Sex Roles

, Volume 10, Issue 9–10, pp 817–823 | Cite as

The effects of sex-role taking on children's responses to aggressive conflict situations

  • Sheryl L. Olson
Article

Abstract

The effects of sex-role taking on children's responses to aggressive conflict situations were investigated in the present study. Subjects were 40 boys and girls aged 8–9, who were asked to take the role of boy and girl story characters involved in the following kinds of aggressive situations: victim of a verbal attack, victim of a physical attack, and witness to an attack upon a friend. A significant interaction effect between type of conflict situation and sex of story character was obtained. Subjects expected boy characters to retaliate more strongly than girl characters when intervening in an attack upon a friend, and girl characters to retaliate more strongly than boy characters when being verbally or physically assaulted. These findings suggest the importance of situational factors in determining children's sex-stereotyped expectations for aggressive retaliation.

Keywords

Interaction Effect Significant Interaction Social Psychology Significant Interaction Effect Situational Factor 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Plenum Publishing Corporation 1984

Authors and Affiliations

  • Sheryl L. Olson
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of PsychologyUniversity of MaineOrono

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