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Pink for Girls, Blue for Boys:The Impact of Parental Gender-stereotypes on Child Preferences
A/Prof Alina Morawska, Dr Sabine Baker,Stacy Siqi Zheng
Parenting and Family Support Centre
Direct reinforcement on child behaviourfrom the parents
Indirect behaviouralmodelling from the
parents
Parents holding gender-stereotypical attitudesdirectly towards child behaviour itself
Indirect parental influence through
their attitudes about marital roles
Introduction – Research
Child Preferences –
Gender Stereotypes
Social Learning Theory
(Bandura & Walters, 1969; Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Cooper & Fazio, 1984; Endendijk et al., 2013, 2018; Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959; Friedman et al., 2007; Gerull and Rapee, 2002; Groeneveld and Mesman, 2018; Halpern & Perry-Jenkins, 2016; Jilani et al., 2018; Perry & Bussey, 1979; Skinner, 1938)
Interplay of parental attitudes and behaviour?Cognitive Dissonance?
Direct – operant conditioning
Indirect – observational learning
Introduction – Hypotheses
Attitudes Behaviour
Parental Attitudes
Marital Roles
Reinforcement
Modelling
Child Preferences
Hypothesis 1: Parental attitudes, marital roles, reinforcement and modelling could be predicting child preferences. (more gender-stereotypical parents = moregender-stereotypical preferences in children)
Hypothesis 2: Interrelationship between attitudes and behaviour. (congruent = moregender-stereotypical preferences; incongruent = less gender-stereotypical preferences in children)
Method - Participants
• 378 Australian parents
• with at least 1 children aged 1-5 years old
• Age: 20 – 65 years old
• 87% mothers
• 72% QLDers
• 89% Caucasians
• 66% University degree and above
• 76% employed
Method - Recruitment
Emails/Posts
Flyers Website Survey
IVs
Parental attitudes about child behaviour
Parental attitudes towards marital roles
Parental reinforcement of child behaviour
Parental modelling
DV Child Preferences
Cross-sectional Design
Method - Design
Method - Measures
Child PreferencesPre-School Activities Inventory (PSAI; Golombok& Rust, 1993)
Parental AttitudesChild Gender Socialisation Scale(CGSS; Blakemore & Hill, 2008)
Marital RolesGender-based Attitudes toward Marital Roles Scales (GATMR; Hoffman & Kloska, 1995)
ReinforcementParent Reinforcement of
Gender Roles (PRGRC; Antill, Cunningham, & Cotton, 2003)
ModellingHousehold and Child Care Task Checklist (HCCTC; Spry, Morawska, & Sanders, 2009)
Results - Correlations
Marital roles, reinforcement, modelling & Child Preferences Sig. Negative correlations
Results - Regression
Hierarchical Multiple Regression
• Controls (not sig.) - F ch.(3, 374) = .65, p = .581
• Parent gender, education level, economic status
• 4 IVs: F (4, 370) = 9.84, p < .001 – 10% variance
• Sig. negative predictors of child preferences:
• Reinforcement (β = -.21, p < .001) – 4%
• Marital roles (β = -.17, p = .002) – >2%
• Not sig. predictors:
• Modelling (β = -.02, p = .784)
• Parental attitudes (β = -.06, p = .204)
Moderated Multiple Regression
• Direct effects of marital roles &
reinforcement
• Sig. 9% of the variance in child preferences
• F ch.(2, 375) = 18.40, p < .001
• Interaction: not significant predictor
• F (1, 374) = .01, p = .925
• No sig. interaction between marital roles &
reinforcement
• β = -.01, p = .925
Discussion – Hypothesis 1
• Inconsistent - No significant relationship between parental attitudes and child preferences
• Potential explanation: adaption made in CGSS
• Original – evaluation rating
• Now – likelihood rating
• Interpreted with caution!
• Stronger gender stereotypes in marital roles, reinforcement & modelling
• More gender-stereotypical preferences in children
• Social Learning Theory
• Possible alternative explanations:
1. Explicit and implicit attitudes not differentiated in these measures• Having a discrepancy between implicit and explicit attitudes
= weaker attitudes overall (Karpen, Jia & Rydell, 2012) • Explicit attitudes are more prone to social desirability or consciousness
(Endendijk et al., 2013) • Solution: use separate measures specifically testing explicit & implicit
attitudes
2. Did not take the partners role in the household into account • Gender development is partly affected by childrens tendencies to
imitate same-gender models more than opposite-gender ones (Endendijk et al., 2018; Loureiro, Sanz- De-Galdeano, & Vuri, 2010; MacPhee & Prendergast, 2019)
• Daughters might imitate mothers behaviour more, sons might imitate fathers more (Perry & Bussey, 1979)
• Solution: conduct interviews with both parents about their child
Discussion – Hypothesis 2
• Marital roles & reinforcement intercorrelated as expected.
• Non-significant interaction found in predicting child preferences.
Strengths: • Further empirical
evidence
• Validated measurements with moderate to good reliability
• Relatively big sample size with strong power
Limitations: • Did not examine how
demographics influence parental
attitudes and behaviour
• Not representative sample –
educated, employed Caucasian
QLDers, mostly mothers
Discussion
ImplicationsParents need to be more careful about expressing opinions that confirm traditional gender-stereotypes and to be more aware of their own behaviour in the household
Future research
The development or improvement of parenting interventions: start early by targeting young children and their parents
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