Sociocognitive correlates of gender-linked conduct

This study of the processes guiding children's gender-linked conduct focused on ages prior to the development of self-regulatory control through the exercise of self-evaluative reactions. The study sample consisted of 29 boys and 33 girls in Australia between 17 and 48 months old. Measures included: (1) a videotaped toy play session in which children were left alone with five boys' and five girls' toys; (2) Leinbach and Fagot's gender labeling point test, extended with a self-pointing task; (3) a gender-labeling test of photographs of inanimate objects framed in terms of which object a boy or girl would play with; (4) a test requiring children to produce a gender label for photographs; and (5) children's evaluation of a videotape sequences of other-gender-linked conduct. Children's knowledge of gender labels associated with toys was quite poor; however, regardless of age, during the toy play session, all children engaged in more same-sex than other-sex conduct. Younger children demonstrated little negative appraisal of other-sex conduct on the videotape, while the two older age groups were more likely to indicate that an other-sex toy was a "bad" toy for the child actor to play with. Children who could point to a boy or girl when their own photograph was one of the two photographs presented engaged in more same-sex activities than children who failed this task.