Sex-role stereotyping in young children

Abstract

To examine the development of sex-role stereotypes in the children of professional, working mothers, 40 children between the ages of 5 and 7 were tested with the Sex Stereotype Measure II. Children were asked to categorize sex-role stereotypic attributes as representative of one of four response categories: girls, boys, both girls and boys, and a mystery box. Results revealed that older children provided more androgynous responses than younger children. There was no difference between males and females in their assignment of stereotypic attributes yet male sex-typed attributes were assigned with a significantly higher frequency than female sex-typed attributes by both sexes. An objective measure of the social desirability of the stereotypic gender-role attributes was developed and the results indicated that there was no significant difference between these attributes on this measure of social desirability by either females or males.