Centre for Family Research, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Arch Sex Behav. 2010 Dec;39(6):1261-73. doi: 10.1007/s10508-010-9618-z. Epub 2010 Mar 16.
Girls and boys differ in their preferences for toys such as dolls and trucks. These sex differences are present in infants, are seen in non-human primates, and relate, in part, to prenatal androgen exposure. This evidence of inborn influences on sex-typed toy preferences has led to suggestions that object features, such as the color or the shape of toys, may be of intrinsically different interest to males and females. We used a preferential looking task to examine preferences for different toys, colors, and shapes in 120 infants, ages 12, 18, or 24 months. Girls looked at dolls significantly more than boys did and boys looked at cars significantly more than girls did, irrespective of color, particularly when brightness was controlled. These outcomes did not vary with age. There were no significant sex differences in infants' preferences for different colors or shapes. Instead, both girls and boys preferred reddish colors over blue and rounded over angular shapes. These findings augment prior evidence of sex-typed toy preferences in infants, but suggest that color and shape do not determine these sex differences. In fact, the direction of influence could be the opposite. Girls may learn to prefer pink, for instance, because the toys that they enjoy playing with are often colored pink. Regarding within sex differences, as opposed to differences between boys and girls, both boys and girls preferred dolls to cars at age 12-months. The preference of young boys for dolls over cars suggests that older boys' avoidance of dolls may be acquired. Similarly, the sex similarities in infants' preferences for colors and shapes suggest that any subsequent sex differences in these preferences may arise from socialization or cognitive gender development rather than inborn factors.
女孩和男孩在玩具选择上存在差异，例如喜欢玩娃娃和卡车。这种性别差异在婴儿期就存在，在非人类灵长类动物中也能观察到，部分原因是胎儿时期暴露于雄激素。这些先天因素对性别典型玩具偏好的影响的证据表明，玩具的特征，如颜色或形状，可能对男性和女性具有内在的不同吸引力。我们使用偏好注视任务，在 120 名 12、18 或 24 个月大的婴儿中，检查了他们对不同玩具、颜色和形状的偏好。女孩看娃娃的时间明显多于男孩，男孩看汽车的时间明显多于女孩，无论颜色如何，尤其是在控制亮度的情况下。这些结果不因年龄而变化。婴儿对不同颜色或形状的偏好没有显著的性别差异。相反，女孩和男孩都更喜欢红色，而不是蓝色，更喜欢圆形，而不是棱角分明的形状。这些发现增加了先前关于婴儿性别典型玩具偏好的证据，但表明颜色和形状并不能决定这些性别差异。事实上，影响的方向可能相反。例如，女孩可能会因为她们喜欢玩的玩具通常是粉红色的，所以学会喜欢粉红色。关于性别内差异，而不是男孩和女孩之间的差异，12 个月大的男孩和女孩都更喜欢娃娃而不是汽车。小男孩更喜欢娃娃而不是汽车，这表明大男孩对娃娃的回避可能是后天习得的。同样，婴儿对颜色和形状的偏好具有性别相似性，这表明这些偏好的任何后续性别差异可能是由社会化或认知性别发展而不是先天因素引起的。
