who try to push them around. Girls win approval for showing an interest in
caring for babies and dressing up in pretty outfits.
You can appreciate the difficulty in changing these behavior patterns
when you realize how early this operant conditioning starts. Even before the
child can talk, parents speak to and play with their daughters differently
than they do with their sons (Clearfield & Nelson, 2006). One team of re-
searchers interviewed parents of sons and daughters within 24 hours after the
birth of their first child (Rubin, Provenzano, & Luria, 1974). Parents rateddaughters as softer, finer featured, smaller, and less attentive than sons. The
daughters were also described as beautiful, pretty, and cute. In reality, the new-
borns did not differ in terms of weight, length, or measures of general health.
One team of investigators examined the choices parents made for boys
and girls when the child was fewer than 25 months old (Pomerleau, Bolduc,Malcuit, & Cossette, 1990). Girls were more likely to receive dolls and toy fur-niture, whereas boys were more often given sports equipment, toy tools, and
toy cars and trucks. Perhaps predictably, the girls were more likely to wear
pink clothing, and the boys blue. In another study, prior to Christmas research-ers asked elementary school children what they wanted and after Christmas
asked what they had received (Etaugh & Liss, 1992). Most children asked for
toys traditionally associated with their gender, and most of the time that ’sj u s t
what they received. However, a few children asked their parents for toys atypi-
cal for their gender. These boys and girls were much less likely to get what they
wanted. Many parents simply won ’t buy their daughter a football, no matter
how much she wants one.
Messages about the different ways boys and girls are supposed to act are
communicated to the child within the first few years of life. By the time children
enter kindergarten, they are well aware of gender-role expectations (O ’Brien
et al., 2000; Vogel, Lake, Evans, & Karraker, 1991). Preschool boys and girlsin one study were given a choice between traditional “boy”toys (tools) and
“girl”toys (dishes) during a free-play period (Raag & Rackliff, 1998). Not only
did most children select the toys traditionally associated with their gender, butmost of the boys explained that their fathers would not approve of them playingwith girls ’toys. Preschoolers in another study were told that the other gender
“really likes ”a certain toy (Martin, Eisenbud, & Rose, 1995). After receiving
this news, both boys and girls said they liked the toy less. In short, children aresurrounded by adults and peers ready to reward gender-appropriate behaviors
and punish inappropriate ones.
Gender-role behaviors are also acquired through observational learning.
Children learn which behaviors are expected of males and which are expectedof females by watching parents, neighbors, siblings, playmates, and television
characters. When children are very young, parents are probably the most in-fluential models, which may explain why people’ s gender-role behavior tends
to resemble that of their mother or father (Jackson, Ialongo, & Stollak,1986). Later, children are more likely to take their cues about appropriateand inappropriate behavior from their friends.
However, it is not the case that boys imitate only male models and girls
only female models. Instead, the child must first notice that a certain behaviorIndividual Differences in Gender-Role Behavior 377