Peer Toy Play as a Gateway to Children’s Gender Flexibility: The Effect of (Counter)Stereotypic Portrayals of Peers in Children’s Magazines

Abstract

Extensive evidence has documented the gender stereotypic content of children’s media, and media is recognized as an important socializing agent for young children. Yet, the precise impact of children’s media on the endorsement of gender-typed attitudes and behaviors has received less scholarly attention. We investigated the impact of stereotypic and counter-stereotypic peers pictured in children’s magazines on children’s gender flexibility around toy play and preferences, playmate choice, and social exclusion behavior (n = 82, age 4–7 years-old). British children were randomly assigned to view a picture of a peer-age boy and girl in a magazine playing with either a gender stereotypic or counter-stereotypic toy. In the stereotypic condition, the pictured girl was shown with a toy pony and the pictured boy was shown with a toy car; these toys were reversed in the counter-stereotypic condition. Results revealed significantly greater gender flexibility around toy play and playmate choices among children in the counter-stereotypic condition compared to the stereotypic condition, and boys in the stereotypic condition were more accepting of gender-based exclusion than were girls. However, there was no difference in children’s own toy preferences between the stereotypic and counter-stereotypic condition, with children preferring more gender-typed toys overall. Implications of the findings for media, education, and parenting practices are discussed, and the potential for counter-stereotypic media portrayals of toy play to shape the gender socialization of young children is explored.

Does Exposure to Counterstereotypical Role Models Influence Girls’ and Women’s Gender Stereotypes and Career Choices? A Review of Social Psychological Research

“…Research has repeatedly shown that changes in stereotypes do not reliably predict change in behavior (see Bigler, 1999). Specifically, studies have failed to find a significant change in girls’ aspirations for counterstereotypical occupations (Ashby and Wittmaier, 1978; Bailey and Nihlen, 1990; Bigler and Liben, 1990; Liben et al, 2001; Coyle and Liben, 2016) or preferences for counterstereotypical toys following a brief exposure to gender-counterstereotypical role models (Spinner et al, 2018, but see Ashton, 1983). Thus, the lack of correspondence between girls’ knowledge of what other women do and what they subsequently do suggests that stereotypes may not become internalized following short-term experimental interventions.…”

Flexibility of Gender Stereotypes: Italian Study on Comparative Gender-consistent and Gender-inconsistent Information

“…Additionally, children's exposure to storybooks with female characters in atypical or gender-inconsistent roles (e.g., jobs) is linked to an increase in the number of occupations that children judge appropriate for women (Karniol & Gal-Disegni, 2009). Finally, as reported more recently by Spinner et al (2018), 4-to-7year-old children randomly assigned to view a picture of a peer-age boy and girl in a magazine playing with either a gender stereotypic toy (boy with a toy car) or counter-stereotypic toy (girl with a toy car) showed greater gender flexibility in relation to toy play and playmate choices in the counter-stereotypic condition compared to the stereotypic condition. By these clear evidences, it is possible to note that results have been influenced by age differences in children's gender stereotyping (Blakemore, 2003).…”

“…Researchers have been concerned about the impact and relevance of gender-inconsistent and gender-consistent stimuli on children's gender stereotyping and gendered play behaviors (Abad & Pruden, 2003;Ashton, 1983;Killen et al, 2005;Welch-Ross & Schmidt, 1996), with the utilization of different paradigms and tasks in order to analyze gender schemas and stereotypes in developmental age: the picture recognition tasks (Cann & Newbern, 1984), memory and recall of story content tasks (Cherney & Ryalls, 1999;Liben & Signorella, 1993), sequential-touching tasks (Johnston, Bittinger, Smith & Madole, 2001;Oakes & Plumert, 2002;Thomas & Dahlin, 2000), and reading of counter-stereotypic storybooks and magazine (Abad & Pruden, 2003;Green, Bigler, & Catherwood, 2004;Spinner, Cameron, & Calogero, 2018). For example, in the study of Ashton (1983), 2-to-5-year-old children to whom a storybook about a same-sex child engaged in play with a gender-atypical toy was read were noted to play more with gender-atypical toys (e.g., a girl participant hears a story about a girl playing with a dump truck and immediately increases playing with trucks).…”

Factors affecting infant toy preferences: Age, gender, experience, motor development, and parental attitude

“…There may be differences between male and female caretakers on their attitudes to toys and gender. We leave these potential factors for future research, but encourage greater diversity in children's toy play to promote a reduction in gender stereotypes (Dinella & Weisgram, 2018;Joel et al, 2015;Kollmayer et al, 2018;Spinner, Cameron, & Calogero, 2018).…”