WHITE, ADAM JASON

To test the hypothesis that children know that certain toys are
appropriate for their own sex before they indicate preferences for
these toys, 128 boys and girls, aged two through five, were shown
pictures of masculine, faninine, and neutral toys. First, subjects
indicated their personal preferences (preference test). Second,
subjects indicated which itans were more appropriate for their sex
(stereotype test). There was no evidence for the hypothesis. In fact,
children--especially boys--displayed considerable sex-typed behavior in
their toy preferences at an earlier age than they expressed awareness
of which toys are appropriate for their own sex. This suggested that
early sex-typed preferences result from something other than children's
attempts to emulate same-sex stereotypes. A second hypothesis was that
boys would show greater rejection of cross-sex toys than girls. This
hypothesis also was rejected. Boys and girls showed equal rejection of
cross-sex toys, but boys more frequently chose same-sex toys than girls
did.