It is apparent from both
Alexander and Hines’ (2002) study and our results, however, that monkey toy preferences, no matter their direction and magnitude are unlikely to result from specific adult socialization or from the formation of gender schemas. Monkeys live in a socially complex world with substantial maternal support, but differential maternal treatment of males and females is limited to maternal retrieval in response to infant distress and physical inspection of their infant’s genitals (
Wallen, 2005). Sex differences in maternal treatment do not include preventing their male or female offspring from engaging in opposite-sex typed behavior or in encouraging them to interact with specific objects (
Wallen, 2005). While social context certainly affects the developmental environment of males and females, it is unlikely that it determines the basic predisposition to engage in specific patterns of sexually differentiated behavior such as interest in infants or rough and tumble play. In the case of rough play, it is likely that females voluntarily limit their participation, not because males exclude them, but because females don’t find this style of play particularly attractive. Evidence in support of this view comes from female rhesus monkeys prenatally exposed to elevated androgens late in gestation and who look completely anatomically female. Even though they cannot be physically distinguished from females and do not look like juvenile males, they still show male-like levels of rough and tumble play compared to control females (
Goy et al., 1988) suggesting that the sexual differentiation of play reflects sex differences in activity preferences and not social constraints on play. Thus we think it unlikely that monkey toy preferences reflect socialization processes, maternal or otherwise. That sex differences in toy preference have been found in two nonhuman primate species, albeit differing in direction and magnitude, demonstrates that such preferences can occur without the necessity of positing any specific socializing influence,, a principle that may also apply to the development of children’s toy preferences.
Previous research has demonstrated that prenatal androgens influence postnatal sex differences in activity preferences (
Wallen, 2005). We offer the hypothesis that there are hormonally organized preferences for specific activities that shape preference for toys that facilitate these activities. Human toys capitalize on sex differences in preferred activities, creating a gendered toy market. Thus, in addition to adults socializing children’s toy preferences, children may socialize adults to provide toys facilitating their preferred activities. In this view biologically based sex differences in activity preferences significantly influence sex differences in childhood object choice.
This proposed interaction between the child’s preferences and adult socialization is not inconsequential. Traditionally, socialization pressures are conceptualized as the primary determinants of preference. There can be little doubt that boys and girls learn that some activities are socially more appropriate for males or for females and this is likely reflected in the sex-stereotyped toys they choose. However, girls are less likely to receive negative information about boys’ toys and activities than are boys about girls’ activities and toys (
Kane, 2006). Thus, girls’ toys and activities are often stigmatized for boys, but boys’ toys and activities not as stigmatized for girls (
Martin, 1990). One could view such stigmatization as devaluing female-typical toys for boys without comparably devaluing male-typical toys for girls. Such differential devaluation might produce the markedly greater preference difference between toy types seen in boys contrasting with the lack of preference seen in girls. Because we chose toys based on object properties and not on previously established sex-typed categorizations, our wheeled and plush toys are not entirely analogous to the more stereotypical categories used in the human studies or to toys typically marketed as for boys and girls. Our findings suggest that sex differences in toy preferences in humans and nonhuman primates rely to some extent on physical object properties, but that social characteristics likely also influence preference, and some of these may be unique to humans. For example, a toy such as a plastic shopping cart, one of our wheeled toys, might appeal to boys or rhesus monkey males for its physical properties, but the same shopping cart also has symbolic properties related to imaginative play, and in humans may be socially stigmatized for boys. Because the shopping cart relates to a specific human activity, the toy facilitates different activities for humans than for rhesus monkeys. However, our finding that male monkeys show a preference of comparable magnitude to those seen in boys makes a cultural devaluation explanation unlikely.
An alternative, not necessarily mutually exclusive, explanation is that boys and girls prefer different physical activities with different types of behaviors and different levels of energy expenditure. It is these activity preferences which cause boys and girls to seek different experiences and it is these experiences, in turn, which are reflected in their preferences for specific objects that facilitate expression of their activity preferences. Possibly, as they move into adulthood, these divergent activity preferences and the experiences they engender become reflected in adult preferences for different lifestyles and careers (
Maccoby, 1998). Preference and experience thus interact with each other such that biologically-determined and socialized effects are inseparable. We suspect that such interaction reflects a more general principle in which pre-existing preferences shape the developmental environment, which in turn shapes subsequent experience. In this manner both biological predispositions and socialization processes are necessary for the full development and differentiation of behavior.
