Girls' play is great preparation for beginning reading and writing, as well as for the discipline schools demand. Boys' toys help establish a sense of and feel for the world of technology, science, and higher mathematics. (MT)

The child's war game is an expression of how he experiences the world. Adults should not prohibit the war game, but rather should listen to it for clues to some of the problems and tensions the child cannot express verbally, and for opportunities to suggest alternatives to violence. (NH)

Examined toddlers' awareness of own-sex and other-sex gender-typed and non-gender-typed toys, also measuring accuracy at labeling sex. Toddlers participated in sequential touching tasks. Results indicated that toddlers possessed significant awareness of gender-typed categories, particularly own-sex gender-typed ones. Awareness of gender-typed…

This study provides evidence of sex-typed behavior in the spontaneous play of infants between 9 1/2 and 15 1/2 months. Eight boys and eight girls at 9 1/2, 11 1/2, 13 1/2, and 15 1/2 months were observed during 15 minutes of free play with a variety of realistic toys equally divided into male, female, and neutral categories. Stereotypical,…

In order to test the hypothesis that children's toy preferences may be influenced by knowledge of the usual preferences of their own sex, the effect of experimentally manipulating sex-typed information were examined, as expected, the data revealed that children matched the alleged preferences of their own sex at a level significantly above chance.…

Parents were asked to complete an information form when they registered their children in an early childhood education center. Answers to a question on the form concerning each child's favorite play activities at home were collected and examined in terms of sex differences. The parents in this study reported the same sex difference in children's…

Effect of peer presence on the sex-typed toy choices of three and four year olds (N=62) was investigated in a repeated measures experimental design. (MP)

Six boys and six girls aged 4-6 years viewed one of three videotapes in which puppets (two Muppets: one male and one female) used culturally stereotyped arguments to assign masculinity, feminity or sex-role neutrality to a standard set of sex-neutral toys. After viewing a film, the children were observed for 10 minutes in free play with toys shown…

This study examined whether toy preferences of 20-month-old children exhibit cross-sex asymmetry, whether toy preferences are modified in a modelling situation, and whether children's familiarity with toys is related to toy preferences. (GO)

One study of 9-12 year olds found that only girls showed toy preferences among a variety of sex typed and neutral toys, but that both sexes interacted differently with masculine and feminine toys. In another study, play constructions and stories reflected the gender association of toys provided, rather than child's sex. (AOS)

Focusing on those elements of children's preferences which link gender to social structure, the present study analyzes children's letters to Santa Claus. Findings show boys' and girls' requests to be similar when aspects of the child's world are measured and quite different when qualities representing the adult social order are measured.…

Sixty-eight preschoolers (30 to 60 months old) were told that a toy belonged either to them or to the class or were given no specific instructions. Their subsequent behavior with the toy was observed. (JMB)

The vocal distress of 10-month-old male and female infants was manipulated by placing the infants alone either with or without toys. The results demonstrate that separation distress is not an automatic response of infants and that maternal responses to separation depend on the infant's sex. (Author/JMB)