ABSTRACT
“Little boys play with dump trucks and little girls play with dolls.” A stereotype for sure, but persistent because children do seem to display sex-based toy preferences, though of course some girls prefer dump trucks, and some boys prefer dolls. At an early age, these role reversals are often discouraged—girls may be taunted and called tomboys, and boys may be ostracized and called sissies (or worse). In many experiments it is possible to use subject characteristics as an independent variable. In this study, the researchers ask the question, “Are sex-typed toy preferences related to androgens?” To answer this they used male and female children who had a particular genetic disorder that caused elevated levels of androgens. Using subject variables introduces certain types of control problems, but the tradeoff can be valuable. Toy preference was measured by the amount of time the child played with toys shown by others to be preferred by girls, by boys, or equally by the sexes.
