Body-esteem in Swedish 10-year-old children

This study examined body-esteem in 10-yr.-old children. The study group comprised 960 schoolchildren, 515 girls and 445 boys (M age= 10.4, SD=0.5). Analysis showed that girls who were overweight had more negative body-esteem on all dimensions (weight, appearance, and attribution). The overweight boys had more negative perceptions on only two dimensions (weight and appearance). Twice as many girls perceived themselves as too fat (20%) as too skinny (10%). Of the girls who perceived themselves as fat, only 31% were overweight; similarly only 33% of the boys who perceived themselves as fat were overweight. The children's perception of their weight seemed as important as their actual weight and was associated with their body-esteem in the same way. Although few children had dieted (7% of the girls and 5% of the boys), the ones who had dieted had more negative body-esteem than children who had not dieted.     

Boys and girls as social support theorists

Interviews were conducted with 36 children (6 girls and 6 boys at each of three age levels: 7, 10, and 13) to explore gender differences in the perceived costs and benefits of seeking social support from the social network. Each child was asked why children in five hypothetical situations would or would not turn to others. Content analysis of the interview protocols revealed that boys and girls did speak about the goals and concerns of children in distinctive ways. Girls were more likely than boys to describe children as seeking practical help from others, but were also more likely to envision children who were too overcome with emotion to confide in others or who desired to be alone to work out their own responses to the situation. The findings are discussed in light of gender role norms concerning interpersonal connection and emotional expression.     

A self-concept measure for preschool and early primary grade children

The article describes the development of the Preschool and Primary Self-Concept scale. Subjects of the standardization sample were 109 boys and 127 girls, ages 4 to 9, enrolled in preschool and primary educational programs. Boys described themselves as significantly stronger O and bigger than girls. Girls described themselves as significantly more go d than boys. Older children described themselves as significantly more active than younger children. Factor analysis of the scale revealed an evaluative and gender dimension. Subjects of the validation study were 46 first graders. Satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity were demonstrated with the multitrait-multimethod technique.     

Gender differences in self-system processes as rated by teachers and students

A commonly held assumption about gender differences in children's perceptions of their academic competence is that girls underrate their abilities more than boys. The present study had two goals: to assess whether boys or girls are more likely to over- or underrate their academic competence, and to examine gender differences in self-system concomitants of discrepant appraisals. One hundred twelve 4th-6th-grade children rated themselves on overall self-worth, academic competence, self-regulatory style, anxiety, and coping with perceived failure. Six teachers rated these children on the same items. In addition, standardized achievement test scores were available for the children. Groups of over-, under-, and congruent raters were formed using teacher ratings as one comparison standard and achievement test scores as another comparison standard. The data show that when distortion in self-appraisal is derived from achievement test scores, girls are somewhat less likely to underrate their abilities than are boys. However, when distortion is derived from teacher ratings of competence, girls are more likely to underrate than boys and boys are somewhat more likely to overrate. Teachers rate boys who underrate themselves lower in competence than boys who overrate themselves, but they rate girls who underrate higher than girls who overrate. The commonly held assumption about girls' underrating of their academic competence is not borne out in this study. We believe it is important to examine differences between comparison standards and between children's and teacher's ratings to understand more fully gender differences in self-system concomitants of discrepant self-appraisals.The authors wish to thank James Connell for his important contributions to this article, and the Human Motivation Research Group (Ed Deci, Richard Ryan, and James Connell) for making their data available to us.     

Children's vulnerability to stressful life events in mothers' eyes: Effects of gender and parental experiences

Although the professional literature indicates greater vulnerability to stress among boys than girls, research on stereotypes and gender typing in socialization offers indirect evidence of a contrary belief among parents. In order to assess sex differences in vulnerability directly, 80 Israeli middle-class mothers of elementary school children were asked to predict the difficulty that low- and high-stress life events would pose for child protagonists in eight vignettes. Sex of child was manipulated by gender label denotation. Results indicated that mothers of boys predicted greater child difficulties with stress than mothers of girls. They also predicted that boys would have more difficulty than girls, a sex difference that did not appear among mothers of girls. The results suggest that maternal perceptions of sex differences in vulnerability are influenced by observation of their own children under stress. Further, professional opinion and lay wisdom as to actual male vulnerability are not necessarily at loggerheads.     

Cyber Bullying Among Teenagers in Israel: An Examination of Cyber Bullying,Traditional Bullying,and Socioemotional Functioning

In this study, the relationships between cyber bullying and involvement in traditional bullying, with reference to social support and gender differences, was examined. Social support plays an important role in empowering victims of cyber bullying and has a significant influence on children and teenagers’ well-being. A sample made up of 458 Israeli junior high students (242 female, 216 male) in the age range of 11 to 13 completed 4 questionnaires. Results indicated that there is an overlap between involvement in cyber bullying and involvement in traditional bullying. The findings indicate that girls were more likely to be cyber victims than boys and that boys were more likely to be cyber bullies than girls. Examination of the relationships between gender and social support variables such as friends, family, and others, shows that girls who were cyber victims reported having more support in all 3 types than cyber bullied boys. These findings can serve as a basis for prevention and intervention programs to cope with cyber bullying.     

Psychometric properties of the Sutter-Eyberg Student Behavior Inventory with rural middle school and high school children

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Sutter-Eyberg Student Behavior Inventory (SESBI) in a rural sample of children and adolescents. Thirty-eight 5th- through 12th-grade teachers completed the SESBI on 726 children in their classrooms. High Cronbach's alphas supported the reliability of the SESBI scales in this population. Higher SESBI scores were obtained by boys than girls and by African American students than Caucasian students, more so at lower grades. Teacher's race did not affect SESBI scores. In contrast to children with developmental delay, children with learning disabilities obtained higher scores than others on the SESBI Intensity scale but not on the Problem scale. This suggests that teachers of children with learning disabilities recognize the higher frequency of problem behaviors in their students but do not consider these behaviors to be problems for themselves. On both SESBI scales, children with developmental delay were not distinguishable from peers without developmental delays.     

6~8岁儿童公平行为的内在动机：社会信号的作用

公平行为是个体对自己或别人不偏不倚的行为,存在本质公平与表现公平。本质公平,即个体本身渴望公平,能够依据某种公平原则做出公平行为;表现公平,即个体在行为上做出公平的表现而实质并非来自本身的意愿。研究1选取270名6~8岁儿童,采用资源分配任务考察儿童在有无社会信号作用下表现公平行为的发展特点,研究2选取300名6~8岁儿童,采用抛硬币任务来考察儿童是否会用公平程序来掩盖其不公平行为。结果表明：(1)有无社会信号条件对儿童公平行为存在显著影响,并存在显著的年龄差异。有社会信号条件下,儿童更多选择公平行为,无社会信号条件下,儿童更多选择对自己有利的不公平分配。(2)儿童选择通过抛硬币的方式来获取奖品的人数随着年龄增长显著上升,抛硬币的儿童报告自己得到好的奖品的概率显著多于得到不好奖品的概率。结论：社会信号作用下儿童更多会做出表现公平而非本质公平。     

Gratitude for small and large favors: A behavioral test

The effect of large and small favors on gratitude was tested using a behavioral measure. Participants were 149 undergraduates (120 female, 29 male). Half received raffle tickets for a US$100 prize, and half received tickets for a US$10 prize. Some received tickets from another (fictitious) student, and others received tickets by chance. Participants receiving a favor subsequently distributed more tickets to the other student; participants receiving a more valuable favor also distributed more (ps?<?0.05). Self-reported grateful motivation predicted distribution better than did indebtedness. Grateful motivation mediated the relationship between favor and distribution (p?<?0.05). Results provide validity for a behavioral measure of gratitude, tentatively support favor value as a determinant of gratitude, and further differentiate between gratitude and indebtedness.     

Studies of nervous system sensitivity in children with learning and attention disorders

Clinically referred children, diagnosed as having learning or attention disorders, with or without hyperactivity, were found to vary widely on a measure of nervous system sensitivity recommended by the Pavlovian investigator Vasilev. That is, the children were contrasted on their mean press and release reaction times (RTs) to four tones, ranging from soft (55 db) to very loud (100 db), with the expectation that some would be able to maintain a parallel separation of press and release RT gradients across all intensity levels (strength), whereas others would show convergence or overlap of the gradients at higher intensities (weakness). Contrary to expectation, girls did not have weaker or more sensitive nervous systems than boys, although the girls rated themselves as less tolerant of intense stimuli. Significantly more of the children diagnosed as hyperactive had weaker nervous systems. The boys also participated in a blind crossover study contrasting placebo and methylphenidate effects; the prescribing physician, who was not informed of the child’s nervous system classification, adjusted the dosage levels so that subjects with weaker nervous systems were titrated at higher dosage levels than those with stronger nervous systems. Gray (1964) suggested an explanation of this paradox, i.e., that the weak nervous system requires a more intense stimulus than the strong to reach the threshold of concentration (or focused attention), whereas for other thresholds the strong requires a more intense stimulus than the weak. Gray’s theory was further supported by the finding that children typed as weak (unmedicated) did not show as great facilitation in RT with reward (moderate stimulus) as did those typed as strong.     

Social Interaction During Computer-based Activities: Comparisons by Number of Sessions, Gender, School-level, Gender Composition of the Group, and Computer-child Ratio

This study assessed the quality of social interactions that occur in group-based computer learning contexts. Gender comparisons of interactions were examined across 3 sessions with 116 preschoolers (M age?=?4.9 years) and 108 fifth and sixth-grade (M age?=?11.7 years) Canadian children from southwestern Ontario, when children had access to one computer per child (parallel computer) or one computer per group (integrated computer), and when they worked with same-gender or mixed-gender peers. Preschoolers engaged in more collaborative behaviors in mixed-gender than same-gender groups, while elementary children engaged in collaborative behaviors more often in integrated than parallel computer conditions. In mixed-gender groups, boys were more likely than girls to dominate the computer in elementary school while girls were more likely than boys to dominate the computer in preschool.     

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Gender Stereotype!: Longitudinal Associations Between Superhero Viewing and Gender Stereotyped Play

Although content analyses have found that superhero programs in the media portray strong gender stereotypes of masculinity, little research has examined the effects of viewing such programs. In the current study, 134 mothers of preschool children (from the Western and Northwestern United States) reported their child’s superhero exposure in the media, male-stereotyped play, weapon play, and parental active mediation of the media at two time points (1 year apart). Results revealed that boys viewed superhero programs more frequently than girls, with nearly a quarter of boys viewing superhero programs at least weekly. Analyses revealed that superhero exposure was related to higher levels of male-stereotyped play for boys and higher levels of weapon play for both boys and girls from Time 1 to Time 2, even after controlling for initial levels. Parental active mediation did not negate these effects, and even served to strengthen one finding for girls. Specifically, among girls with high superhero exposure, weapon play was highest for girls who received frequent active mediation. Implications of the results are discussed with a focus on whether such programs are developmentally appropriate for preschool children.     

Do Mothers Spend More on Daughters While Fathers Spend More on Sons?

Do parents favor some children over others? The overwhelming majority of parents state that they treat their children equally, but parents rarely track their spending on each child. We investigate in four studies whether mothers and fathers favor specific children depending on the biological sex of the child. Evidence from the field, laboratory, and community (online panel) showed that parents exhibit systematic biases when forced to choose between spending on sons and daughters. Mothers consistently favored daughters, whereas fathers consistently favored sons. For example, parents were more likely to choose a real prize and give a real U.S. Treasury bond to the child of the same sex as themselves. These parenting biases were found in two different cultures and appear to be driven by parents identifying more strongly with children of the same sex as the parent.     

Gendered themes in family reminiscing

Previous research conducted in laboratory settings has shown reliable gender differences in autobiographical memory. However, these studies have primarily focused on structural or emotional aspects of memory narratives told to an unfamiliar experimenter. The present study extends this literature by investigating gender differences in social references and interpersonal themes in parent-child narratives about the past. Participants were 17 white, middle-class children and their mothers and fathers, who were interviewed when children were 40 and 70 months of age. Parent-child narratives about shared activities in the past, as well as narratives about parents' own childhood, were examined. Results indicated that when discussing shared events, both parents talked in similar ways across children, although fathers referred to self more than mothers. However both parents referred to their girls more than their boys. Regarding event themes, parents discussed more social events with girls than with boys. Children themselves showed different gendered patterns; girls mentioned self and others, and relationships more than boys did, and children mentioned self and others more often when talking with fathers than with mothers. With respect to narratives about parents' childhood experiences, however, no gender differences were observed, save that parents referred to others more often in retrospective narratives told to girls than to boys. These findings suggest that gendered behaviours are best understood within the specific contexts and purposes of relational interactions.     

“Boys Can Be Anything”: Effect of Barbie Play on Girls’ Career Cognitions

Play with Barbie dolls is an understudied source of gendered socialization that may convey a sexualized adult world to young girls. Early exposure to sexualized images may have unintended consequences in the form of perceived limitations on future selves. We investigated perceptions of careers girls felt they could do in the future as compared to the number of careers they felt boys could do as a function of condition (playing with a Barbie or Mrs. Potato Head doll) and type of career (male dominated or female dominated) in a sample of 37 U.S. girls aged 4–7 years old residing in the Pacific Northwest. After a randomly assigned 5-min exposure to condition, children were asked how many of ten different occupations they themselves could do in the future and how many of those occupations a boy could do. Data were analyzed with a 2?×?2?×?2 mixed factorial ANOVA. Averaged across condition, girls reported that boys could do significantly more occupations than they could themselves, especially when considering male-dominated careers. In addition, girls’ ideas about careers for themselves compared to careers for boys interacted with condition, such that girls who played with Barbie indicated that they had fewer future career options than boys, whereas girls who played with Mrs. Potato Head reported a smaller difference between future possible careers for themselves as compared to boys. Results support predictions from gender socialization and objectification theories.     

Social Adjustment,Academic Adjustment,and the Ability to Identify Emotion in Facial Expressions of 7-Year-Old Children

The authors aimed to examine the possible association between (a) accurately reading emotion in facial expressions and (b) social and academic competence among elementary school-aged children. Participants were 840 7-year-old children who completed a test of the ability to read emotion in facial expressions. Teachers rated children's social and academic behavior using behavioral rating scales. The authors found that children who had more difficulty identifying emotion in faces also were more likely to have more problems overall and, more specifically, with peer relationships among boys and with learning difficulties among girls. Findings suggest that nonverbal receptive skill plays a significant role in children's social and academic adjustment.     

Social comparisons with siblings made by adolescents with a learning difficulty

Social comparisons and the family environment are important antecedents of self-esteem. In this study the self-esteem and perceptions of stigma of 50 adolescents with a mild-moderate learning difficulty were measured. The self-esteem and stigma scores were factor-analysed to produce five factors: Positive self; Social competence; Being different; Anxiety; and Work competence. Social comparisons made by the adolescents between themselves and their siblings were also measured. Most adolescents 'preferred' (chose more often and gave high scores to) older same-sex siblings while younger opposite-sex siblings were the least preferred (were chosen less often and derogated). An explanation for these findings is suggested in terms of defensive social comparisons due to the loss of self-esteem in having a younger sibling ‘overtake’ the adolescent on developmental milestones, and in the tendency for non-handicapped pre-pubescent children to derogate the opposite sex during gender identity formation. This explanation is supported by the finding that the adolescents with younger siblings scored higher on the Anxiety factor than those who compared themselves with older siblings. Those with younger same-sex siblings were the most anxious. There was also a tendency for adolescents with siblings to score lower on one of the factors than adolescents with no sibling. The discussion raises the questions of how to deal with social comparisons within the family and how to talk to the child with mild learning difficulties about his or her handicap.     

Gender differences in depression in children as a function of motivational orientation

Based on previous theoretical and empirical analyses, the present study examined two hypotheses. First, we hypothesized that children who have an extrinsic motivational orientation, i.e., children who perform schoolwork for approval or fear of evaluation, would be more depressed than intrinsics, who are generally more interested in learning and exhibit the desire to obtain mastery over challenge. Second, based on data showing that girls are more likely to be extrinsic than boys, we hypothesized that girls would also be more depressed than their male counterparts. The data proved strong support for the hypotheses. In our discussion, we highlight the need for further research to examine the causal relation among motivational orientation, gender, and depression to develop social-developmental theories and clinical interventions for depressed, extrinsic girls and boys.     

Impact of adults' appeals for sharing on the development of altruistic dispositions in children

Third- and fourth-grade boys and girls (mean age 7 years, 10 months) were directly instructed to share half their winnings from a bowling game under one of three types of verbal appeal: a power assertive appeal emphasizing punitive consequences for noncompliance, an inductive appeal emphasizing the child's potential contribution to the well being of another person, or a neutral appeal. While they complied with this request, half the children were monitored by television camera; the other half were not. A measure of generalized sharing (noninstructed sharing under anonymous conditions) was then collected. It was predicted that generalized sharing would be greater for children who had heard the inductive appeal than for children who had heard the power assertive appeal and would be greater for children who had shared without television surveillance than for children who had shared under survellance. As predicted, generalized sharing was highest among children who had received the inductive appeal. However, prior surveillance depressed noninstructed sharing only for girls who had received the power assertive appeal. There was one additional and unexpected finding: when children were asked to reinforce themselves for having shared in the instructed sharing phase, boys who had shared in compliance with a power assertive appeal indulged themselves more than children in any other condition.     

Teacher and peer reactions to boys' and girls' play styles

Seventy children (35 boys and 35 girls) aged 24 to 30 months were observed in play groups consisting of 12–15 2- and 3-year-old children and two teachers. The social interaction was coded using an observation schedule which allowed for coding the children's behaviors and reactions to that behavior by others in the environment. The behavior scores were factor analyzed, using the complete sample of 180 children with six factors (play styles) resulting. Children who were high and low on each factor were examined to see if play style influenced the type of social reaction received. Children who preferred to work at tasks quietly received positive teacher feedback, but there was no change in peer interaction; children who engaged in active motor play received positive peer feedback, but negative teacher reactions. Children who were passive received less peer reaction and played alone significantly more than other children. Sex differences in reactions did not appear except when the child was engaged in male- and female-typical behaviors when examining scores on one factor only. When combinations of factors are examined (e.g., activity level and task performance), then different patterns of responses start to appear for boys and girls. The implications for differing patterns of social reactions to different play styles are discussed.Data analyses were supported by BRSG Grant RR07980 awarded by the Biomedical Research Support Grant Program, Division of Research Resources, National Institutes of Health. The final write-up was completed on a postdoctoral fellowship (Grant No. 1 T32 MH 16955-01) through the Oregon Social Learning Center.