Four studies addressed the possibilities that young children use color when attempting to identify another's sex and that children's impressions of people whose sex is known are influenced by clothing color. Findings demonstrated that young children share prevailing societal stereotypes linking colors and sex and that color of clothing influences…

Eight operationally defined "feminine" gestures were recorded for 48 elementary school aged boys and girls while they individually performed a standardized play task. Results showed a significant overall difference between the sexes with three specific gestures discriminating significantly between the sexes. (Author/JMB)

A total of 48 children from five to six years of age were shown pictures of males and females performing sex-consistent and sex-inconsistent activities. Children were tested a week later for recall of these activities and the sex of the actor performing them. Sex-consistent activities were found to be more memorable than sex-inconsistent…

Examined the relationship between observed sex differences in infants' play, parental responses to these play patterns, and parents' ratings of sample child behaviors as typically masculine, feminine, or neither. (JMB)

Analysis of the modeled behaviors of 64 children from 4 to 11 years of age indicated that a major factor in sex differences in children's imitation is the sex appropriateness of the modeled behavior relative to the observer when a sex-typed behavior is modeled. (Author/JMB)

Three studies examined how preschool children used gender-based reasoning in making judgments about toy preferences for themselves and for others. Found that children used gender labels to guide their own preferences and their expectations of others. Even with very attractive toys, children liked the toys less if they were labeled as being for the…

The reactions of peers and teachers to sex-typed behaviors of 106 boys and 101 girls in 15 preschool classrooms were examined. (JMB)

Young children and adolescents regarded the crossing of stereotyped gender boundaries as more wrong and expressed a greater personal commitment to sex-role regularity than did children in middle childhood. Although young children and adolescents viewed gender differentiations as an aspect of psychological-personal identity, their conceptions of…

An instrument developed to assess beliefs about male and female attributes was administered to 72 preschool children. Results indicated that children as young as 2 years of age possess substantial knowledge of sex role stereotypes and that this knowledge is highly correlated with comprehension of gender identity as an irreversible characteristic.…

Investigates processes that might influence the degree of association between preschoolers' sex-role stereotyped toy choices and their choice of same-sex versus opposite-sex playmates. A total of 51 children in preschool classes for four-year-olds were observed during free play over nine weeks. (Author/RH)

The purposes of this study were (1) to explore the meaning of children's choices in toy preference tasks, and (2) to determine if children's understanding of sex appropriateness of toys is an important conscious determinant of sex-typed object choices. (Author/RH)

Women pregnant with their first child were observed interacting with an infant labeled as either a boy or a girl. Toy use and other maternal behaviors were examined as a function of gender label, women's attitudes regarding gender differences, and infant behavior. (Author/DB)

Looking times of 96 preschoolers were recorded as they were habituated on slides of sex-typed toys. After habituation, subjects were shown a test series of 24 slides. (Author/SS)