Exam 8: Gender and Peer Relationships: Middle Childhood Through Early Adolescence

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Freud's psychoanalytic theory is that traditional family structure-mother as primary caregiver,father as her sexual partner and a strong presence in the home-should be necessary for children to experience normal gender role development.Yet,gender role development is not impeded in children who come from single-parent homes,nor even in children who come from homes where both parents are the same gender .
Freud argued that at about age 3,children begin to have vague sexual needs that impact how they relate differently to their mothers and fathers.In brief,boys experience attraction to their mothers and competition with their fathers that motivates them to identify with and imitate their fathers while girls similarly identify with and imitate their mothers.Thus,both boys and girls become gender-typed in their behavior and form a superego.Although many aspects of Freud's tale of sexual desire,competition,and fear in young children have become deeply embedded in our culture,efforts to validate the theory have been unsuccessful.
Social learning theorists argue that many parents and other adults influence children's gender-typed behaviors,both by modeling such behaviors and by differential treatment of boys and girls that teaches them to behave in gendered ways.
What evidence is there that adults actually do behave differently toward children based on gender? First,we should note that in many ways,boys and girls are not treated differently.Meta-analyses indicate no differences in how much parents interact with their sons and daughters,in how much parents encourage them to achieve,in how much parents encourage help seeking,in how much warmth or responsiveness parents show,or in how effectively parents communicate or reason with them .
However,there are some important differences in parental behaviors.In what have been dubbed "Baby X" studies,adult participants interact with a baby they do not know .