<p> From early to middle childhood, girls normatively begin to show a shift towards masculinity. Preschools are filled with "girly girls" whereas elementary schools show a high prevalence of girls self-identifying as tomboys. In contrast, boys' masculinity remains stable without a similar shift towards femininity. One possible explanation for this discrepancy is children's awareness of male prestige. As children become more aware that males are valued over females, I hypothesize that children may be motivated to approach masculinity and possibly avoid femininity. The current study uses archival data and examines whether awareness of male prestige is associated with an approach towards masculinity exhibited by children's gender attitudes. Participants included 217 six-year-old children who were interviewed. As hypothesized, the more that children believed that others had a higher regard for boys compared to girls, the more favorable were their attitudes towards boys, and the less favorable were their attitudes toward girls.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:1586850 |
| Date | 05 May 2015 |
| Creators | Bryant, Danielle N. |
| Publisher | California State University, Long Beach |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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