It has been a long-standing view Essay Example

It has been a long-standing view Essay It has been a long-standing view that people of all ages act differently according to their sex. This fits in with the way they naturally want to behave and the way in which society expects them to behave. Studies have been carried out over the years to test whether infants as young as nine months display these social and emotional differences. For example (Robson, Pederson Moss 1969) showed that girls displayed a fear for strangers at a younger age than boys did. The problem with this test, and others like it, is that the gender of the child was known by the people who were rating its emotional responsiveness. This study echoes that of Condry Condry (1976), where the people who were rating the child were actively deceived as to the sex of the child. The idea behind this is to see whether we perceive these differences in behaviour because the child is of a particular sex. In other words, whether it is the beholder who sees behavioural differences because he expects to see them. If this is found to be true, it would provide a useful insight into how children pick up their behaviour patterns. I.e. how their behaviour is shaped by the adults around them. We will write a custom essay sample on It has been a long-standing view specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on It has been a long-standing view specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on It has been a long-standing view specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer It is expected that this study will backup the findings from the Condry and Condry study, and that, therefore, the same gender stereotypes still exist. It is believed that the results will confirm that the participants rate the emotional response of the child differently depending on what sex they believe it to be. METHOD PARTICIPANTS The participants in this study were all first year university students studying psychology. 62 people rated the child and a random sample of 20 was taken from this group. Half of these believed the child to be a boy, and half believed it was a girl. Every effort was made to ensure that a similar number of males were on each side of the divide. In the end, out of the sample of twenty, there were six males. Two of who believed that the child was a boy. MATERIALS The child was recorded responding to four different toys. A teddy, a large doll, a snapping face and a noisy singing dog. The video recording of the child responding to the various stimuli was played over a video projector. This allowed all of the participants to rate the child at exactly the same time. To facilitate the rating of the child, a tick sheet was used. This instructed the participant to rate the child out of ten for the following emotions; anger, pleasure and fear. An instruction sheet was also given to the participants. One half of the instruction sheets told the participant that the child was a boy, and the other half told them that it was a girl. (See appendix B) DESIGN The independent variable in this experiment was the perceived sex of the child i.e. the sex the participant believed the child to be. The dependant variable was the ratings on the tick sheets that the participants gave. Out of the variables that were controlled, the noise level and the timing of when the participants saw the video were fixed, so as to ensure no collaboration. It was important that neither half of the class knew that the sex of the child may be different to what was indicated on the instruction sheet. As previously mentioned, care was also taken to ensure that there was an even number of males on both sides of the split in population. PROCEDURE A baby (dressed in such a way so as to disguise its sex) was stimulated with four toys. Firstly a teddy, then a doll, thirdly a snapping face toy, and finally a noisy singing dog. The experimenter presented, and then took away each toy from the child. This was done five times for each toy. This whole procedure was recorded on tape. The group of participants was split into two without them being aware. One half of the group were given a set of instructions informing them that the child was a boy and the other half were informed that the child was a girl. Both groups were given a tick sheet as described above. The video was shown to both groups at the same time, and complete silence was insisted upon. The groups saw the child respond to each toy, and after the fifth presentation, were asked to rate the responsiveness of the child for anger, pleasure and fear. After they had done that, the video started again and they saw the infant respond to the next stimulus. RESULTS Table 1 shows the mean responsiveness and standard deviations for each of the emotions for both boy and girl models. This data was formed by taking twenty random tick sheets (ten from each group) and calculating the mean and standard deviation from these, (see appendix A). We also calculated an overall emotional responsiveness score.