Wong Wang Ivy, Shi Sylvia Yun, Li Gu, Ng Pak Ho
Gender Studies Programme, Faculty of Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Child Dev. 2025 Mar-Apr;96(2):812-829. doi: 10.1111/cdev.14211. Epub 2024 Dec 20.
Gender-typed play may contribute to gender disparities in spatial skills, but evidence of this link is limited. Gender-typed play and mental transformation, an important spatial skill, were studied using age-appropriate and comprehensive measures. Chinese children were tested at 5-6 years and at 11-14 years (N = 210), creating a long-term data set considering bidirectional associations. Play and mental transformation showed moderate to large gender differences. Importantly, boy-typical play positively predicted mental transformation, while girl-typical play negatively predicted it. Results were largely consistent across gender and socioeconomic status and when play was coded by spatialness. They suggest that play is an important socialization experience and illuminates the developmental origins of gender disparities in spatial skills.
具有性别特征的游戏可能会导致空间技能方面的性别差异，但这种联系的证据有限。我们使用适合年龄且全面的测量方法，对具有性别特征的游戏和一种重要的空间技能——心理转换进行了研究。对中国儿童在5至6岁和11至14岁时进行了测试（N = 210），创建了一个考虑双向关联的长期数据集。游戏和心理转换表现出中度到较大的性别差异。重要的是，典型男孩的游戏对心理转换有正向预测作用，而典型女孩的游戏则有负向预测作用。结果在性别和社会经济地位方面以及根据游戏的空间性进行编码时，在很大程度上是一致的。它们表明游戏是一种重要的社会化体验，并揭示了空间技能中性别差异的发展根源。
