Condry and Condry (1976) ask the question “do observers see differences in a child’s behaviour as a function of the sex type label alone?” They did an investigation into whether there is any evidence that people’s views on behaviour change between boys and girls in that way. An example of this is that adults will respond quicker to a crying girl than a boy (Condry, Condry & Pogatshnik, 1983, cited in Condry & Condry)
. Condry and Condry believed that if people perceive boys and girls differently then a situation occurs in which these underlying ideas about sex will cause differences to be perceived in boys and girls. Condry and Ross (1985) did a study into the influence of gender labels on adults’
perceptions of aggression in children, they found that boys were actually rated less aggressive than girls were.
Condry and Condry set out to assess whether people actually do attribute different characteristics to boys and girls regardless of whether those differences actually occur. The study involved participants watching a 9-month-old baby playing with five different toys and asking them to rate the emotional response of the child. Half the participants were told the child was a boy and half were told that it was a girl. Condry and Condry found that the participants gave different responses to the child on the bases of its perceived sex. The results revealed that there are underlying sex ideas present, which contribute to sex differences between boys and girls. A replication of this study was carried out to see whether people’s attitudes to sex differences have changed over a thirty-year period or whether they still have the underlying ideas of how sex should be portrayed. The hypothesis for this study was the participants perceived perception of the sex of the child will have an effect on the perceived responsiveness of the child.
Method
Participants
65 undergraduate psychology students were used in the experiment. The participants were found in a psychology lab class, thus it was an opportunity sample. A sample of 10 participants was taken from each of the experimental conditions.
Apparatus / materials
A video was shown of an eight-month-old baby wearing gender neutral clothes. It was shown on a large screen using a projector. The baby was given four different toys to play with. These were a teddy bear, a doll, a snapping face toy and a noisy singing dog. Each toy was presented to the baby five times.
The Participants were given a responsiveness ratings sheet and a set of instructions. (See appendix C). The responsiveness ratings sheet either said that the baby was a female called Louise or a male called Mathew.
Design
A random sample of participants was used in this experiment. An independent measures design was used to eliminate demand characteristics. The independent variable was the perceived sex of the baby and the dependant variable was the perceived emotional responsiveness of the baby. These were controlled by the participants being shown the same baby wearing the same gender-neutral clothes and marking their ratings on the same scales.
Procedure
The participants entered the room and were told to be seated. They were then given a sheet of paper that on one side had instructions and the other had the responsiveness ratings sheet. They were asked to read the instructions through carefully before the experiment began. One side of the room was given sheets that said the child was female and the other side that the child was male. The participants were asked to fill
In the scale at the appropriate places to show how emotionally responsive the child was while the video was being shown. The video was shown once on a large projector screen so that it could be seen easily. The child was shown playing with each of the four toys. Each time the toy was presented and then taken away. This was done five times for every toy. There was a few second pause between each different toy so that the participants could rate the responsiveness. The sheets were then collected and a random sample of 10 participants from each condition was used to create the results of the experiment.
Results
Figure 1- table to show SD’s of the overall responsiveness of the child.
Discussion
The results revealed that people attribute different emotions to male and female children. When the percieved sex of the child was male, participants interpreted the child as having more anger. Whereas when the perceived sex of the child was female participants interpreted the same action as fear instead of anger. However, as the graph shows, the overall responsiveness was equal. This suggests that the participants didn’t rate one sex as being more emotive than the other is, just that the responses were interpreted as different emotions.
The results support the hypothesis because the perceived sex of the child had an effect on the perceived emotion and participants rated different emotions for males and females.
This experiment was a replica of the 1976 study carried out by Condry and Condry. The findings of this experiment were very similar, meaning that attitudes towards male and female children have undergone no significant changes during the last 30 years. However the overall responsiveness for males and females in Condry and Condry’s study is much lower. This suggests that the participants in Condry and Condry’s study rated a different amount of responsiveness depending on what sex they believed the child to be. In both Condry and Condry’s work and in this experiment, boys were rated with much higher levels of anger than were the girls. Thus it also supports the work done by Robson, Pederson and Moss, 1969 (cited in Condry and Condry, 1976) into perceived emotional differences of boy and girls. However it contrasts with Condry and Ross (1985) as they found that people who see two children fighting and perceive them both to be female, saw them as more aggressive than when they believed it to be two boys.
The main implication of this research is that adults will react differently to male and female children due to underlying ideas about sex. This means that gender differences may be created by the parents and not an in built feature of the child. Also that by simply manipulating the sex of child, a host of male and female stereotypes were unearthed.
There is much future research that could be done into sex differences. However a cross-cultural study would be of benefit. It would be interesting to find out whether non – western countries such as china or the Middle East attribute the same sex differences to the behaviour of children.
So in conclusion the results came out as expected. It supported the hypothesis by illustrating a cause and effect relationship between perceived sex of the child and the perceived emotion the child. It is clear that sex differences are an inherent part of Western culture as there is an underlying mechanism that allows a child’s behaviour to be interpreted differently depending according to their sex.
References
Condry, J and Condry, S (1976) Sex differences A Study of the Eye of the Beholder. Child development, 47, 812-819
Condry, J., and Ross, D, F. (1985) Sex and aggression: The influence of gender label on the perception of aggression in children. Child development, 56, 225-233
Appendix
Appendix A – table to show means of responsiveness
Appendix B
