Commercials are about promoting and selling to one kind of audience, children. Their product must be appealing and often lie about the product but it gets it sold and children continue to want them. Article 4 (miller) Qualitative Differences among Gender Stereotyped Toys: Implications for Cognitive and Social Development in Girls and Boys According to what the article stated it was suggested that the early play experiences of girls and boys may contribute to gender differences in cognitive and social development, empirical support for this hypothesis is limited. (Miller, 1987) Such as girls or boys knowing the gender differences of toys and classifying them in a
Little girls learn that they are supposed to like dolls and pink, while little boys learn that they are supposed to like trucks and the color blue. Through various forms of guidance and direction from external influences, children experience gender role socialization they quickly learn what behaviors are encouraged by their parents and peers, and which ones are not. These ideas are further reinforced by the media's portrayal of traditional gender roles. As a result, children internalize these beliefs pertaining to gender roles and their behavior is modified accordingly. The child's first influence in regards to gender roles is the family.
For example, a toy that is hung in front of an infant causes the baby to want to touch it, once the baby touches the toy it swings. The infant notices that it was her that caused the toy to swing. She also discovers that it will not swing again unless the same action is performed, Piaget refers to this as “circular reaction”. In order for infants to learn they become repetitive with their behavior until it is mastered, then it is considered intentional. Mental representation enables children to rely on memory, perception and repetition in order to solve problems.
Infant boys are dressed in blue, while baby girls are dressed in pink. The gender messages parents send their children become internalized at an early age, with kids as young as two years old being aware of sex role differences in adult tasks, clothing, and possessions (Weinraub et al. 1499). In addition, parents reinforce gender-typical behavior by promoting sex-typed activities and toys.
To women, the efforts to reach a goal must be done by making connections with the others. They like to discuss about “all” of their plans with their partners and see it as a sign of involvement and strong closeness in their relationships. Men tend to have opposite reactions. Boys growing into young men, focus more on being dominate, and having a strong desire to be the best at everything. Young men tend to continue giving orders to maintain dominance, which they view as strength.
Rachel Rosenfeld Intro to Sociology Professor Miller Children should have the opportunity to play with a large variety of toys of all types. Although, there are different characteristics between boys and girls and it is important for their parents to treat them as individuals, they should provide equal options and choices for them. From the day babies are brought home and cradled in their pink or blue blankets, implications have been made of how they are suppose to behave, either feminine or masculine . However, why does color preference draw generalizations about identity? Young children are interested in playing with many of the same things and not just gender specific toys.
SLT is supported by Bandura et al (1963), who found that children who observed an adult role model behaving aggressively towards a Bobo doll were more likely to reproduce these behaviours when later allowed to interact with the doll alone, children even improvised their own violent methods towards the doll. The rate of imitation was particularly high when the role model was of the same sex as the child. These findings support the theory of imitation of aggressive acts and suggests that children do learn and model violent behaviour following observation of aggressive behaviour committed by adult role models. In their second study, Bandura et al (1965) provided further support for SLT with the replication of the original Bobo doll experiment with the addition of reinforcement conditions. They found that when children had witnessed the adult role model being rewarded for their aggressive behaviour, imitation significantly increased, whereas the lowest levels of violence were seen when children observed the role model receiving a punishment for their actions.
If the group is well balanced and carefully chosen, children learn from each other and adapt to peers (siblings) as well as to parent-figures. Group memebers are receiving feedback from, and giving feedback to, their contemporaries, and the child will be encouraged to adjust to group norms, however ‘permissive’ the atmosphere. Children will be learning from, responding to, and testing out new behaviours on their peers, allocating roles to themselves and other children which uncannily reflect each child’s problems. O’Konner and Ammen (1997:123) states that there are different manners of psychotherapieutic
For some, our concept of gender and sex contribute to the ways we embrace gender and sex in diversity but for some, it does not. For example, in our corporate society, many males can benefit from getting a promotion over females because of their sex. In this case, males are being embraced by the concept of gender and sex and for females, some of them are being rejected from their promotions because of
Gender, a social construct, is predominant from the moment a child is born, whether it is from parental influence, the media, clothing, or even children’s toys. These influences can affect the way a child learns how to “do gender”. The various toys, such as Barbie dolls and G.I. Joe action figures, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Bratz Dolls, Power Rangers and most action figures that companies market to children of different genders reinforce stereotypical gender norms and perpetuate conventional gender roles. Parents should be conscientious when choosing their children’s toys because some toys can shape the overall learned gender norms of those children.