Infants' visual preference for sex-congruent babies, children, toys and activities: A longitudinal study.

Abstract

Sex differences in social behaviour emerge as early as 2 years of age and gender schema theorists have suggested that preverbal infants possess ‘tacit’ knowledge of gender which informs their behaviour. This study examined sex-congruent preferences using a visual preference paradigm in four domains (babies, children, toys, activities) in a longitudinal study of infants aged 3, 9 and 18 months. At 3 months, infants showed a marginally significant preference for same-sex babies driven principally by males. Sex-congruent toy preference was found among males at ages 9 and 18 months. Both sexes preferred masculine activity styles but this effect was significantly stronger among males than females. Gender schema theory requires gendered self-concept as a precursor to sex-congruent preference. Infants did not recognize themselves from photographs at any of the ages tested. By 18 months approximately two thirds of infants showed self-recognition on the rouge test. However, at none of the ages and in none of the domains tested was self-recognition related to sex-congruent preference. Cross-domain consistency of preference was not found. There was evidence of some stability of preference within domains between the ages of 9 and 18 months and this stability was very marked for activity preference.