Semester
Summer
Date of Graduation
2006
Document Type
Thesis
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