Cross-Validation of Sex-Role Measures for Children with Correlation of Sex-Role Measures for Children and Parents

Abstract

Second-grade children (21 boys, 14 girls) and both parents from intact, middle-class, at least second generation U.S. citizenship homes responded to measures of sex-role adoption, concepts, and preference. Classroom teachers rated children's sex-role adoption. Both adults and children had clear sex differences on means of measures of sex-role preference and adoption. Boys and girls showed close agreement as to the stereotypic sex-role concepts with little overlap between the distributions of concept scores characterizing boys and girls. Parents tended to adjust their preferences toward those more stereotypic for the sex of their child. The sex-role adoption by children tended to be positively correlated with the sex-role adoption by their mothers. Girls also had such correlations between their sex-role adoption and father's sex-role preference and stereotypic sex-role concepts.

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