The study produced by a team led by psychologists from City, University of London, was based on evidence collected by different researchers across the Western world over decades, with some dating back to the 1930s.
It said: ‘Despite methodological variation in the choice and number of toys offered, context of testing, and age of child, the consistency in finding sex differences in children’s preferences for toys typed to their own gender indicates the strength of this phenomenon and the likelihood that it has a biological origin.’
The paper added that there were robust differences between the toy choices of girls and boys, and that this was so across decades and in different experiments.
This, the study said, ‘indicates an innate influence on this behaviour.’
Girls and boys might be different shocker!
An interesting thought is that if they’re not then why have profit maximising toy producers been making the distinction all these years?
Because the needs of the patriarchy trumps profit?
As I have pointed out before, the only robust findings in the Social Sciences are 1. IQ mean something and are racially distinct and 2. pretty much every stereotype you can think of is true.
Yueh-Ting Lee, Lee J. Jussim, and Clark R. McCauley, eds. (September 1995). Stereotype Accuracy: Toward Appreciating Group Differences. American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-55798-307-7.
Jussim, Lee; Cain, Thomas R.; Crawford, Jarret T.; Harber, Kent; Cohen, Florette (2009). “The unbearable accuracy of stereotypes”. In Nelson, Todd D. Handbook of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. New York: Psychology Press. pp. 199–227. ISBN 978-0-8058-5952-2.
Naturally young girls like playing with female toys. Female monkeys show preferences for typically female toys and I am pretty sure the patriarchy is not to blame for that.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/24/gender-toys-children-toy-preferences-hormones_n_1827727.html
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-prefer-boys-toys/
It is time to stop denying the science.
a team led by psychologists from City, University of London
plus
evidence collected by different researchers across the Western world over decades
equals a wasted opportunity since they had much more interesting tuberous material to work on on their own doorstep.
An opportunity not to be missed a second time, one hopes.
Has anyone ever asked why certain toys are known as “boys’ toys” while others are known as “girls’ toys”?
It might have saved them some time.
SMFS, no doubt NiV will be along shortly to tell you just how wrong you are.
There was a study conducted where even monkeys chose toys suited to their gender/sex
Try watching toy ads on TV. Even a right-wing misogynist male chauvinist pig like me finds them almost offensively stereotypical.
‘the consistency in finding sex differences in children’s preferences for toys typed to their own gender indicates the strength of this phenomenon’
Sex and gender are not the same thing. Their use of ‘gender’ when they mean ‘sex’ is damning.
“Amazing”: it is in a way – the psychologists are risking their careers by saying that.
Dear Mr Worstall
Maybe the toy manufacturers haven’t thought of making a gun in pink.
DP
DP: ahem.
Or, not a toy, this.
Better link.
“It is time to stop denying the science.”
Quite so, SMFS. However, the only good thing about the trans-sexual fad is that feminists have to agree either
1. that women are exactly the same as men, apart from their genital configuration (so a post-surgery trans-sexual man just is a woman);
or
2. that women are essentially different to men (so a post-surgery trans-sexual man is not a woman).
For too long, feminists have equivocated betwen 1 and 2, as it suited their agenda. Providing 2 emerges as the consensus, matters just might improve a little.
Given that the zeitgeist in the loony disciplines has been overwhelmingly hostile over the past three decades to such differences their findings are even more sound.
@So Much For Subtlety, November 22, 2017 at 9:12 am
Yep, I have a BBC(?) Documentary showing that, will upload a clip if I find it.
“An interesting thought is that if they’re not then why have profit maximising toy producers been making the distinction all these years?”
They’re all part of the patriarchy? Because…. er… reasons?
There’s also this assumption that kids themselves don’t have the “agency” to want the other gender’s stuff. Growing up, I liked Star Wars/space stuff, but I also liked baking. It didn’t even register with me that all the people doing the baking were women. I didn’t really care. I liked baking.
@ Bloke in Costa Rica November 22, 2017 at 5:07 pm
There had to be one …
@ Surreptitious Evil November 22, 2017 at 6:10 pm
Neither link worked, second link has a superfluous and slightly fatal quotation mark at the end. Here’s another:
https://www.blog.riflegear.com/2008/02/20/hello-kitty-rifle-makes-cnn/
DP
@Bloke on M4, November 22, 2017 at 11:03 pm
“…Growing up, I liked Star Wars/space stuff, but I also liked baking. It didn’t even register with me that all the people doing the baking were women. I didn’t really care. I liked baking”
Me too from age 7 or 8 and mum let me do it unsupervised after showing me how to. Favourite was picking cooking apples in garden, then making pastry to bake an apple pie.
Other main interest was making/fixing/mechanics/engineering/science or STEM.
In general parents let us use & do what we wanted within boundary of legal, polite, respectable and loyal to Queen, Country & God.
@ Bloke on M4
My father was memorably (even 31 years later when I went there) the best boxer in the school and told me that he first cooked Christmas Dinner, after his mother died, when he was 17. My wife’s office colleagues like my cakes (I don’t need to worry abour gender stereotypes).