Sex-Role Stereotyping and Young Children's Divergent Thinking

1986 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 1027-1033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol D. Lewis ◽  
John C. Houtz
Keyword(s):  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Divergent Thinking ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Sex Role Stereotyping ◽  
Cultural Expectations ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
Similar Task

In two experiments 157 kindergarten and first-grade children were administered the Circles Subtest of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Boys and girls were given differential instructions to think of ideas typically thought of by members of the opposite sex. The contents of the children's ideas were analyzed and scored according to male- and female-dominant categories. Directions to generate ideas of the opposite sex inhibits performance, and considerable sex-role stereotyping of responses occurs at an early age. Without training on a similar task, however, boys appeared to be less able to follow directions and think of ideas typical of the opposite sex. Results are discussed in terms of the hypothesis that girls are more knowledgeable of the opposite sex-roles than are boys but are inhibited in the expression of this knowledge by cultural expectations.

Adults' Perceptions of Children's Independence and other Sex-Role Characteristics as a Function of Child's Gender Label

1978 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 955-962 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. Bell ◽  
Kay Hibbs ◽  
Thomas Milholland
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Female College Students ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Female College ◽  
Opposite Sex

Male and female college students were presented with a photograph labeled as a 5-yr.-old boy or girl and heard statements attributed to the child. They then rated the child on sex-role traits and responded to open-ended questions about the child. The primary findings involved sex of child by sex of adult interactions on ratings of independence and leadership: in both cases, same-sex children were rated higher than opposite-sex children. There was also some evidence that women having high contact with children rated the child more extremely on opposite-sex traits than did those with little contact.

Pastoral Counselors: Their Attitudes Toward Gay and Lesbian Clients

1986 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna M. Hochstein
Keyword(s):  
Healthy Adult ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Pastoral Counselors ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Adult Mental Health ◽  
Gay Male ◽  
Sex Role Stereotyping ◽  
Healthy Adult Male ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Female Clients

Interprets an empirical research project involving 190 pastoral counselors in terms of a set of homosexual and lesbian variables. Notes that pastoral counselors do not rate gay male and lesbian clients as significantly different from heterosexual male and female clients but do manifest significant differences between male and female clients. Observes that pastoral counselors' standards for healthy adult mental health tend to be that of a healthy adult male and that female clients are assessed either as healthy persons but as unhealthy women or as healthy women and as unhealthy persons. Concludes that the sex-role stereotyping revealed in the study discriminates against both men and women. Discusses pastoral implications in view of the research findings.

Sex-Role and opposite-Sex Interpersonal Attraction

1988 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 855-860 ◽  
Author(s):  
John P. Lombardo ◽  
Patricia L. Francis ◽  
Susan Brown
Keyword(s):  
Sex Roles ◽  
Interpersonal Attraction ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
Female Subjects

Androgynous, traditional, and undifferentiated male and female subjects indicated their attraction to three opposite-sex strangers who were described as having an androgynous, traditional, and undifferentiated sex-role. Subjects' ability to describe the sex-roles of the strangers was also measured. Androgynous strangers were most preferred, undifferentiated strangers least preferred. The least preferred undifferentiated strangers' sex-role was most accurately described. Subjects were least successful in describing the androgynous sex-role.

Experimental Alteration of the it Scale in the Study of Sex-Role Preference

1968 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max R. Reed ◽  
Willotta Asbjornsen
Keyword(s):  
Sex Role ◽  
Stimulus Figure ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Preference Behavior ◽  
Role Preference ◽  
Experimental Alteration ◽  
Opposite Sex

The study explored some assumptions underlying Brown's It Scale and employed an altered administration of the scale to investigate sex-role-preference behavior in 50 boys and 48 girls of preschool age. Ss judged the sex status of Brown's It figure and Hogan's analogous Somebody figure. Neither figure was seen as ambiguous. The second part of the study employed stimulus figures for the It Scale which Ss had unambiguously designed male and female. The results disagreed with some previous findings. Preschool girls (a) equalled boys in making appropriate sex-role preference choices for a same-sex stimulus figure, (b) made more choices than boys of an opposite-sex stimulus figure, and (c) showed increased frequency of choices with age on the same task for both same- and opposite-sex figures, while boys showed no such change.

Sex-Typed May Be Beautiful but Androgynous is Good

1981 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 267-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith S. Bridges
Keyword(s):  
Physical Attractiveness ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Stimulus Person ◽  
Role Orientation ◽  
Sex Role Orientation ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Sex Attraction ◽  
Opposite Sex

The effects of a stimulus person's sex-role orientation on both opposite-sex attraction and attribution of physical attractiveness were assessed. Male and female undergraduates, classified as sex-typed or androgynous according to their scores on the Bern Sex-role Inventory, were asked to form impressions of two members of the opposite sex on the basis of some of their responses to the inventory. The protocols were actually bogus and were contrived to represent a feminine female, a masculine male, and an androgynous person (same for both sexes). Each subject was given one sex-typed and one androgynous protocol and was asked to form impressions of both. The results indicated that both androgynous and sex-typed females liked the androgynous male significantly more than the masculine one, although males did not differentiate between the two females. Moreover, significantly greater physical attractiveness was attributed to the sex-typed stimulus person than to the androgynous one.

MASCULININTY-FEMININITY AND ACCURACY OF SEX ROLE ASCRIPTION

1974 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-42
Author(s):  
John C. Touhey
Keyword(s):  
Sex Role ◽  
Role Taking ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Role Identification ◽  
Opposite Sex ◽  
Sibling Effects ◽  
Femininity Scale

To examine relationships between masculinity-femininity, presence of same or opposite sex sibling, and accuracy of cross-sex role-taking, 92 male and female undergraduates classified the 20 items comprising Smith's (1968) Masculinity-Femininity Scale according the sex-role characteristics. Femininity and role-taking accuracy were positively correlated among males (p < 0.01) and negatively correlated among females (p < 0.02), but only one of the four comparisons for sibling effects reached significance (p < 0.05). It is suggested that greater role-taking accuracy among feminine scoring-males and masculine scoring-females results from problematic sex-role identification, and the findings are interpreted in terms of stabilizing mechanisms postulated by interpersonal congruency theory.

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