This longitudinal study of 144 young adolescents (ages 9-11 at phase 1
) examined the hypothesis that boys and girls would experience increas
ed ''gender-differential socialization'' across a 1-year period in ear
ly adolescence, and that such patterns would be stronger in families i
n which (a) parents maintained a traditional division of labor, and (b
) there was a younger sibling of the opposite gender. Longitudinal ana
lyses of 3 aspects of family socialization (adolescents' participation
in ''feminine'' and ''masculine'' household chores; adolescents' invo
lvement in dyadic activities with mothers and fathers; parental monito
ring) revealed that gender intensification was apparent for some aspec
ts of family socialization but not others. In addition, when gender in
tensification was apparent, it generally emerged in some family contex
ts but not in others. Only dyadic parent-adolescent involvement was ch
aracterized by an overall pattern of gender intensification in which g
irls became increasingly involved with their mothers and boys with the
ir fathers; this pattern was exacerbated in contexts where adolescents
had a younger, opposite-sex sibling.