Harvey J. Ginsburg

Sex Differences in Children's Risk-taking Behavior.

GINSBURG, HARVEY J., and MILLER, SHIRLEY M. Sex Differences in Childrens Risk-taking Behavior. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 426-428. Sex differences in risk taking were examined by observing 480 3to 11-year-old children at 4 different risk-taking locations at the San Antonio zoo. Frequency counts of boys and girls were made at the elephant rides, burro exhibit, childrens petting zoo, and along a steep embankment of the San Antonio River. Baseline observations were made at the entrance of the zoo to ensure that boys and girls were equally represented. Girls were just as likely as boys to enter the zoo. However, at all 4 of the risktaking situations, significantly more boys than girls engaged in risk-taking behavior. More boys than girls rode the elephants, petted the burro, fed the animals, and climbed the river embankment. Older boys and girls were more likely to take these risks than younger children. Thus, males, especially older ones, engaged in more risk-taking behavior than females within the context of this descriptive, naturalistic study.

Maternal Holding Preferences: A Consequence of Newborn Head-Turning Response.

Salk observed that in an overwhelming majority of cases (80%) mothers prefer to hold their infants across the left shoulder. This preference occurs over a diversity of cultures and is not related to the hand preference of the mother. Salk suggested a fetal imprinting to the sound of the heartbeat as the mechanism responsible for this phenomenon. While such speculation is intriguing, it is not scientifically testable. 2 experiments were performed to examine a more testable hypothesis. Results of these studies suggest that the initial head-turning preference of an infant is related to the holding preference of its mother.

Inhibition of distress vocalizations in the open field as a function of heightened fear or arousal in domestic fowl (gallus gallus)

Abstract Whereas a number of measures of fear (duration of the immobility reaction, duration of freezing in the open field and locomotor activity in the open field) showed differences in the predicted direction between pre-experimentally handled and non-handled chicks, significantly fewer distress vocalizations were observed for the relatively more fearful (non-handled) chicks. This finding does not support the general assumption that a monotonic relationship exists between heightened levels of fear and an increased frequency of the distress call. Results are considered in the context of Bronsons (1968) hypothesis that heightened emotionality may inhibit rather than facilitate the expression of a variety of behavioural patterns associated with the avoidance of fear-arousing stimulation.

Eye contact and the perception of intelligence

The perception of intelligence as a function of nonverbal cues was investigated in college students. Thirty undergraduate psychology majors estimated the GPAs of 20 upper division undergraduates based on their nonverbal behavior during a videotaped, career objectives interview. Significant relationships were found between estimated GPAs and two nonverbal behaviors: duration of eye contact and frequency of eye shifts. These nonverbal behaviors appear to be substantive mediators of the perception of an individual’s intellectual facility during an interview.

Children and the Aged: Attitudes, Contact, and Discriminative Ability:

Attitudes toward older versus younger persons, age discrimination performance, and seriation ability were assessed in sixty-eight three- to six-year-old children. Childrens contact with people over seventy was also examined. Children preferred young people over old people in all situations in the attitudinal portion of the study. A significant relationship was found between childrens ability to discriminate old people from young people and their ability to order objects from tallest to shortest. Accuracy on these two tasks improved with age. Frequency of contact was not found to significantly affect attitudes toward the elderly or ability to discriminate older from younger people.

Childhood victimization: Desensitization effects in the later lifespan

The hypothesis tested in this study was that young adults who report having been abused by parents or guardians as children would report less concern when confronted with hypothetical situations similar to the type of abuse they had reportedly experienced during childhood. In our study of nonclinical adults those who reported childhood victimization experiences showed diminished concern toward the specific kind of abuse situation encountered earlier in their lifespan.

Kept Under the Hood: Neglect of the Clitoris in Common Vernacular

Even though the “clitoris” is the organ homologous to the “penis,” this term may not be commonly used as the female counterpart to the penis. We conducted three studies to examine the usage of terminology for female sexual anatomy. In the first study 57 books in a university computer database for “sex instruction” were examined for the inclusion of terms such as penis, clitoris, vagina, vulva, and uterus. Penis was mentioned more often than either the clitoris or vulva in these books. In the second and third studies we investigated the terminology used by college students as well as their sexual attitudes and knowledge. Participants in the studies were Euro-American (76%/76%, Study 2/Study 3 respectively), Hispanic (18%/14%), and African American (4%/7%); students reported that they were overwhelmingly taught vagina as the female counterpart to the penis. Believing that the inner portion of the vagina is the most sexually sensitive part of the female body correlated with negative attitudes toward masturbation (Study 2) and agreement with sex myths (Studies 2 and 3).

Children and aging: attitudes, differentiation ability, and quantity and quality of contact.

The attitudes and age differentiation ability of forty-seven 3- to 5-year-old children toward pictures of older and younger people were assessed. In addition, cognitive performance on a seriation task as well as the quantity and quality of each childs contact with adults over 60 years of age were measured. Chi squares were performed by sex and age of stimulus photograph on the attitudinal questions. One of the chi squares reached significance on the age comparison and two on the sex comparison. In addition, sign tests were used to assess the direction of the trends on the questions, and both age and sex trends were significant at the .05 level with children being more likely to choose pictures of younger rather than older models and female rather than male models. Ability to correctly order pictures by age was significantly related (r = .53, p less than .001) to the seriation ordering task. Four of the 18 correlations between contact and attitudinal variables were significant and negative.

Variation of aggressive interaction among male elementary school children as a function of changes in spatial density

The behavior of children was monitored during unstructured playground activity in areas of differing size. The frequency of fighting increased significantly in the smaller area, although the aggressive episodes were of briefer duration. In addition, the style of aggression differed significantly between the two conditions. Fighting in the smaller area typically involved more than two children. The results are considered in the context of Hedigers critical distance hypothesis (1950).

Altrusim in children: A naturalistic study of reciprocation and an examination of the relationship between social dominance and aid-giving behavior

Abstract Dyadic fights between children on a playground may be terminated by intervention of a third child on behalf of the one losing the fight. A small cluster of children repeatedly served as aid-givers within the playgroups monitored in study 1; little reciprocity was observed within this situational context. Study 2 was performed to examine the relationship between aid-giving and playgroup social status. Children who intervened during fights were consistently rated as dominant members of the playgroup by naive raters who viewed randomly selected videotaped segments of general playgroup activity. Another index of dominance, visual regard by other members of the playgroup, also provided evidence that documented the relationship between peer group social status and aid-giving. The generality of this relationship was examined in study 3. Children ranked as good leaders by their fourth-grade classmates demonstrated significantly more prosocial sharing than lower ranked peers. Thus, status within a social group hierarchy may be an important dimension related to a variety of prosocial behavior exhibited by children.