
Children’s reasoning about sex-typed toys is influenced by egocentric thinking,
and perceptual gender associations. For example, Cherney, Harper, and Winter (2006)
showed three- to five-year-old children pictures of toys and asked them to identify
which toys were for boys or for girls and to provide a reason why. Similar to Carter
and Levy (1988), their findings indicated that older children and boys demonstrated
stronger own-sex stereotype preferences than younger children and girls. In terms of
reasoning, 24% of the children used egocentric thinking: the toy was masculine (or
feminine) because he (she) liked playing with the toy and because he (she) is a boy
(girl), therefore it had to be a ‘boy toy’ (‘girl toy’). Nineteen percent of the responses
were classified as ‘gender association’. For example, Dora the Explorer swimming
pool would be commonly labelled as a ‘girl’s toy’ because ‘Dora is a girl’. The
egocentric pattern implies that children develop abstract theories about gender that go
beyond the explicit gender knowledge they may have acquired. On the one hand, they
may form a theory of group differences (what one sex likes, the other dislikes), and
on the other hand, they may form a theory of group similarities (what an individual of
one sex likes, other individuals of that sex also like). The formation of gender stereo-
types is evident in a study on the role of attractive toys in gender labelling. Martin,
Eisenbud, and Rose (1995) showed that attractive toys were less appealing to children
if they were labelled for the opposite sex. In addition, children reported that they
expected other children to feel the same way and to be less interested in toys that were
deemed for the opposite sex, regardless of how attractive the toy was. Thus, children
reliably prefer toys deemed appropriate to their sex.
Children’s toys continue to be differentiated with respect to gender (e.g.
Campenni, 1999; Miller, 1987) and different perceptual features appear to categorise
male-preferred and female-preferred objects. For example, Miller (1987) found that
the toys stereotyped as feminine typically included domestically oriented toys and
stuffed toys which were rated as attractive, creative and nurturing. Caldera et al.
(1989) demonstrated that feminine-stereotyped toys led to closer proximal play among
toddlers, and they led to more verbal interactions with the toys and communicative
play. It has also been shown that girls are encouraged more than boys to play with toys
that allow for collaborative role playing, such as play food sets (Leaper, 2000). In
contrast, boys’ toys typically included vehicles, balls, guns and construction toys,
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Educational Psychology 655
which were judged to be more competitive, aggressive, constructive and conducive to
moving in space than feminine toys (Miller, 1987).
Considering the extent to which toys are a part of children’s lives, it is rather
surprising that so little research has been devoted to the study of their impact on
children’s behaviour and on the development of their social and cognitive skills
(Blakemore & Centers, 2005). One study that examined how toys might impact
behaviour showed that complexity of play differed depending on the gender of the toy.
In their study, Cherney et al. (2003) used masculine, feminine or neutral toys and eval-
uated the children’s level of play complexity on a scale of 1–4. Based on the number
of play sequences with each toy, a score of 1 demonstrated a low level of play
complexity and a score of 4 the highest level of complexity. Their findings showed
that feminine toys (e.g. kitchen set) were the most likely to elicit the highest play
complexity scores in both girls and boys and that the level of complexity increased
with age. Because boys tend to adhere more strongly to their own-sex stereotypes and
avoid toys that breach their gender norms, they may be at a higher risk of less expo-
sure to the toys that have the potential to elicit higher levels of play complexity.
Because play complexity is assumed to mirror cognitive functioning in children, boys
may appear more cognitively delayed than they actually are. In addition, play assess-
ment is frequently conducted using play sequencing as a measure of cognitive devel-
opment, thus placing boys at a possible disadvantage. At the same time, it is important
to note that in a toy survey adults judged neutral and moderately masculine toys as
having the greatest positive influence on child development (Blakemore, 2003).
Masculine toys were deemed to stimulate intellectual and scientific skills more than
other toys. Taken together, these differences suggest that children’s toys may be
differentiated reliably along particular qualitative dimensions that bear a theoretical
relationship to cognitive development. Thus, it is important to further explore chil-
dren’s gender-linked toy preferences and their effect on behaviour.
The purpose of the present study was to explore the effects of ambiguous and neutral
toys on children’s play and gender reasoning. DIT theory (Bigler & Liben, 2006) would
predict that children establish psychological salience first before they categorise based
on the salient dimension. This perceptual salience may be more difficult to establish
with neutral toys as they do not display apparent gendered characteristics as gendered
toys do. The difficulty with ambiguous toys could be that girls and boys may be drawn
more to one characteristic of the toy than another. Presumably, boys would be more
drawn to a toy’s masculine aspects than its feminine ones, whereas girls would be more
drawn to a toy’s feminine aspects than its masculine ones. Cherney et al. (2003) showed
that feminine toys elicited the highest levels of play complexity for both girls and boys.
Hypotheses
Play
Consistent with prior research, boys were hypothesised to play more frequently with
masculine toys and toys they would consider masculine than with feminine toys and
toys they would consider feminine. Girls were expected to be less stereotyped in their
play than boys. Stereotyped play was expected to increase with age (e.g. Martin et al.,
2002). Older children were hypothesised to play longer with gendered toys than
younger children. Based on Cherney et al.’s (2003) findings, it was also expected that
play complexity would increase with age. That is, a main effect of age on play
complexity scores was expected.
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656 I.D. Cherney and J. Dempsey
Reasoning
DIT theory (Bigler & Liben, 2006, 2007) would predict that perceptually distinguish-
able toys would be more salient and more likely to be stereotyped. Thus, it was
hypothesised that in a forced-choice paradigm ambiguous toys that had a perceptually
salient characteristic would more likely be categorised as stereotyped than perceptu-
ally less salient toys (i.e. neutral toys). Consistent with Cherney et al.’s (2006) find-
ings, children were expected to reason most frequently in terms of egocentricity and
gender association.
Method
Participants
Participants were 31 three- to five-year-old children (M = 51.72 months, SD =
10.27; range 37–68 months), including 19 boys (M = 50.07 months, SD = 9.22) and
12 girls (M = 53.81 months, SD = 11.58). There were 12 three-year-olds (M =
41.60 months, SD = 4.60), 11 four-year-olds (M = 54.22 months, SD = 5.02) and
eight five-year-olds (M = 64.83 months, SD = 2.40). Eighty-nine percent of the
children were Caucasian. Researchers obtained assent from parents to allow their
children to be videotaped for 10 minutes of play in a playroom setting that travelled
to two different childcare facilities in a US Midwestern town. These centres were
chosen because it was previously established that they did not own any of the toys
that were used in the study. Ethical guidelines of the American Psychological
Association were followed.
Materials
Eleven age-appropriate, sex-stereotyped toys (one male, one female, four neutral and
five ambiguous) were used to examine gender-stereotyping, decision-making, play
complexity and reasoning of the participants. Toy selection was based on previous
studies (Blakemore & Centers, 2005; Cherney & Ryalls, 1999; Cherney et al., 2003,
2006), on the potential they had for eliciting complex play, the possibility to combine
the Little People and other accessories, and on adults’ gender classifications. Ten
adults (five male and five female researchers who worked in the play laboratory) iden-
tified each toy’s gender category on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = very masculine,
through 4 = neutral, to 7 = very feminine. They also categorised the toys based on their
potential for complex play. Four neutral toys (a yellow mid-sized Little People School
Bus; a red Little People Animal Sounds Farm that consists of a silo and American
farm house; a multicoloured Little People Time-To-Learn Preschool which consists of
a semi-circular red and white school house wall that stands on a circular mat that
contains drawings of coloured numbers and outdoor equipment; a Just Like Home
Electronic Cash Register with a small conveyor belt on the left and a scanner on the
right of the register) did not have any characteristic features that would define the toy
as either a male- or a female-stereotyped toy and had a mean rating of 4.02, SD = 0.03.
Five ambiguous toys (a Fisher Price Medical Kit that had a stethoscope, thermometer,
plastic syringe and blood pressure pump in a blue cloth handbag, a Lil Movers pink
Airplane, a blue and red Just Like Home Microwave Oven, a Little People Pirate Ship
with a bedroom and living room inside the boat, and a Grace 3-in-1 Electronic Doll
Travel Seat with a black doll dressed in black and red inside) had mixed gendered
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Educational Psychology 657
characteristics. For example, the airplane, a typically masculine toy, was pink and
purple, two colours associated with the female gender. The mean ambiguous rating
was 3.88, SD = 0.06. In addition, one masculine- (a grey Little People Kingdom Castle
with a tower) and one feminine-stereotyped toy (a red and white Little People Sweet
Home with several rooms and a bathroom) were included. All toys were brought to
each centre and placed on a blanket on the floor that designated the play area. The
child’s behaviours and speech were recorded using a digital video camera.
Prior to the experiment, parents were asked to complete a background question-
naire regarding their child’s familiarity with the toys used in the study. This back-
ground questionnaire inquired about the length of play their child engages in with toys
on a daily basis, their child’s favourite toys, their child’s access to gender-specific
toys, and their child’s interactions with same and opposite-sexed peers. Finally,
parents also rated the 11 toys used in this study for how likely their child was to enjoy
the toy on a scale of 1–10 (1 = does not like the toy; 5 = neutral, 10 = loves the toy)
and indicated whether or not they had a similar toy at home.
Procedure
Parents were recruited through letters distributed by mail or in person at two local
childcare centres. The study took place at the child care facilities, set up in a separate
room away from other toys and other children. The 11 toys included in this study were
systematically placed in a circle on the floor on a white blanket to designate the play
area and all of the toy accessories (e.g. people, animals, food and kitchen utensils)
were arranged along the back end of the blanket to allow the child to select different
types of accessories. Therefore, the accessories were not placed with the toy that they
originally belonged to, which better allowed the child to choose what toys to combine.
One at a time, a child was brought into the play space and told, ‘Look at all of these
toys. You can play with any of them that you want to.’ For the next 10 minutes, the
child engaged in free play, while the trained researcher videotaped the play but did not
engage in play with the child. The researcher could repeat the child’s verbalisations or
provide generic praise (e.g. ‘good job’), but was not to direct the child to any specific
toy or play behaviour. If a child did not engage in play behaviours, the researcher
simply asked, ‘What else can you play with?’ The parents were not present during this
study.
At the end of the free play period, the child was asked to categorise each toy as
either a ‘girl toy’ or ‘boy toy’ and to provide a reason for that categorisation. The child
was not given a third choice of a ‘boy or girl toy’ option; however, if the child inde-
pendently provided this answer, it was counted as a separate classification.
Results
Coding
The video recordings were transcribed and coded for the children’s toy selection,
reasoning, play complexity, toy substitution and gender categorisations by four previ-
ously trained researchers who were blind to the hypotheses. The play sessions were
described for every 30 seconds of play. Interrater reliability was established by exam-
ining 50% of the transcripts (
κ
= 0.92). Any disagreements were discussed among the
experimenters and reconciled. Children’s play was coded on two separate scales: play
complexity and play substitution.
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658 I.D. Cherney and J. Dempsey
Consistent with Cherney et al. (2003), each child’s play complexity (scheme)
during unstructured play scenarios was coded from a transcript to provide a measure
of developmental level. The ratings ranged from 0 to 4. A play complexity score of 0
was assigned if the child simply touched a toy or briefly talked about it. An evalua-
tion of one was assigned if the child manipulated the toy, but did not add anything
from the accessory pile and did not incorporate it with other toys. For instance, a
score of 1 was given when the child simply pressed buttons on the microwave and
opened it. An evaluation of two was assigned if the child added a toy from the
accessory pile or incorporated it with another toy, regardless of whether the acces-
sory belonged to that toy. Therefore, a score of 2 was given for two or three multi-
scheme combinations of short sequences with the same toy. For example, a score of 2
was given when the child picked up a ‘Little People girl’ from the accessory pile and
put her in the airplane. An evaluation of 3 was assigned if the child incorporated a
total of four or five multi-scheme combinations of play sequences. For instance, a
rating of 3 was assigned when ‘the participant took a “Little People girl” away from
ponies (from accessory pile) and put her on the airplane. The participant then took
another girl off a pony and put her on the plane. Next, the participant ran the pony
behind the airplane that was being flown around.’ Finally, an evaluation of 4 was
assigned if a child incorporated six or more multi-scheme combinations in a logical
order.
The play substitution scale was based on what accessories the child incorporated
into the play sequence. It was designed to measure innovative play or maturity of play.
Raters identified the type of toy that was added to the play to determine if it was asso-
ciated with the toy (e.g. adding a pirate to the pirate ship) or if the pairing would
suggest innovative or creative play (e.g. adding a fork to the pirate ship). Ratings
ranged from 0 to 4. An evaluation of 0 was assigned when the child did not add any
new accessories. A rating of 4 was assigned when the child added one unassociated
accessory. Examples were when ‘the participant took a non-food accessory and put it
into the microwave oven’ or ‘the participant picked up the lettuce from the accessory
pile and put it into the cannon of the pirate ship’. A rating of 2 was assigned when the
child added two different accessories to the same toy, a rating of 3 for three accesso-
ries, and finally a rating of 4 when the child added four or more non-associated acces-
sories to one toy.
Analyses
Playtime
The play time was summed for each toy across age and sex. Overall, boys and girls
played with toys for approximately 22,473 seconds or 374.55 minutes. On average, chil-
dren played for 12.08 minutes (SD = 0.84) (range: 1.6–15.61). Boys (M = 11.63, SD
= 2.75) and girls (M = 12.81, SD = 1.96) did not differ in their amount of playtime,
t(29) = −1.29, ns. There were also no significant differences in playtime among the
three age groups, F(2,28) = 1.54, ns. Overall, children manipulated an average of 8.3
toys (SD = 5.91). There were no sex differences, t(29) < 1, ns. On average, boys manip-
ulated 8.6 toys (SD = 5.81) and girls 7.83 toys (SD = 6.29). There were also no age
differences, F(2,28) = 1.01, ns. On average, three-year-olds manipulated 10.16 toys (SD
= 6.57), four-year-olds 7.55 toys (SD = 5.01) and five-year-olds 6.62 toys (SD = 5.99).
Analyses on the total time played for each gender category showed that on average
children played 1518 seconds with neutral toys, 1422 seconds with ambiguous toys,
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Educational Psychology 659
2607 seconds with the masculine toy and 1553 seconds with the feminine toy.
Separate analyses for each toy showed that children played the longest with the cash
register, both in mean time played and total time played, followed by the castle, and
microwave (see Table 1 for a complete list). The toy that drew the least attention was
the doll.
Consistent with prior research (e.g. Blakemore & Centers, 2005), boys were
hypothesised to play more frequently with toys they considered masculine than with
toys they considered feminine. Table 2 shows the percentage of time that boys and girls
categorised the toys into boy and girl toys. Although no child was given the choice to
choose both sexes, children often insisted that it was for both. This third category was
thus created. Overall, children categorised three toys as feminine: the airplane (75%),
the house (72.4%) and the doll (55.5%). Two toys were categorised as masculine: the
pirate’s ship (78.6%) and the barn (64.3%). If a toy was categorised less than 50% of
the time as either sex, but it was categorised more than 20% of the time as ‘both’, the
toy was classified as ambiguous. Four toys fell into that category: the medical kit, the
microwave, the bus and the castle. Finally, toys that were neither masculine nor femi-
nine and were categorised less than 20% of the time as ‘both’ were classified as neutral:
two toys fell into that category, the cash register and the preschool. Boys categorised
6 out of the 11 toys as masculine: the pirate ship, the cash register, the barn, the castle,
the bus and the preschool. They categorised 2 out of the 11 toys as feminine: the
airplane and the house. On average, boys played 651.13 seconds with the toys they
considered masculine and 307.07 seconds with the toys they considered feminine.
Girls categorised 7 out of the 11 toys as feminine: the airplane, the doll, the microwave,
the cash register, the preschool, the castle and the house. Two of the toys were consid-
ered feminine: the pirate’s ship and the barn. On average, girls played 518.35 seconds
with toys they considered feminine and 209 seconds with toys they considered mascu-
line. Table 3 shows the proportional number of times each age group and sex played
with the top three toys. On average, three-year-old children were more likely to spend
time playing with neutral and ambiguous toys, whereas four- and five-year-olds were
more likely to play with the gendered toys. Girls were more likely to play with the two
Table 1. Average time in seconds (minutes) played with each toy.
Toy
Mean time played
(minutes)
Total time played
(minutes) Gender of toy
Cash register 104.97 (1.75) 4275 (71.25) N
Castle 76.88 (1.28) 2607 (43.45) M
Microwave 64.02 (1.07) 2323 (38.72) A
Pirate ship 63.11 (1.05) 2159 (35.98) A
Airplane 62.04 (1.03) 1369 (22.82) A
Preschool 48.90 (0.82) 1072 (17.86) N
Medical kit 45.74 (0.76) 1098 (18.30) A
Barn 23.68 (0.39) 225 (3.75) N
House 22.23 (0.37) 1553 (25.88) F
Bus 16.29 (0.27) 500 (8.33) N
Doll 12.29 (0.20) 159 (2.65) A
Notes: Adult coded: A = ambiguous toy; N = neutral toy; M = masculine toy; F = feminine toy.
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660 I.D. Cherney and J. Dempsey
Table 2. Percentage of gendered toy decisions by sex.
Toy decision
Toy gender (adult
categorisation) Masculine Feminine Both genders
Toy Boys (%) Girls (%) Boys (%) Girls (%) Boys (%) Girls (%)
Airplane A 12 08 76 75 12 16
Doll A 50 33 50 58 00 08
Medical kit A 44 33 27 42 27 25
Microwave A 47 33 24 58 29 08
Pirate ship A 82 75 05 16 12 08
Barn N 71 58 05 25 23 16
Bus N 59 42 24 25 18 33
Cash register N 76 16 12 58 12 25
Preschool N 53 25 29 66 18 08
Castle M 59 25 12 66 29 08
House F 22 08 72 75 05 16
Notes: A = ambiguous toy; N = neutral toy; M = masculine toy; F = feminine toy.
Table 3. Proportional number of times children played with the top three toys by age
categorised by adults and children.
Age Sex Toy N
Toy gender
adults
Toy gender
children
3-year-old Boys Cash register 0.22 N M
Airplane 0.11 A F
Pirate ship 0.11 A M
Girls Microwave 0.18 A A
Cash register 0.17 N N
Bus 0.13 N N
4-year-old Boys Cash register 0.25 N N
Microwave 0.20 A A
Pirate ship 0.14 A M
Girls House 0.27 F F
Castle 0.19 M N
Cash register 0.15 N N
5-year-old Boys Pirate ship 0.19 A M
Castle 0.15 M A
Airplane 0.13 A F
Girls Castle 0.25 M A
House 0.25 F F
Notes: A = ambiguous toy; N = neutral toy; M = masculine toy; F = feminine toy.
Children’s categorisation: 50% and more categorised as one gender = masculine or feminine.
If less than 50%, but more than 20% in ‘both genders’ = ambiguous toy.
If less than 50%, and less than 20% in ‘both genders’ = neutral toy.
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Educational Psychology 661
gendered toys (house and castle) than with other toys. Thus, the hypothesis that stereo-
typed play would increase with age was partially confirmed.
Play complexity
It was expected that play complexity would increase with age, with five-year-olds
demonstrating more complex play than three-year-olds, regardless of sex. A 2 (sex) ×
3 (age) ANOVA on the play complexity scores showed a significant main effect of
age, F(2,24) = 12.12, p < 0.001,
η
2 = 0.50, a main effect of sex, F(1,24) = 17.39, p <
0.001,
η
2 = 0.42, and a significant interaction, F(2,24) = 4.46, p = 0.023,
η
2 = 0.27.
Figure 1 shows the significant interaction. As hypothesised, five-year-olds displayed
significantly higher play complexity than both three- and four-year-olds. Furthermore,
four-year-olds displayed higher play complexity scores than three-year-olds, F(2,27)
= 5.36, p = 0.01 (Tukey HSD, p < 0.05). On average, boys (M = 1.43, SD = 0.56) were
demonstrating significantly lower play complexity than girls (M = 2.16, SD = 0.98),
t(28) = −2.60, p = 0.015. Table 4 shows the highest levels of play complexity achieved
by each sex, age and toy. As can be seen, the highest play complexity was demon-
strated with the castle, where both male and female four-year-olds reached a maxi-
mum play complexity score of four. Five-year-old girls also showed high play
complexity with the castle, the medical kit, and the house. Three-year-old boys
showed high play complexity with the pirate ship and three-year-old girls with the
medical kit, and four-year-old girls with the preschool. These findings support
the hypothesis that play complexity increases with age. This finding is a validation of
the play scale, suggesting that it can be used again.
Figure 1. Mean play complexity scores by age and sex.
Figure 1. Mean play complexity scores by age and sex.
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662 I.D. Cherney and J. Dempsey
Play substitution
A 2 (sex) × 3 (age) ANOVA on the play substitution scores showed no main effect of
sex, age or interaction although there was a significant difference between the play
substitution scores of four- (M = 0.11, SD = 0.14) and five-year-olds (M = 0.53, SD =
0.83) (p = 0.05) (see Figure 2). In terms of play substitution scores for each toy, the
highest scores were reached by three-year-old girls playing with the medical kit and
three-year-old boys with the microwave. Four-year-old boys showed a high play
substitution with the pirate ship.
Figure 2. Mean play complexity and play substitution scores by age.
Reasoning
DIT theory (Bigler & Liben, 2006, 2007) would predict that perceptually distin-
guishable toys would be more salient and more likely to be stereotyped. Thus, it
was hypothesised that toys that had a perceptually salient characteristic (ambiguous
toys) would more likely be categorised as stereotyped than perceptually less salient
toys (neutral toys). On average, 55.87% of the ambiguous and neutral toys were
labelled by boys as masculine and 26.95% as feminine (see Figure 3). Girls cate-
gorised ambiguous and neutral toys as feminine 46.64% of the time, and 35.83% as
masculine. Table 2 shows the breakdown of the gendered decisions. Using the adult
categorisation, the results do not confirm the hypothesis. Boys were more likely to
categorise neutral toys (64.75%) than ambiguous toys (47%) as masculine. Girls did
not differ in their categorisation of ambiguous (49.8%) and neutral (43.5%) toys as
feminine. Using the children’s categorisation, the results were similar: boys were
more likely to identify neutral toys (64.5%) than ambiguous toys (52.25%) as
Table 4. Highest level of play complexity (and substitution) by toy, age and sex.
Age
3-year-olds 4-year-olds 5-year-olds
Toy Boys Girls Boys Girls Boys Girls
Airplane 3 (0) 2 (1) 3 (1) 3 (0) 3 (0) 2 (0)
Doll 3 (0)
Medical kit 3 (0) 4 (4) 0 (0) 3 (2) 4 (0)
Microwave 3 (4) 3 (1) 3 (1) 0 (0) 3 (0)
Pirate ship 4 (3) 3 (1) 2 (4) 2 (1) 3 (1) 3 (2)
Barn 2 (0) 2 (1) 0 (0) 3 (1) 2 (0)
Bus 2 (0) 3 (2) 2 (0) 1 (0)
Cash register 2 (0) 1 (0) 2 (1) 3 (0) 3 (0) 1 (0)
Preschool 2 (2) 1 (0) 1 (0) 4 (1) 2 (0)
Castle 1 (0) 3 (1) 4 (0) 4 (0) 3 (3) 4 (0)
House 1 (0) 1 (0) 2 (1) 3 (0) 1 (1) 4 (2)
Notes: Play complexity: 1 = child manipulates the toy without adding an accessory; 2 = child adds two or
three accessories, playing with the same toy using two or three multi-scheme combinations; 3 = child
incorporates four or five multi-scheme combinations of play sequences; 4 = child incorporates six or more
multi-scheme combinations in a logical order. Play substitution: (0) = child does not add any new
accessory; (1) = child adds one unassociated accessory; (2) = child adds two different accessories to the
same toy; (3) = child adds three different accessories to the same toy; (4) = child adds four different
accessories to the same toy.
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Educational Psychology 663
Figure 2. Mean play complexity and play substitution scores by age.Figure 2. Mean play complexity and play substitution scores by age.
Figure 3. Toy categorisation for neutral and ambiguous toys by sex in percentages.
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664 I.D. Cherney and J. Dempsey
masculine. Girls were more likely to classify neutral toys (62%) than ambiguous
toys (47.75%) as feminine.
Figure 3. Toy categorisation for neutral and ambiguous toys by sex in percentages.
Consistent with Cherney et al.’s (2006) findings, children were expected to reason
in terms of egocentricity and gender association. Overall, few children gave reasons
for their categorisation. The majority (73.8%) of those who reasoned about a toy’s
gender said ‘it just is’, or ‘because’. Of those who gave a reason for their decision, the
most frequently mentioned reasoning for ambiguous toys was the colour of the toy
(14.7%) (e.g. the airplane was considered feminine because of its pink and purple
colours). A few children reasoned in terms of gender association (8.8%) and sex role
(2.9%). Among neutral toys, 15% mentioned the colour and 5% the familiarity with
the toy. For the feminine toy, 37.5% of the children giving a reason mentioned the
colour and 12.5% a sex-related characteristic as the criterion for categorisation. Thus,
the hypothesis was not supported.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of neutral and ambiguous toys in
young children’s play behaviour and understanding about gender. Previous studies
have shown that boys and girls have stereotypes about what is appropriate for their
sex and the other sex early in life. These gender-linked preferences influence their toy
choices, reasoning and play behaviour. However, no research has previously
examined how ambiguous toys may influence the play and reasoning about gender of
three- to five-year-olds. In addition, researchers know little about the influence of
ambiguous and neutral toys on multi-schemed play (play complexity) and play
creativity or play maturity (play substitution). Because play is understood to mirror
cognitive development, it is important to assess children’s play with such toys.
Furthermore, school psychologists frequently use play to assess children’s cognitive
and social development because it is ecologically valid, leads directly into interven-
tions, and can be used as a means to monitor progress (Kelly-Vance & Ryalls, 2008).
It is crucial to understand what type of play behaviour certain toys may or may not
elicit to perform a valid assessment (Cherney et al., 2003). DIT (Bigler & Liben,
2006, 2007) would predict that children would develop fewer or weaker stereotypes
about toys that have less distinguishable gender attributes than those that are clearly
associated with a gender.
The present findings suggest that although there was no significant difference in
the amount of time spent playing with toys, boys’ and girls’ play differed in many
aspects and notably in their play complexity. With age, multi-schemed play
increased significantly for girls, but not for boys. On average, girls displayed signifi-
cantly higher levels of play sequencing than boys. In other words, girls tended to
play with toys in a more scripted way. This finding is similar to that of Cherney
et al. (2003). In their study, boys and girls tended to demonstrate the highest
complexity with feminine toys only. Because boys tend to avoid other-gendered
stereotyped toys, it is possible that in the present study their play showed lower
levels of play complexity than that of girls because of the types of toys available or
because they have less experience or familiarity with the types of toys that elicit
higher play complexity even though none of the children had any of the toys at
home or at the child care centre. The current study did not include enough feminine
toys to conclude that it is the gender of the toy that elicits complexity of play.
Furthermore, girls showed the highest level of multi-scheme play with four different
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Educational Psychology 665
toys (36%) that they did not all consider feminine. The toy that elicited the highest
play complexity for boys and girls was the castle, which was considered a masculine
toy by boys and a feminine toy by girls. Boys also showed high multi-scheme play
with the pirate ship, a toy they considered masculine. Girls showed high levels of
play complexity with the medical kit (which they considered neutral), the preschool
and the house which they considered feminine. These findings suggest that it is not
only the gender of the toy that may elicit complexity of play, but that the toy’s
possibilities for complex play and, to some extent, the familiarity with the toy may
also be important factors.
The boys’ play complexity pattern may be due to the small sample of five-year-
olds overall. It is also possible that the play complexity scale does not capture boys’
type of play accurately. The substitution scale (a measure of play creativity or
perhaps of play maturity) may present an alternative to measuring gendered play.
The analyses showed no gender-linked differences in the mean number of toy substi-
tutions made by boys and girls. It is interesting to note that even the youngest
children displayed high levels of substitution with certain toys. For example, three-
year-old girls demonstrated high levels of substitution when playing with the medical
kit and same aged boys displayed high levels of substitution when playing with the
microwave. Four-year-olds showed a low level of play substitution overall. This
finding may explain the age difference in substitution scores between four- and five-
year-olds. As with any new scale, it is important to validate the scale and to replicate
the study before any generalisations can be made. Overall, these findings suggest that
the substitution scale has the potential of demonstrating cognitive developmental
milestones in very young children. It may also eliminate potential gender-linked
differences that may arise due to the gender stereotype of toys.
Consistent with previous studies, boys showed strong stereotyped reasoning and
play. They were more likely to categorise ambiguous and neutral toys as being mascu-
line than feminine and they tended to play longer and more often with toys they
considered to be masculine. These findings are similar to other studies (e.g. Carter &
Levy, 1988; Cherney & Ryalls, 1999) that have shown that boys display a stronger
same-sex stereotype than girls. It is also consistent with Cherney et al.’s (2006) find-
ings that boys are more likely to categorise ambiguous toys as masculine than femi-
nine. Girls were less likely than boys to label ambiguous and neutral toys as belonging
to their own gender, even though they displayed gendered play as well. However, with
age, girls spent more time playing with gendered toys. They also tended to categorise
the toys with which they played the longest as feminine. For example, girls played the
longest with the house, castle and preschool set. These are toys they labelled as femi-
nine. It was the five-year-olds who tended to display the most stereotyped play,
confirming that stereotyped play increases during the preschool years (Serbin et al.,
1993). Presumably, as Blakemore and Centers (2005) suggested, older children
develop the ‘hot potato effect’. They become more aware of what is appropriate for
their own sex based on exposure to role models and, as DIT theory (Bigler & Liben,
2006) suggests, based on some salient dimension. The children’s reasoning suggests
that this perceptual salience may have been established based on colour and gender
association. The most frequently mentioned reason for assigning an ambiguous toy to
a particular gender was because of its gendered colour. This was particularly the case
for the pink and purple airplane. Pink has long been associated with the female gender
and blue with the male gender. Toy and card manufacturers exploit these colour
schemes, and children are all too familiar with this dichotomous categorisation.
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666 I.D. Cherney and J. Dempsey
Researchers suggest that these visual processing biases evolved and that preference
for red or pink appears to have an advantage for successful female reproduction
(Higley, Hopkins, Hirsch, Marra, & Suomi, 1987). In non-human primates, females
tend to prefer ‘reddish-pink’ to yellow or green presumably because infant faces
compared to adult faces are reddish-pink and may signify approach behaviours that
enhance infant survival. The house used in the present study was also predominantly
pink and was categorised as feminine. Previous studies have shown that in toy
choices, boys appear to assign greater attention to object movement and location,
whereas girls appear to assign greater attention to form and colour (Alexander, 2003).
In other words, female-preferred toys have been described as objects, like dolls, that
afford opportunities for nurturance (Miller, 1987) whereas male-preferred toys such
as vehicles have been described as objects with an ability to be used actively, and to
be observed moving in space (O’Brien & Huston, 1985). In the present study, the
types of toys that boys considered masculine were the pirate ship, the barn, the bus,
the cash register, the preschool and the castle. Except for the bus, these toys do not
involve much movement in space. The types of toys that girls considered feminine
were the house, the airplane, the doll, the microwave, the preschool and the castle. The
house, the doll and the microwave can be considered toys that promote nurturing
behaviour whereas the airplane, castle and preschool would not fit that category well.
Thus, as DIT predicts, it is important to consider perceptual salience as well as func-
tionality and familiarity when examining preschoolers’ play behaviour and stereotype
formation. In the present study, boys and girls did not categorise ambiguous toys into
a gender category more readily than neutral toys, as may have been expected from
DIT theory. Because the toys were commercially available, one could not exclude that
children had previously seen or played with some of the toys. Categorisation of the
toys into neutral and ambiguous classifications was also difficult, and adults’ categor-
isation did not completely match children’s categorisation. In addition, boys and girls
spontaneously created a ‘both genders’ category, indicating how difficult it was for
them to make a decision on some salient characteristic.
There are obvious limitations in this study. The sample was small and homoge-
nous, and there were unequal numbers of boys and girls in each age group. The toys
were chosen and rated by adults. Even though the toys had been chosen because of
their potential for creative play and their gender neutrality or gender ambiguity, not all
toys elicited high play complexity or play substitution. Although the toys were not
available at the two child centres, one cannot exclude that children were pressured to
play with or avoid certain toys or that they had been previously labelled as a ‘boy or
girl toy’. Similarly, boys and girls classified some toys into categories that were differ-
ent from those the adults had. This possible contradiction makes it more difficult to
generalise the findings beyond the toys used in the present study. It is also unclear
whether choosing an equal number of gendered toys would have changed the current
results. Future studies should validate the scales and examine whether the substitution
scale would yield similar results with highly gender-stereotyped toys.
The purpose of the present study was to explore the effects of ambiguous and neutral
toys on young children’s play and gender reasoning. DIT theory (Bigler & Liben, 2006,
2007) predicts that children establish psychological salience first before they categorise
based on the salient dimension. The results of the present study demonstrated that for
some ambiguous and neutral toys, the perceptual salience may have been a colour; for
others, it may have been a toy’s ability to be used actively or creatively. The findings
also suggest that play complexity may develop at different rates between boys and girls,
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Educational Psychology 667
regardless of the toy’s gender stereotype. Taken together, these findings confirm the
need for additional studies examining the development of gender stereotypes in toy use
and reasoning about toys, and the influence of visual processing biases on toy
preferences. Considering the extent to which toys are a part of children’s lives, it is
surprising that relatively little research has been devoted to the study of their impact
on children’s behaviour and on the development of their cognitive and social skills.
Furthermore, because play assessment procedures often involve the use of gendered
toys, it is crucial to establish a baseline of children’s preferences to accurately measure
their level of cognitive functioning.
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