Sex differences (Psychology) in children

While recent research has promoted play as an integral component of a child's cognitive functioning, tool-use has been relatively ignored in this discussion. It may be the case that these two abilities, especially constructive play and problem solving through the use of tools, emerging early in a child's life, have some connection in the formation of higher cognitive processing. From an evolutionary developmental perspective, three-year old children were observed in two free-play sessions and participated in a toy-retrieval task. Results indicate boys engaged in more constructive play than girls and were more likely to use tools to solve a problem. Also, the findings suggest that the gender difference observed reflects a bias in motivation to interact with objects, with the amount of time spent in constructive play predicting performance on the tool-use task, suggesting that much of the variance in the gender difference in tool use can be attributed to experience in constructive play. This is consistent with the evolutionary theoretical idea that boys' and girls' play styles evolved to prepare them for adult life in traditional environments.

In the present study, 120 children participated in an experiment
designed to investigate sex differences in the way children perceive the
consequences of aggression. Subjects were given a 48 item questionnaire
designed to measure their expectations about the consequences for
aggressive behavior. Separate questionnaire Items assessed expectations
for five categories of consequences which according to Bandura (1973,
1979) may play a role in maintaining aggressive behavior. These
categories included self-rewards, tangible rewards, victim suffering,
peer approval, and parental approval. Results indicated boys expect
greater self-rewards than girls for aggressive behavior. Sex of the
target of aggression was also found to be an important variable in
determining the perceived consequences of aggressive behavior. Children
anticipated greater self-rewards and greater tangible rewards for
aggressing towards female targets. They also expected greater parental
disapproval and greater victim suffering for female targets.
Implications for social learning theory were discussed.

The present dissertation introduces three new measures of gender identity and examines their relations to psychosocial adjustment (i.e., self-concept and peer acceptance) in preadolescence. The sample consisted of 182 4th- through 8th-grade children. The three measures assessed (a) feelings of overall similarity to and compatibility with one's gender (goodness-of-fit), (b) feelings of pressure to conform to sex-role stereotypes (felt pressure), and (c) belief that one's sex is superior to the other sex (intergroup bias). Both concurrent and short-term longitudinal analyses indicated that goodness-of-fit was beneficial to psychosocial adjustment, whereas both felt pressure and intergroup bias undermined psychosocial adjustment. Furthermore, goodness-of-fit mediated many of the relations of domain-specific sex-typing measures (e.g., traits) to adjustment. The present dissertation helps identify some of the inherent limitations in previous work on gender identity, provides new insight into the relation of children's gender identity and psychosocial development, and raises suggestions for future inquiry.