Pink for Girls, Blue for Boys:The Impact of Parental Gender-stereotypes on Child Preferences

A/Prof Alina Morawska, Dr Sabine Baker,Stacy Siqi Zheng

Parenting and Family Support Centre

Direct reinforcement on child behaviourfrom the parents

Indirect behaviouralmodelling from the

parents

Parents holding gender-stereotypical attitudesdirectly towards child behaviour itself

Indirect parental influence through

their attitudes about marital roles

Introduction – Research

Child Preferences –

Gender Stereotypes

Social Learning Theory

(Bandura & Walters, 1969; Bussey & Bandura, 1999; Cooper & Fazio, 1984; Endendijk et al., 2013, 2018; Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959; Friedman et al., 2007; Gerull and Rapee, 2002; Groeneveld and Mesman, 2018; Halpern & Perry-Jenkins, 2016; Jilani et al., 2018; Perry & Bussey, 1979; Skinner, 1938)

Interplay of parental attitudes and behaviour?Cognitive Dissonance?

Direct – operant conditioning

Indirect – observational learning

Introduction – Hypotheses

Attitudes Behaviour

Parental Attitudes

Marital Roles

Reinforcement

Modelling

Child Preferences

Hypothesis 1: Parental attitudes, marital roles, reinforcement and modelling could be predicting child preferences. (more gender-stereotypical parents = moregender-stereotypical preferences in children)

Hypothesis 2: Interrelationship between attitudes and behaviour. (congruent = moregender-stereotypical preferences; incongruent = less gender-stereotypical preferences in children)

Method - Participants

• 378 Australian parents

• with at least 1 children aged 1-5 years old

• Age: 20 – 65 years old

• 87% mothers

• 72% QLDers

• 89% Caucasians

• 66% University degree and above

• 76% employed

Method - Recruitment

Emails/Posts

Flyers Website Survey

IVs

Parental attitudes about child behaviour

Parental attitudes towards marital roles

Parental reinforcement of child behaviour

Parental modelling

DV Child Preferences

Cross-sectional Design

Method - Design

Method - Measures

Child PreferencesPre-School Activities Inventory (PSAI; Golombok& Rust, 1993)

Parental AttitudesChild Gender Socialisation Scale(CGSS; Blakemore & Hill, 2008)

Marital RolesGender-based Attitudes toward Marital Roles Scales (GATMR; Hoffman & Kloska, 1995)

ReinforcementParent Reinforcement of

Gender Roles (PRGRC; Antill, Cunningham, & Cotton, 2003)

ModellingHousehold and Child Care Task Checklist (HCCTC; Spry, Morawska, & Sanders, 2009)

Results - Correlations

Marital roles, reinforcement, modelling & Child Preferences Sig. Negative correlations

Results - Regression

Hierarchical Multiple Regression

• Controls (not sig.) - F ch.(3, 374) = .65, p = .581

• Parent gender, education level, economic status

• 4 IVs: F (4, 370) = 9.84, p < .001 – 10% variance

• Sig. negative predictors of child preferences:

• Reinforcement (β = -.21, p < .001) – 4%

• Marital roles (β = -.17, p = .002) – >2%

• Not sig. predictors:

• Modelling (β = -.02, p = .784)

• Parental attitudes (β = -.06, p = .204)

Moderated Multiple Regression

• Direct effects of marital roles &

reinforcement

• Sig. 9% of the variance in child preferences

• F ch.(2, 375) = 18.40, p < .001

• Interaction: not significant predictor

• F (1, 374) = .01, p = .925

• No sig. interaction between marital roles &

reinforcement

• β = -.01, p = .925

Discussion – Hypothesis 1

• Inconsistent - No significant relationship between parental attitudes and child preferences

• Potential explanation: adaption made in CGSS

• Original – evaluation rating

• Now – likelihood rating

• Interpreted with caution!

• Stronger gender stereotypes in marital roles, reinforcement & modelling

• More gender-stereotypical preferences in children

• Social Learning Theory

• Possible alternative explanations:

1. Explicit and implicit attitudes not differentiated in these measures• Having a discrepancy between implicit and explicit attitudes

= weaker attitudes overall (Karpen, Jia & Rydell, 2012) • Explicit attitudes are more prone to social desirability or consciousness

(Endendijk et al., 2013) • Solution: use separate measures specifically testing explicit & implicit

attitudes

2. Did not take the partners role in the household into account • Gender development is partly affected by childrens tendencies to

imitate same-gender models more than opposite-gender ones (Endendijk et al., 2018; Loureiro, Sanz- De-Galdeano, & Vuri, 2010; MacPhee & Prendergast, 2019)

• Daughters might imitate mothers behaviour more, sons might imitate fathers more (Perry & Bussey, 1979)

• Solution: conduct interviews with both parents about their child

Discussion – Hypothesis 2

• Marital roles & reinforcement intercorrelated as expected.

• Non-significant interaction found in predicting child preferences.

Strengths: • Further empirical

evidence

• Validated measurements with moderate to good reliability

• Relatively big sample size with strong power

Limitations: • Did not examine how

demographics influence parental

attitudes and behaviour

• Not representative sample –

educated, employed Caucasian

QLDers, mostly mothers

Discussion

ImplicationsParents need to be more careful about expressing opinions that confirm traditional gender-stereotypes and to be more aware of their own behaviour in the household

Future research

The development or improvement of parenting interventions: start early by targeting young children and their parents

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