Eleanor Maccoby

Eleanor Maccoby is a renowned psychologist, with publications dating from 1957 to today. She specializes on the socialization of children, developmental change in personality and behavior, relationships of couples after divorce, and parent-child interactions. In this review I focus on her work examining the socialization of children, and parent-child interactions. I link her work between the socialization of children, from their interactions with their parents and with other children, to the interactions of adults. There is a clear parallel between the sex-typed skills learned in child-interactions and those conveyed in adult interactions.

Parent-Child Interactions

Maccoby looks at the development of gender through interaction: "social behavior is never a function of the individual alone. It is the function of the interaction between two or more persons" (Maccoby 1990). Maccoby's earlier work dealt with parental effects on children's gender identity, focusing on the sex stereotypes that parents instill in their children through interaction.

Rothbart and Maccoby (1966) studied parents' reactions to specific child behaviors, especially those regarded as sex-typed, like dependency and aggression, in hopes of understanding what accounts for sex differences in behavior. Social-learning theory addresses the finding, that girls display more dependent behaviors than boys, and boys display more aggressive behaviors than girls. And that dependent behaviors are less rewarded for males, just as aggressive behaviors are less rewarded for females (Rothbart and Maccoby 1966). Using social-learning theory, and assuming that the family constitutes the "culture" into which a young child is exposed, Rothbart and Maccoby (1966) predicted that both parents would reinforce dependency more strongly in girls, and aggression more strongly in boys.

Rothbart Maccoby (1966) tested their prediction by placing parents in a hypothetical situation with a child, asking them to record their reactions and responses to statements made by the child, such as: "Daddy (or Mommy), come look at my puzzle...Daddy, help me...Baby, you can't play with me. You're too little...Leave my puzzle alone or I'll hit you in the head!" (Maccoby and Rothbart 1966). The "child" in this situation was a recording of a 4 year old's voice. Parents were told either that the child was a girl, or that it was a boy. Differences in their responses were examined, scoring the permissiveness of the parent. The parents were then given a questionnaire to measure the extent to which they differentiated between the sexes by either (a) feeling boys and girls are different on selected characteristics, or (b) feeling boys and girls should differ on these characteristics (Rothbart and Maccoby 1966).

Rothbart and Maccoby (1966) hypothesized that parents showing high differentiation between boys and girls would show greater differences in reaction to the boy's voice compared with the girl's voice than would parents who differentiated little between the sexes. The results showed that high sex-role differentiation parents did display larger differences between their treatment of boys and girls than did low-differentiation parents, but their treatment was not more sex-role stereotyped because reactions did not reinforce dependency in females and aggression in boys. High sex-role differentiation parents tended to be more permissive toward the child of the opposite sex. Rothbart and Maccoby (1966) suggest that this may be a result of the parent responding to the child as a member of the opposite sex, reacting more favorably to the actions of the child who most resembles his/her marital partner, or, that the parent may be reacting less favorably to the child of the same-sex because of feelings of rivalry with this child. Mothers in the study were more likely to allow aggression toward themselves from their boys, which is concurrent with sex-role stereotypes, but they were unexpectedly more acceptant of comfort seeking in their sons than in their daughters. Fathers, on the other hand, were more acceptant of comfort seeking from their daughters, and allowed more aggression toward themselves from their daughters than their sons. Rothbart and Maccoby (1966) concluded from this information that the sex of the parent is a better predictor of his or her differential response to boys and girls than sex-role stereotyping.

After studying parents' reactions to the needs/wants of a child, Maccoby's next step was to put parents in real life situations with their own children in order to observe their interactions, and thus, Maccoby(1984), along with Jacklin and DiPietro, continued her study of how children acquire knowledge of sex-typed behavior. The authors set up visits with 45-month old boys and girls, and observed each child as he/she interacted with one parent, and then another. The experimenters supplied the toys: a set of five hats, a set of five dolls, and a set of props. The hats and dolls were each categorized and given a value according to their masculinity, neutrality, or femininity. The observer then told the child and parent that they could play with whichever toys they wanted, however they wanted. Behavioral observations were recorded on coding-checklists at 6-second intervals. Behaviors coded separately for parent and child included masculine, feminine, or neutral toy manipulation. Interactive scores recorded for parent and child as a pair included cooperative thematic play (masculine, feminine, or neutral) and rough-and-tumble play. At the conclusion of the observation interval, a subjective assessment was made by the coder to the degree to which the parent acted to arouse or stimulate the interest of the child. This quality of interaction was rated on a range from "not at all arousing" (1) to "highly arousing" (5).

The authors found that boys spend more intervals with masculine toys and girls with feminine toys, with both their mothers and fathers. As for the parents, fathers are more likely to play with masculine toys than are mothers. Girls initiated more feminine themes, and had more feminine themes initiated to them by their parents, while boys initiated more masculine themes, and had more masculine themes initiated to them. Mothers initiated more feminine themes to both sons and daughters than did fathers, but fathers did in fact initiate feminine play with their daughters. Boys engaged in more rough-and-tumble play than girls with either parent, and fathers were seen to engage in more rough-and-tumble play with their children than mothers did. With these results the authors concluded that children do indeed play with culturally defined sex-appropriate toys, and that parents are more likely to manipulate