Lisa A. Serbin

Behaviorally based masculine- and feminine-activity-preference scales for preschoolers: Correlates with other classroom behaviors and cognitive tests.

CONNOR, JANE M., and SERBIN, LISA A. Behaviorally Based Masculineand Feminine-ActivityPreference Scales for Preschoolers: Correlates with Other Classroom Behaviors and Cognitive Tests. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 1411-1416. 2 sets of scales were developed designed to measure the strength of sex typing in childrens play patterns in a naturalistic setting. Over a 12-week observational period, the scales based upon those activities showing a sex difference in play preferences appeared to be more stable than those scales based upon adult ratings of masculine and feminine activities. Masculine and feminine activity preferences, as measured by the more stable scales, were correlated with observational measures of other classroom behavior and performance on 3 cognitive tests. These results suggested that (a) many children have already learned to avoid opposite-sex activities by the time they enter nursery school; (b) sex-role learning during the preschool period appears to involve increasing attention to samesex activities; and (c) the development of visual-spatial ability in boys is related to involvement in masculine activities. The advantages of a behaviorally based definition of masculine and feminine activity preference are discussed.

Gender, Ethnic, and Body Type Biases: The Generality of Prejudice in Childhood

From a very young age, children show signs of prejudice. However, it is not clear whether those who are the most biased in one domain (e.g., gender) are also the most biased in other domains (e.g., ethnicity). This study addressed the issue using multiple measures of prejudice (negative bias) in 3 domains: gender (male, female), ethnicity-language (French Canadian, English Canadian), and body type (overweight, normal weight). The flexibility of attitudes (i.e., the belief that people from different categories can possess similar traits) was also assessed. A total of 254 children (127 boys, 127 girls) in kindergarten to Grade 6 participated. Children demonstrated clear biases against groups to which they did not belong, although attitudes became more flexible and prejudice declined somewhat with age. There was little predictive power across domains; that is, there was no evidence that prejudice represents a general characteristic that differentiates children.

The salience of gender and the process of sex typing in three- to seven-year-old children.

SERBIN, LISA A., and SPRAFKIN, CAROL. The Salience of Gender and the Process of Sex Typing in Threeto Seven-Year-Old Children. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1986, 57, 1188-1199. 2 measures of childrens use of gender as a schematic dimension were developed, 1 measuring gender-based categorization, the other reflecting the degree to which children use the gender dimension to make personal affiliation choices when other schematic bases for responding are available. 2 samples, totaling 147 boys and girls aged 3-7, were tested on the 2 measures of gender salience to establish developmental patterns of gender-based categorization and affiliation. Relations with sex-role knowledge and gender concepts, and with measures of sex-role adoption, were also examined. A Guttman Scale analysis confirmed the developmental sequence in which a decline in gender-based categorization occurred after sex-role knowledge regarding activities and occupations was acquired. Further, once the decline in gender-based categorization occurred, children began to show more cognitive flexibility on a measure of sex-role attitudes. In contrast, use of the gender dimension to make personal affiliation choices did not decline with age but seemed to reflect individual differences in degree of sex typing. Because of these distinct underlying cognitive processes, there seems to be little relation between what a child knows about sex roles and how sex typed the childs attitudes and behavior will be during this period.

Gender stereotyping in infancy: Visual preferences for and knowledge of gender-stereotyped toys in the second year

Infants’ visual preferences for gender-stereotyped toys and their knowledge of stereotyped toys were examined in two experiments using an adaptation of the preferential looking paradigm. Girls and boys aged 12, 18, and 24 months were tested for their preference for photos of vehicles or dolls, and for whether they associated (“matched”) these two stereotyped sets of toys with the faces and voices of male and female children. Results of Experiment 1 (N = 77) demonstrated significant preferences for gender stereotyped toys appearing by 18 months of age. In Experiment 2 (N = 58), girls were able to associate the gender-stereotyped toys with girls’ and boys’ faces by 18 months of age, but boys were not. Implications for theories of early gender development are discussed.

Disentangling psychobiological mechanisms underlying internalizing and externalizing behaviors in youth: longitudinal and concurrent associations with cortisol.

Research examining cortisol dysregulation is seemingly contradictory with studies showing that both internalizing and externalizing behaviors are related to high and low cortisol. One extant theory to explain divergent findings in the stress literature is that both hypo- and hyper-arousal of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis may be present depending on time since onset of the stressor. This theory may extend to the onset of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Data from 96 youth participating in a longitudinal project were used to examine this possibility. Composite measures of internalizing and externalizing behaviors at both childhood and early adolescence were formed using mother and teacher reports. Multiple salivary cortisol samples were also collected over two consecutive days during early adolescence. Problematic behaviors were associated with cortisol and the direction of the association was dependent on amount of time passed since onset of the behaviors. When examined concurrently in adolescence, youth with more internalizing behaviors had higher morning cortisol; however, when examined longitudinally, youth with more internalizing behaviors in childhood had lower morning cortisol levels as adolescents. Youth with more externalizing behaviors in childhood had flattened diurnal cortisol rhythms as adolescents, and this finding persisted when examined in adolescence. Cortisol dysregulation was greatest in children with the most severe behavior problems. Findings support the theoretical model of blunting of the HPA axis over time. While the HPA axis may show hyper-arousal when youth first display behaviors, long-term exposure may lead to a hypo-arousal of the HPA axis which culminates in a dysregulated diurnal rhythm.

Children’s Salivary Cortisol, Internalising Behaviour Problems, and Family Environment: Results from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project

To explore the possibility that children’s adrenocortical reactions to parent-child conflict influence their vulnerability for internalising behaviour problems, we studied 62 mother-child dyads from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project. Standardised measures of maternal, child, and family adjustment were collected. Mother’s and children’s saliva was sampled before and after a conflict-oriented mother-child interaction task and was later assayed for cortisol. The children’s pre-task cortisol scores were negatively associated with their internalising behaviour problems, their mother’s childhood levels of socially withdrawn behaviour and current psychosocial problems, as well as dimensions of family environment representing the open expression of aggression, anger, and conflict. Children’s cortisol levels after the interaction task were lowest for those raised by mothers with high childhood levels of aggressive behaviour problems, and in family environments characterised by rigid rules. Interrelationships between mother and child pre- and post-task cortisol levels were associated with maternal levels of childhood behaviour problems. The integration of measures of children’s adrenocortical activity into developmental studies of children at risk for psychosocial problems may reveal important clues regarding the processes by which adverse early rearing environments affect children’s internalising problem behaviour.

Intergenerational Studies of Parenting and the Transfer of Risk From Parent to Child

This review describes a recent approach to studying the intergenerational processes that place families and children at risk for a broad variety of social, behavioral, and health problems. Intergenerational studies typically involve two (or more) generations of participants, observed over time. These projects are utilized to study the origins and early determinants of parenting behavior and of other environmental, health, and social conditions that place young offspring at risk for continuing behavioral, cognitive, and health problems. Convergent findings, across a broad range of research populations in several countries, suggest that problematic parenting develops in part through learning the behavior modeled by ones own parents. In addition, problematic parenting seems to be an extension of an individuals early style of aggressive and problematic social behavior. Parents with a history of childhood aggression, in particular, tend to have continuing social, behavioral, and health difficulties, as do their offspring. Conversely, parental involvement, cognitive stimulation, warmth, and nurturance appear to have important protective effects for offspring. Finally, educational achievement appears to be a powerful buffer against problematic parenting and a wide variety of difficult family circumstances, protecting families against the transfer of risk between generations.

Sex-related differences in response to practice on a visual-spatial test and generalization to a related test.

93 first graders (mean age 6.5 years) were given a pretest and posttest on half of the items from the Childrens Embedded Figures Test. Half of the children were randomly assigned to a training condition and received a brief training procedure on visual-spatial disembedding prior to the administration of the posttest. Children in the control condition received no training. The performance of girls improved significantly more from pretest to posttest than the performance of boys. Boys and girls showed similar beneficial effects of training in addition to the benefit of direct practice. The tendency that was observed for boys to perform higher than girls on the pretest, p less than .10, was not evident on the posttest. Scores on the pretest predicted scores on a different measure of visual-spatial ability only for children in the control group. The results are interpreted in terms of current theories of sex differences in visual-spatial perception.

Infants' intermodal knowledge about gender

The aim of this study was to seek evidence of intermodal knowledge about gender in young infants that would provide direct evidence of the existence of gender categories during the 1st year. In Experiment 1, 9- and 12-month-olds were presented with pairs of male and female pictures with a female or male voice presented simultaneously. The infants spent significantly more time looking at the pictures matching the voices than at the same pictures paired with mismatching voices, but only in the case of female stimuli. Comparison to chance level performance suggested that the matching effect was more consistent in older subjects. In Experiment 2, a 2nd group of 9-month-olds was tested with a set of highly stereotypical faces and distinctive male and female voices. Infants showed a preference for the faces matching the voices, but this effect was again restricted to female stimuli

Men Don't Put on Make-up: Toddlers' Knowledge of the Gender Stereotyping of Household Activities.

Toddlers’knowledge of the stereotyping of traditionally feminine and masculine household activities was examined in two experiments. The experiments used a generalized imitation paradigm which required toddlers (total N = 63) to select a male or female doll to imitate nine masculine, feminine and neutral activities (e.g., shaving, vacuuming, sleeping). In the first experiment, 24-month-old girls, but not boys, demonstrated knowledge of both feminine and masculine activities. Results from study 2 indicated that boys possess some knowledge of these stereotyped activities by the age of 31 months. The results of the two experiments suggested that knowledge about the gender stereotyping of familiar activities can be demonstrated in children as young as 24 months.