SEX OF EXPERIMENTER AND SEX-TYPED BEHAVIOR OF YOUNG CHILDREN

Abstract

Although in recent years considerable attention has been given to the study of parents as significant contributors to child behavior patterns and tendencies (3, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16), there has been little evident awareness of experimenters as adult interactors varying in attributes or behaviors that may affect responses elicited from children. Whereas variations in parental attitudes and behaviors are often hypothesized as critical antecedents, experimenters seem to be regarded as generalized adult figures, impersonal behavior initiators, and data recording machines. If the child is indeed responsive to such qualities in his parents as warmth, permissiveness or restriction, sex roles, etc., then he should build up certain expectations and anticipatory sets associated with the occurrence of such qualities in other significant adults. Yet studies designed to manipulate child behavior have generally failed to consider or control for relevant experimenter characteristics. Some attention has been directed to the presence or absence of adults as a factor affecting child behavior (14), but the effects of E attributes or behaviors have been largely neglected. One of the more obvious, readily defined E attributes that might be considered to influence a child's responses is sex status. Interactions with male versus female experimenters may be expected to involve some differences in response sets of the experimental children. A few recent studies have varied sex of E as part of the experimental design. Gewirtz and his colleagues (6) in two studies of attention seeking with variation of adult