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Social context and sex-typing in young children: Friendship status and peer affect influences
| Title: | Social context and sex-typing in young children: Friendship status and peer affect influences. |
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| Name(s): |
Sung, Hung-yen Angela Florida Atlantic University, Degree Grantor Charles E. Schmidt College of Science Department of Psychology |
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| Type of Resource: | text | |
| Genre: | Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation | |
| Issuance: | monographic | |
| Date Issued: | 1996 | |
| Publisher: | Florida Atlantic University | |
| Place of Publication: | Boca Raton, Fla. | |
| Physical Form: | application/pdf | |
| Extent: | 157 p. | |
| Language(s): | English | |
| Summary: | Social context effects on young children's sex-typing were examined in two studies. In Study 1 sex-typed toy choices of 139 children aged 4 to 8 were assessed first for a solitary-play context, and then for three social contexts distinguished as to friendship status of a specified play partner (represented by a photo): best friend, acquaintance, and an unfamiliar peer. For each context, children selected preferred toys from photographs of a neutral toy paired with either a same- or opposite-sex toy. Results indicated social context effects for girls but not boys, in that girls tended to display more sex-typed toy choices in the solitary and best-friend than in the acquaintance or unfamiliar peer contexts. In general, however, girls approached same-sex toys less than boys, while both sexes avoided opposite-sex toys to a similar extent. In Study 2 subjects were 68 children aged 4 to 7. They were asked to imitate videotaped masculine, feminine, and neutral actions of a hand puppet. For different children, the puppet was designated (by name and photo display) as either a best friend or acquaintance, and it engaged in the sex-typed activities with either gender-congruent or incongruent affect (happy for same-sex actions and sad for opposite-sex actions, or the reverse). Friendship status and gender-affect congruency effects which varied with age level were evident for several memory measures. Incongruency promoted accurate imitative matching for the acquaintance context in younger children, and for the best-friend context in older children. In addition, best-friends' feminine actions were imitated more accurately than their masculine or neutral actions. Subject age and sex also interacted with activity gender type and gender-affect congruency to influence peer affect recall, with poorer recall of feminine-activity affect by boys in the incongruent condition. While social context had little impact upon boys' reported affect, girls' enjoyment was lower for masculine activity imitation in the best-friend congruent-affect condition. Overall, the two studies demonstrate that young children's gendered behaviors show considerable sensitivity to social context factors, and indicate the important influence of affective factors in early sex-typing. | |
| Identifier: | 9780591052916 (isbn), 12473 (digitool), FADT12473 (IID), fau:9367 (fedora) | |
| Collection: | FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection | |
| Note(s): |
Adviser: Louise C. Perry. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1996. |
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| Subject(s): |
Psychology, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Experimental |
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| Held by: | Florida Atlantic University Libraries | |
| Persistent Link to This Record: | http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/12473 | |
| Sublocation: | Digital Library | |
| Use and Reproduction: | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder. | |
| Use and Reproduction: | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ | |
| Host Institution: | FAU | |
| Is Part of Series: | Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections. |
