THE INFLUENCE OF GENDER AND PARENTAL ATTITUDES ON PRESCHOOL CHILDRENSINTEREST IN BABIES - OBSERVATIONS IN NATURAL SETTINGS

This paper reports on two studies of parents' observations of their pr eschool children's interactions with infants. In Study 1 parents obser ved 69 3- and 5-year-old white children with three nonsibling infants whom the children encountered during their daily lives. In Study 2 par ents observed 46 3- to 6-year-old primarily white children with three nonsibling infants and completed measures of their own gender-related child-rearing attitudes. Consistent with findings front previous labor atory research, this research in naturalistic settings found girls to show more interest in, more nurturance toward, and more interaction wi th babies than did boys. In Study 2, children whose parents had tradit ional gender-stereotyped attitudes were more likely to show this gende r difference than children whose parents had more egalitarian child-re aring attitudes.