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Relation of Preschool Sex-Typing to Intellectual Performance in Elementary School
Abstract
Children who had been observed in preschool when 3 yr. old using an observation schedule (Fagot & Patterson, 1969) consisting of 28 play behaviors were assigned interest scores on the basis of percent of time spent in the various activities. Masculinity scores were then computed on the basis of percentage of significantly preferred sex-typed behaviors. Several years later when one group was approximately 6 yr. old and the other group was approximately 10 yr. old, these same children were given the Children's Embedded-figures Test and rated by their own teachers on intellectual performance. Sex differences were present in the Embedded-figures Test with boys making fewer errors, but only on one variable, music, was there a significant teachers' rating. The relationship of preschool interest patterns to elementary school academic achievement and projected career choices suggested that the play choices in preschool have different meanings for boys and girls and therefore different consequences for later achievement.
... Pour Eisenberg, Murray, and Hite (1982), ces différences d'intérêt genrées pourraient être liées à la fonction, à l'utilisation de ces jouets. Ainsi ces jouets stéréotypés seraient associés à des activités qui influencent le développement de compétences cognitives sexuées, les poupées stimulant par exemple les comportements de soin et de maternage (Connor & Serbin, 1977;Fagot & Littman, 1976 ;Robert & Heroux, 2004 ;Serbin & Connor, 1979 ;Voyer, Nolan, & Voyer, 2000), le développement de traits de personnalité sexués (Eisenberg, Murray, & Hite, 1982) ainsi que le développement de patterns d'interactions sociales entre adultes (Maccoby, 1998). Serbin et al. ...
Les représentations culturelles associées au féminin et au masculin changent suivant les lieux et les époques. Le concept même de genre évolue et fait débat. Comme toute forme de catégorisation, les stéréotypes de genre tendent à nous enfermer dans une représentation forcément réductrice puisque l’individu est par nature singulier. Mais c’est également à travers les stéréotypes que se construit notre identité de genre. Le jeu est un vecteur majeur de la socialisation dans l’enfance, il nous est apparu une situation expérimentale de choix pour mettre « à l’épreuve » le comportement des parents et des enfants à l’égard des stéréotypes de genre. Notre étude est centrée sur l’observation d’interactions de jeu entre les parents et leurs enfants de trois ans. Trois jouets leur ont été proposés : un jouet stéréotypé féminin, un jouet stéréotypé masculin et un jouet considéré comme mixte. L’originalité de notre étude repose sur une analyse conjointe du contenu verbal des interactions et de la manipulation des jouets, associée à un test de catégorisation des jouets et à des questionnaires parentaux. Les résultats de cette recherche montrent que les parent se sont davantage orientés vers le jouet neutre par rapport aux enfants et que les pères l’ont davantage manipulé que que les mères. Il est probable que le contexte particulièrement prégnant de sensibilisation aux menaces que peuvent représenter les stéréotypes explique les incitations parentales observées. Les enfants se sont néanmoins orientés préférentiellement vers le jouet stéréotypique de leur sexe, manipulant peu le jouet neutre, et les garçons ont opéré des choix plus stéréotypés que les filles en première intention de jeu, comme cela a déjà été observé. L’analyse lexicométrique associée à la manipulation des jouets révèle, quant à elle, que la manipulation du jouet stéréotypé masculin, le garage de pompiers, s’accompagnait moins systématiquement de productions verbales, par rapport à la maison de poupées. Ce résultat nous amène naturellement à nous interroger sur le rôle que joue la socialisation genrée précoce dans le développement ultérieur d’habiletés différenciées.
... In addition, research with preschool children has found positive correlations between play with male-typical toys and spatial abilities (Fagot & Littman, 1976;Serbin & Connor, 1979). Concerning mental rotation in particular, a study with undergraduate students found an association between performance on a 3D mental rotation task and retrospectively recalled experience with spatial toys. ...
... Preschoolers who frequently engaged in "masculine" play activities have been shown to perform better on the Preschool Embedded Figures Test (PEFT) (spatial visualization) than those who spent less time in masculine activities (Fagot & Littman, 1976). After coding preschoolers' free play preferences as either masculine or feminine, found that boys' preferences for masculine activities was positively related to their performance on the PEFT, but not to their performance on the Block Design subtest of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (spatial visualization with mental rotation component). ...
Fifty-one preschoolers’ play preferences, skills at assembling block structures, and spatial abilities were recorded in this study. There were no sex differences in children’s visual-spatial skills, and play with art materials and children’s free and structured play with blocks were related to spatial visualisation. Two patterns emerged from the findings: (1) activity and performance representing skills in spatial visualisation and visual-motor coordination; and (2) creativity, or the ability to break set and to produce varied solutions using visual materials. Future research might examine the extent to which children’s play activities and experiences predict these types of skills.
... Significantly, unlike their real world counterparts, miniaturized objects marketed as toys can be easily manipulated and acted on by children and so provide unique opportunities for cognitive growth (for discussion, see Younger & Johnson, 2006). Consistent with this observation, others have suggested that the differential toy choices of boys and girls may support activities (e.g., play mothering, manipulation of objects) that influence the development of sex-linked cognitive abilities (Connor & Serbin, 1977;Fagot & Littman, 1976;Robert & Heroux, 2004;Serbin & Connor, 1979;Voyer, Nolan, & Voyer, 2000), sex-linked personality traits (Eisenberg, Murray, & Hite, 1982), and adult social interaction patterns (Maccoby, 1998). Therefore, understanding the ontogeny and development of toy preferences may have broad implications for theories of sex differences in human behavior. ...
Evidence indicating that sex-linked toy preferences exist in two nonhuman primate species support the hypothesis that developmental sex differences such as those observed in children's object preferences are shaped in part by inborn factors. If so, then preferences for sex-linked toys may emerge in children before any self-awareness of gender identity and gender-congruent behavior. In order to test this hypothesis, interest in a doll and a toy truck was measured in 30 infants ranging in age from 3 to 8 months using eye-tracking technology that provides precise indicators of visual attention. Consistent with primary hypothesis, sex differences in visual interest in sex-linked toys were found, such that girls showed a visual preference (d > 1.0) for the doll over the toy truck and boys compared to girls showed a greater number of visual fixations on the truck (d = .78). Our findings suggest that the conceptual categories of "masculine" and "feminine" toys are preceded by sex differences in the preferences for perceptual features associated with such objects. The existence of these innate preferences for object features coupled with well-documented social influences may explain why toy preferences are one of the earliest known manifestations of sex-linked social behavior.
... Another mechanism through which involvement in sex-typed activities may have implications for gender development is children's development of specific skills and abilities (Ruble & Martin, 1998). For example, several studies have documented links between involvement in stereotypically masculine play such as with building blocks, vehicles, and balls and the development of visual-spatial skills, one component of mathematics achievement (e.g., Beal, 1994;Caldera et al., 1999;Connor & Serbin, 1977;Fagot & Littman, 1976;Liss, 1983;Serbin, Zelkowitz, Doyle, & Gold, 1990). In contrast, time spent reading (often categorized as a feminine activity) has been linked to better school grades overall (e.g., Bianchi & Robinson, 1997). ...
The authors studied sex-typing in the kinds (e.g., sports, handicrafts) and social contexts (same- vs. other-sex companions) of children's free time activities, and the links between sex-typed activities and gender development over 2 years. Participants were 200 White, working- and middle-class children (103 girls, 97 boys; mean age = 10.86 years). In annual home interviews, children rated their self-esteem, gender role attitudes and sex-typed personality qualities, academic interests, and school grades. During 7 nightly phone interviews each year, children reported on their activities. Boys were more sex-typed than girls in their peer activities, and children were least sex-typed in their activities with siblings. Sex-typed activities in middle childhood predicted individual differences in gender development in early adolescence.
... Several lines of research have suggested that sex differences in spatial performance may be affected by differences in experience. Studies have shown that boys play more with " masculine " toys, which tend to be more spatial (i.e., blocks and other manipulatives, puzzles, balls, transportation toys; Connor & Serbin, 1977; Servin, Bohlin, & Berlin, 1999) and that these differences may be related to performance on spatial tasks (Fagot & Littman, 1976; Serbin & Connor, 1979). Similar findings have been reported for exposure to video games requiring spatial skills, such as Tetris. ...
On average, men outperform women on mental rotation tasks. Even boys as young as 4 1/2 perform better than girls on simplified spatial transformation tasks. The goal of our study was to explore ways of improving 5-year-olds' performance on a spatial transformation task and to examine the strategies children use to solve this task. We found that boys performed better than girls before training and that both boys and girls improved with training, whether they were given explicit instruction or just practice. Regardless of training condition, the more children gestured about moving the pieces when asked to explain how they solved the spatial transformation task, the better they performed on the task, with boys gesturing about movement significantly more (and performing better) than girls. Gesture thus provides useful information about children's spatial strategies, raising the possibility that gesture training may be particularly effective in improving children's mental rotation skills.
This study investigated the role of manually self-generated visual cues on crawling and non-crawling 9-month-old infants’ mental rotation. Forty-three infants were tested using a simplified Shepard-Metzler task to measure mental rotation performance. Prior to the mental rotation task, infants were given the opportunity to manually rotate either a vertically- or a horizontally-striped cylinder around the same vertical movement axis as the mental rotation objects (see Antrilli & Wang, 2016). Results revealed that while there were no signs of mental rotation in non-crawlers, crawlers in the vertical-stripe condition showed a novelty preference, whereas crawlers in the horizontal-stripe condition preferred to look at the familiar test object during the mental rotation task. This suggests that crawling is associated with a more differentiated processing of self-generated rotation-specific visual cues than non-crawling.
The development of sex-role behavior in children has been studied extensively in North America over the past five decades. Interest in this aspect of early childhood socialization originally derived fom psychoanalytic theories regarding the importance of same-sex “identification” in the normal development of the child’s personality. According to this position, biological factors determine the basic psychosexual “conflicts” which a male or female must face and resolve during childhood (hence Freud’s oft-quoted “anatomy is destiny”, [1961]). However, the specific form of this “conflict resolution” was thought to be determined by environmental influences and the particular experiences of the individual. The establishment of “appropriate” sex-role identification during early childhood was regarded as critical for an individual’s later sexual, psychological, and societal functioning. Further, satisfactory “resolution” of sex-role identification was viewed as a difficult and delicate process which might easily be disrupted, leading to later sexual and psychological dysfunction.
Over the past 50 years much has been written about children’s play with a concentration on sex roles or sex-differentiated activities. A great deal of this literature has focused primarily on what children choose to play with and the corresponding gender-identification measures as well as the role of parents, teachers and peers in influencing these decisions. An extensive discussion of these aspects can be found in Liss1. This chapter, however, will concentrate on how children play with these toys and the relationship of toy play to skill learning. The chapter will examine how the types of toys children choose affect their skill development in the area of movement and play.
This cross-sectional study explored whether participation, from early childhood, in play involving different cognitive abilities predicts visuo-spatial achievement at ages 9, 12, and 15. Based on parental assessment, prior and present practice of spatial manipulation play was found to be consistently more frequent in boys than in girls; the reverse held true for verbal expression play. Whereas boys did not significantly outperform girls in three visuo-spatial tasks, girls were superior on a contrastive vocabulary task. In general, with IQ statistically controlled, regression analyses showed that estimated past and present spatial manipulation play predicted both genders' proficiency in the water-level task and Embedded Figures Test, as did mothers' socioeconomic status for Block Design performance. Contrastingly, a negative relation was established between spatial manipulation play and vocabulary scores. Similar to the activity-ability association often identified among adults, the relation established here between spatial play experience and visuo-spatial ability was only modest. Further research should aim at more definitive conclusions through augmenting both diversity in the visuo-spatial skills measured and sophistication in play behaviour appraisal. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Forty experienced and inexperienced teachers, 20 male and 20 female, were observed during free play periods in preschool classes. Male teachers gave more favorable comment than female teachers, and also more physical affection. Male teachers also joined the play of the children more than female teachers. Female teachers interacted less than male teachers. Experienced teachers initiated behaviors, directed, gave information, asked and answered questions, and helped the child more than inexperienced teachers. Experienced teachers interacted more with boys and girls when they engaged in feminine-preferred activities, with no difference between male and female teachers in this regard. Inexperienced teachers of both sexes interacted more with boys engaging in masculine-preferred activities and girls engaging in feminine-preferred activities. It was suggested that the male stereotype and the school environment are less congruent than the female stereotype and school, and that experienced teachers encourage children to engage in school-type activities.
Kindergarten children were videotaped playing with female- and male-traditional toys as well as nonsex-typed toys. Coders calculated time spent by each child in behavioral categories (positive and negative comments, aggression, nurturance, movement, noise, and gadgetry) and rated children on scales (talkativeness, activity, familiarity, enjoyment, proximity, appropriateness, and gentleness). Sex differences were revealed on most dimensions. Boys were rated as familiar with, enjoying, and playing appropriately with two toys (male-traditional and nonsex-typed) and girls on the female-traditional toy. Girls paid more attention to details of the toys, while there were few differences on aggression and movement. Data suggest that children develop varying patterns of play with the same toy—based on their earlier experiences with play materials. Agents promoting these differences (parents, teachers, and peers) are discussed, as are implications of the findings for children's development of skills and cognitive abilities.
The relationship between sex role flexibility and prosocial behavior among preschool children was investigated. Subjects included 16 boys and 18 girls, ranging in age from 36 to 60 months, from intact families of the upper middle class. A nonhierarchical multiple regression analysis was undertaken to determine the contributions of the predictor variables of sex, age, IQ, and sex role flexibility, as well as their interactions with prosocial behavior (criterion variable). Results indicated that while the overall regression model was not significant, the variable of Sex Sex Role Flexibility did contribute significantly to the model. Inspection of the correlation coefficients associated with this variable revealed that while sex role flexibility and prosocial behavior among boys were significantly and positively related, among girls no significant relationship was found.
Childhood marks the dawn of human development. To organize, integrate, and advance knowledge about vocational development during this age period from a life-span perspective, we conducted a comprehensive review of the empirical vocational development literature that addresses early-to-late childhood. The review considers career exploration, career awareness, vocational expectations and aspirations, vocational interests, and career maturity/adaptability. By conducting the review, we sought to consolidate knowledge and identify avenues for further research concerned with vocational development in childhood and across the life span. Linking knowledge of child vocational development with what is known about adolescent and adult vocational development and conducting research that embeds vocational development within the fabric of a life-span developmental framework could move the field of vocational psychology from a disjointed perspective on career as studied in isolated age groups and toward an integrated life-span conceptualization.
Traditional assumptions that sex-role conformity is positively related to psychological adjustment in young children have not, to date, been examined empirically. Seventy-four preschool children, 37 boys and 37 girls aged 3 to 5, were observed over a 3-month period to determine their frequency of play in male and female sex-typed activities during the freeplay period in their classrooms. Teacher ratings on the Kohn and Rosman Symptom Checklist and Social Competence Scale were correlated with individuals' rates of play in male and female preferred activities (M and F scales, respectively). Results indicated that boys' play with male-preferred toys was related to high scores on the "aggression/defiance" dimension of the Symptom Checklist, while boys who scored highly on play in female-preferred activities received high scores on the Social Competence dimension labeled "conforming to classroom rules." For girls, play with male-preferred toys was negatively related to the "apathy/withdrawal" dimension of the Symptom Checklist. These results do not confirm the hypothesis that sex-typed behavior is positively related to adjustment, and they suggest that for both sexes, play in opposite sex-typed activities may contribute positively to children's social and academic functioning in the classroom.
The purpose of this research was to examine the role that young children's same-sex peer interactions play in influencing early school competence. The authors also examined the degree to which effortful control (EC) moderated these relations. The same-sex play preferences of 98 young children (50 boys and 48 girls; mean age = 54.77 months) were observed during the fall semester. At the end of the fall semester, one set of teachers reported on children's EC, and at the end of the following springsemester, another set reported on children's school competence (social, academic, and perceptual-motor). Results revealed that EC moderated the relations of children's same-sex play to their school competence. These patterns differed for boys and girls such that same-sex play was positively related to school outcomes for boys high in EC and for girls low in EC.
Eye-tracking technology was used to monitor eye-movements in 64 adults (age range, 18-22 years) during simultaneous presentation of "masculine" and "feminine" toys. Women and men who showed more visual fixations on male-typical toys compared to female-typical toys had significantly better targeting ability and smaller (i.e., more masculine) digit ratios, a putative marker of prenatal androgen levels. In contrast, individuals with visual preferences for female-typical or male-typical toys did not differ in mental rotations ability and in their retrospective reports of childhood gender-linked activities. The finding that targeting ability and digit ratios varied according to visual preferences for gender-linked toys suggests that prenatal androgens promote enduring preferences for male-typical objects and indicate further that some gender-linked traits vary according to the direction of a visual preference for gender-linked toys. Visual preferences derived from eye-tracking, therefore, may be a useful supplement to current measures of psychosexual differentiation in hormone-behavior research, particularly because eye-movements are not dependent on verbal abilities or subjective evaluations of behavior.
Tested major hypotheses: (1) sex differences in play behavior are present in 3 yr. olds, (2) female teachers reinforce feminine behaviors, and (3) peers reinforce like-sex peers. 2 nursery school classes, comprised of 3 yr. olds, were observed on a sex-role behavior checklist intermittently throughout the year. Each class had 9 girls and 9 boys. Sex-appropriate behaviors were present in both the schools from the beginning of the yr. and were stable over time. Data showed that teachers consistently reinforced feminine-type behaviors more than masculine behaviors, and reinforced boys not girls when they performed opposite-sexed behaviors. Peers reinforced mostly same-sex peers. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Although much work has been published on differences between the sexes in Western countries on tests of abilities, interests, and personality traits, little attention has been paid to comparing the organization or structuring of psychological variables among males and females. 198 male and 189 female Canadian 8th graders were given a battery of tests (e.g., the Safran Student's Interest Inventory and the Embedded Figures Test). Results indicate that the ability factors in the 2 sexes were closely similar, although their relations to age, artistic and scientific interests, social attitudes, personality tendencies, and other variables often differed markedly. For example, large sex differences in the psychological significance of field independence and of divergent thinking, and the organization of career and other interests indicate that mixed-sex studies should be discouraged. (French summary) (28 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Thirty-six children who had participated in two separate preschool studies of play interests were given an interest questionnaire when in elementary school. Sex differences in interests were studied with both age groups, with both sexes showing more varied interests in elementary school than they had in preschool. There was a significant correlation between preschool and elementary school masculinity-feminity scores for boys but not for girls. The implications of the broadening of interest patterns for both sexes and the lack of significant sex role correlations for girls were discussed in terms of changing sex role standards.
To continue exploration of the educational problems of deprived children, 32 disadvantaged and 32 advantaged children ranging in age from 4 years, 8 months to 5 years, 8 months, were selected to take a battery of tests designed to measure some of the skills and characteristics thought to be related to academic success. The factors measured and the tests used were (1) general intellectual functioning (Stanford-Binet), (2) learning processes (Paired Associates Learning Tasks), (3) impulsivity and reflectivity (Matching Familiar Figures Test and Children's Embedded Figure Test), (4) inhibition of motor behavior on adult command (Motoric Inhibition Test), and (5) exploratory behavior (Reactive Object Curiosity Test). Comparison of the results of the tests showed that the advantaged children were more efficient in intellectual performance and paired associates learning than disadvantaged children of the same age. Tenative support was found for the hypothesis that disadvantaged children are more impulsive in response disposition. There was no support for the hypotheses that disadvantaged children inhibit motor behavior less on verbal adult command or show less object curiosity than the advantaged child. (MH)
Data were obtained on interests, primary mental abilities, and reputation among classmates for 61 first-grade girls and 55 first-grade boys. Interests were evaluated by means of a preference-type inventory made up of items furnished by children in a free interview situation in a preliminary pilot study. Four interest dimensions were used: (1) active outdoor play, (2) indoor play with toys, (3) paper-pencil-crayon activity, (4) helping adults with work. Mental abilities were evaluated by means of the SRA Primary Mental Abilities Tests, and reputation was evaluated by means of a "Guess Who" test. Inter-correlations are cited. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)