Gender And Relationship Of Children

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interaction between pairs of young children
(Jacklin & Maccoby, 1978). Pairs of 33-month old children were brought together
in the same-sex or mixed-sex in a laboratory playroom, and the amount and kind
of social behaviour directed more social behaviour, both positive and negative,
to same sex playmates that opposite sex ones. Girls paired with boys were more
likely to stand watching their partners, or withdraw towards an adult, than boys
in any pairing or girls playing with girls. The point brought up in this study
is that interactive behaviour is not just situationly specific, it also depends
on the gender of participants.
Some of the reasons given by Maccoby (1990) for attraction to same sex
partners and avoidance of other sex partners in childhood are the rough play
style of boys and their orientation towards competition and dominance. Another
reason is that girls find it difficult to influence boys. An example of such
reasoning is supported by a study done by ...

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themes were more likely connected to the props
than the older boys. The older boys preferred more creative topics. Another
sex difference was that girls used more conversation for planning than boys did.
This may have caused less misinterpretations for the play among the girls.
Finally, it was found that boys were much more likely to engage in solitary play
that girls.
A second study investigated the relationship between sex role
flexibility and prosocial behaviour among preschool children (Doescher, &
Sugawara, 1990). Prosocial behaviour are acts that help another person, such as
cooperating, sharing, and helping. This study examined how the variables of
preschool children's sex, ...

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