Semester
Summer
Date of Graduation
2006
Document Type
Thesis (Open Access)
Degree Type
MS
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Psychology
Committee Chair
Katherine Karraker.
Abstract
Associations between the gender-role orientation of parents and the toy-play behavior of first-born infants were investigated. Fifteen fathers ( M age = 31.13, SD = 4.26) and 46 mothers ( M age = 28.13, SD = 4.97) completed self-administered questionnaires which included questions on feedback to play with gender-typed toys. ANOVA results indicated that mothers provided more masculine-typed toys for their sons than their daughters, and more feminine-typed toys for their daughters than their sons; fathers provided more feminine-typed toys for their daughters than their sons. In addition, mothers provided more encouragement to same-gender-typed play than cross-gender-typed play for both masculine- and feminine-typed toys, while fathers provided more encouragement to their daughters playing with feminine-typed toys than their sons. Results are discussed in terms of the gender-role socialization processes in which parents of young children engage, and the possibility of bidirectional socialization processes.
Recommended Citation
Hartley, Jennifer K., "Gender-role development in toddlers: The association between parental gender-role orientation and toddler's gender-typed behavior" (2006). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 2465.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/2465