Beverly I. Fagot’s research while affiliated with Oregon Social Learning Center and other places

Forty-five families (22 court-referred abusive families and 23 control families) participated in a laboratory play task as part of a larger study on family processes and child abuse (Reid, 1986). We led each family into a play room, asked the parents to play with the child for a 10-min period, and then asked them to have the child help clean up. We videotaped all sessions and coded the tapes using the Fagot Interactive Code, with the child's behavior categorized as passive, verbal communication, aversive, and narrative play. Although control children talked significantly more than abused children, botch abused and control children responded equally often to parent initiations of interaction. We grouped parent responses into positive and negative clusters. Abusive parents showed significantly less positive parenting than did control parents, and they responded significantly less to the child's initiations of interaction. We discuss the results in terms of lack of prosocial parenting skills of abusing parents.

Six trained observers (aged 19–31 yrs) were compared while watching 15 children (aged 18–36 mo) directly or on videotape. Findings indicate that Ss were slightly less reliable when watching videotapes than when watching real situations. The major significant difference was that far more events went undetected in the videotape condition. Of the 3 sections of the system of behavior coding used (child behavior, reactor, and reaction), the reactor and reaction were the most likely to be missed by the video observer, especially if the target child was engaged in active play and not sitting at a central table. It is suggested that this results in a qualitatively deficient picture when videotaped data of children in playgroup settings are used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Ratings of the "aversiveness" of the behaviors in the Family Interaction Coding System (FICS) were obtained from 103 parents of 3–12 yr old nonproblem boys. Mean ratings of this sample were highly correlated with mean ratings of the FICS obtained in 4 other studies. The ratings were used to create parent-derived positive, neutral, and negative behavior composites of the FICS codes and a total behavior score consisting of a weighted sum of these composites. The negative behavior composite closely matched the Total Aversive Behavior (TAB) composite derived by researchers in other studies. Composite scores of in-home behavior rates of 5 groups of boys (65 social aggressors, 34 stealers, 20 abused boys, 32 low-rate boys, and 71 nonproblem boys) were compared. All parent-derived composite scores significantly differentiated the groups. The total, positive, negative, and TAB composites accounted for similar amounts of between-group variance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

A test of gender discrimination in response to familiar labels was developed and given to 17- to 42-month-old children. A pretest employing pictures of familiar objects was presented first to ensure that subjects could perform a discrimination task, followed by separate gender tests comprised of photographs of stereotypically masculine and feminine children and adults. There were no sex differences in performance for the gender tests, but among the youngest children, more boys than girls could not be tested. Psychometric aspects of the tests were investigated and found adequate. The tests allow individual children to be classified as to gender-labeling ability and provide a useful tool for investigating gender knowledge.

A gender-labeling task was used to test the ability of 21 girls and 22 boys ranging in age from 21 to 40 mo to discriminate between pictures of boys and girls and male and female adults. Ss who passed the gender task (mean age 30 mo) were compared with Ss who failed it (mean age 26 mo) on 3 behaviors most often categorized as sex typed (toy choice, aggression, and peer playmate selection). It was predicted that Ss who passed the task would choose more sex-typed toys and same-sex peers and that there would be a drop in aggression for girls who passed but no change for boys. Results confirm the predictions for aggression and peer choice but not for toy choice. The relation between the child's understanding of gender categories and environmental influences is discussed. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

34 children were observed in infant play groups. 2 sets of infant behaviors were coded: assertive acts and attempts to communicate with adults. No sex differences were observed at 13 to 14 months in any of these behaviors. However, adults attended to girls' assertive behaviors far less of the time than to boys' assertive behaviors. They attended more to girls' less intense communication attempts and to boys' more intense attempts. When 29 of the same children were observed in toddler play groups no more than 11 months later, there were sex differences in behavior. Boys were more assertive; girls talked to teachers more. Teachers no longer differentiated their responses to boys and girls. Peers reacted more to boys' assertive behavior than to girls.' We hypothesized that caregivers may use stereotypes to guide their reactions to infants because infant behavior is ambiguous. For the toddlers, behavior had become more defined, and caregivers reacted to the behaviors. By using the sex stereotype to guide their reactions to younger children, the caregivers may have perpetuated the stereotype.

This paper presentes some issues in defining and researching gender identity. The status of psychological theories of gender identity is discussed.

40 21–25 mo olds participated in ongoing play groups (with almost equal numbers of boys and girls in each group of 12–25 children) while observers studied them and noted the reactions of both peers and teachers to behaviors that could be identified and coded as male, female, or neutral. Teachers, both female and male, responded primarily to the category of behavior. Regardless of the sex of the child, they gave positive reactions to behaviors that were female-preferred or neutral but seldom to those that were male-preferred. Responses among the peer group were more complicated. Girls responded more positively to other girls than to boys, regardless of the category (male, female, or neutral) of the behavior. Boys responded to the category of the behavior and to the sex of their peer and gave more positive responses to other boys when the boys were engaged in male-preferred activities. Both girls and teachers were effective in changing the behavior of other girls, but neither could influence boys to change; boys were effective in influencing other boys but not in influencing girls. It is suggested that although reinforcements do appear to affect the likelihood of a behavior continuing, other factors must be at work, for behaviors are maintained even under conditions of no responses, and, most important, the reinforcements themselves are most effective when they have been processed in terms of gender. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

The present study is an attempt to investigate how sex of parent, parenting experience, and child's gender influence parents' reactions to risky and annoying behaviors of children. The subjects were 15 sets of expectant parents and 16 sets of parents from each of three other family configurations (one boy, one girl, or both a boy and a girl). The subjects viewed a 23-minute videotape composed of 22 videoclips. Each videoclip depicted a common activity for a 12- to-36-month-old child that could elicit parental intervention because of risk or annoyance or both. Fifteen scenes were acted by children who had been previously rated as gender ambiguous in appearance. The audio portion of the tape identified each genderambiguous child as a boy to some subjects and as a girl to others. The subjects were instructed to press buttons to indicate when they would respond and the types of response (physical or verbal) they would make. Analyses showed strong effects of parenting experience for latency and number of interventions. Generally, parents of one boy intervened most quickly, followed by parents of two children, parents of one girl, and expectant parents. The gender label manipulation showed effects only on the high risk tapes. Mothers responded more than fathers in situations that were annoying but not risky. Mothers and fathers agreed when children were engaged in risky behaviors. The use of videoclips to study parent socialization is a useful supplement to observations and self-report questionnaires.