Taylor M G
University of Michigan, USA.
Child Dev. 1996 Aug;67(4):1555-71.
2 studies examined children's beliefs about the origins of gender differences and addressed 2 main questions: (a) What age-related changes are there in children's beliefs about the contributions of nature and nurture to the development of gender roles? and (b) Do children differentiate between aspects of gender roles that adults believe to be more biologically determined and those they believe to be more socially influenced? 160 4- to 10-year-olds and 32 adults participated in Study 1. Participants were told about a child raised with only opposite-sex individuals and were asked whether the child would grow up to possess a series of gender-stereotyped, biological, and control properties. Until age 9 or 10, children believed that gender-stereotyped properties would develop in an infant regardless of the social context of upbringing. Study 2 provides evidence that children were not merely reporting stereotypical category associations. These studies suggest that young children may have an early bias to view gender categories as predictive of essential, underlying similarities between members, but later come to acknowledge the role of other causal mechanisms (e.g., the social environment) in shaping how category members develop.
两项研究考察了儿童对性别差异起源的看法，并探讨了两个主要问题：（a）儿童对于天性和教养在性别角色发展中所起作用的看法有哪些与年龄相关的变化？以及（b）儿童是否能区分成年人认为更多由生物学决定的性别角色方面和那些他们认为更多受社会影响的方面？160名4至10岁的儿童和32名成年人参与了研究1。参与者被告知有一个孩子是在只有异性个体的环境中长大的，并被问及这个孩子长大后是否会具备一系列性别刻板印象、生物学特征和对照特征。直到9岁或10岁，儿童都认为，无论成长的社会环境如何，婴儿都会发展出性别刻板印象特征。研究2提供了证据表明儿童不仅仅是在报告刻板印象类别关联。这些研究表明，幼儿可能早期就倾向于将性别类别视为成员之间本质的、潜在相似性的预测指标，但后来开始认识到其他因果机制（如社会环境）在塑造类别成员发展方式中的作用。
