Liu Shaoying, Xiao Naiqi G, Quinn Paul C, Zhu Dandan, Ge Liezhong, Pascalis Olivier, Lee Kang
Zhejiang Sci-Tech University , Hangzhou, China.
University of Toronto , Toronto, ON, Canada.
Front Psychol. 2015 May 7;6:593. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00593. eCollection 2015.
Previous studies have reported that 3- to 4-month-olds show a visual preference for faces of the same gender as their primary caregiver (e.g., Quinn et al., 2002). In addition, this gender preference has been observed for own-race faces, but not for other-race faces (Quinn et al., 2008). However, most of the studies of face gender preference have focused on infants at 3-4 months. Development of gender preference in later infancy is still unclear. Moreover, all of these studies were conducted with Caucasian infants from Western countries. It is thus unknown whether a gender preference that is limited to own-race faces can be generalized to infants from other racial groups and different cultures with distinct caregiving practices. The current study investigated the face gender preferences of Asian infants presented with male versus female face pairs from Asian and Caucasian races at 3, 6, and 9 months and the role of caregiving arrangements in eliciting those preferences. The results showed an own-race female face preference in 3- and 6-month-olds, but not in 9-month-olds. Moreover, the downturn in the female face preference correlated with the cumulative male face experience obtained in caregiving practices. In contrast, no gender preference or correlation between gender preference and face experience was found for other-race Caucasian faces at any age. The data indicate that the face gender preference is not specifically rooted in Western cultural caregiving practices. In addition, the race dependency of the effect previously observed for Caucasian infants reared by Caucasian caregivers looking at Caucasian but not Asian faces extends to Asian infants reared by Asian caregivers looking at Asian but not Caucasian faces. The findings also provide additional support for an experiential basis for the gender preference, and in particular suggest that cumulative male face experience plays a role in inducing a downturn in the preference in older infants.
先前的研究报告称，3至4个月大的婴儿对与他们主要照顾者性别相同的面孔表现出视觉偏好（例如，奎因等人，2002年）。此外，这种性别偏好已在本种族面孔中观察到，但在其他种族面孔中未观察到（奎因等人，2008年）。然而，大多数关于面孔性别偏好的研究都集中在3至4个月大的婴儿身上。婴儿后期性别偏好的发展仍不清楚。此外，所有这些研究都是针对来自西方国家的白种人婴儿进行的。因此，仅限于本种族面孔的性别偏好是否能推广到来自其他种族群体和具有不同育儿方式的不同文化背景的婴儿，尚不清楚。本研究调查了3个月、6个月和9个月大的亚洲婴儿在面对亚洲和白种人种族的男性与女性面孔对时的面孔性别偏好，以及育儿安排在引发这些偏好中的作用。结果显示，3个月和6个月大的婴儿对本种族女性面孔有偏好，但9个月大的婴儿没有。此外，女性面孔偏好的下降与育儿实践中获得的累积男性面孔经验相关。相比之下，在任何年龄，对于其他种族的白种人面孔，均未发现性别偏好或性别偏好与面孔经验之间的相关性。数据表明，面孔性别偏好并非特别植根于西方文化的育儿实践。此外，先前观察到的由白人照顾者抚养的白人婴儿看白人而非亚洲面孔时的种族依赖性效应，扩展到了由亚洲照顾者抚养的亚洲婴儿看亚洲而非白人面孔的情况。这些发现也为性别偏好的经验基础提供了额外支持，特别是表明累积的男性面孔经验在导致较大婴儿偏好下降方面发挥了作用。
