Couple of researches on babies.

[spacial]

A mother's testosterone levels can determine whether they are more likely to have a tomboy.
Scientists have found that women with higher than average levels of the male hormone testosterone are more likely to have girls who are interested in Scalectrix and toy trucks than Barbie dolls and make-up.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1368675.stm

Boys naturally gravitate towards cars and girls towards dolls from the moment they first crawl, a study suggests.

City University researchers put a range of toys a metre from 90 children - aged nine to 36 months - and recorded what was played with and for how long.

They found boys spent more time playing with cars and balls, while girls spent more time playing with the dolls.

Researchers said the study suggested there was an "intrinsic bias" in children towards gender-typical toys.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8624999.stm

Comments anyone?

[kyril]

One of the researchers, Sara Amalie O'Toole Thommessen, said: "It was very obvious that even the youngest children went straight for gender-typed toys and colours.

We know that the colour preference is not inborn, because gender assignments for colours haven't been even remotely consistent across time or across cultures.

As the researcher points out,

Children of this age are already subject to a great deal of socialisation.

So what would be interesting, and might help ferret out how much of the effect is socialized and how much is innate, is to actually use colour in the experiment. Get 'boy' toys in 'girl' colours, and vice versa. If the girls gravitate to the pink trucks and purple blocks, then clearly we're looking at an effect of socialisation; if they still gravitate to the dolls when you dress them in blue, black, and olive drab, then that's most likely an innate preference for dolls. Of course, you also can't discount that they might prefer the familiar, especially in an unfamiliar environment.

[Vicky]

To me, what this really indicates is that certain things are learned much earlier than we previously realized.  The subject children had to crawl to the toys.  What had been offered to them before they could crawl?  If humans had innate speech!  OMG!

[spacial]

These are basically my thoughts as well.

I recall a project in the 70s.

A succession of females were asked to participate in some research on their college courses or something of that kind.. They were shown into a waiting room and asked to wait as they were busy.

There was a woman in there with a baby, over a year old. Also, a table with a toy car and a doll. The baby was alternately dressed as a boy or a girl.

Anyway, the woman suddenly said she needed to use the toilet and would they mind holding her baby for a few minutes. While she was gone, if the baby was dressed as a boy, the participants held it losely and offered it the car. If dressed as a girl, they held it more securely and offered the doll.

I recall, when I worked in maternity, the very first thing mothers did was check the sex of their baby.

Some things babys do and need are clearly innate, but I strongly suspect than many are learnt.

I often wonder, if our mother's could answer honestly, would they all say that, before we were brn, were they wanting a specific sex, and we we the sex they wanted?

Sadly, or fortunately, most mothers, I suspect, wouldn't give an entirely honest answer.

[Arch]

I often wonder, if our mother's could answer honestly, would they all say that, before we were brn, were they wanting a specific sex, and we we the sex they wanted?

Sadly, or fortunately, most mothers, I suspect, wouldn't give an entirely honest answer.

My mother spaced us out so that one child would be in school by the time the second kid was born. She also used to tell people that she got exactly what she wanted: a boy first, and then a girl.

Instead, she got me. No wonder we never got along.

[Nero]

How could there be some intrinsic gravitation towards cars when they were just invented in the last century?

[kyril]

I think the implication would be that boys gravitate toward things that are mechanically interesting (stuff with moving parts, geometric shapes, stackables and buildables) while girls gravitate toward stuff that's socially interesting (dolls and other social toys). Whether or not that's intrinsically the case is as yet uncertain, but it's definitely the way kids are socially conditioned.

[spacial]

On kyril's point, I recall once hearing someone saying that boys tend to look for something to do, while girls look for something to feel.

But equally, this could simply that girls are treated as pretty while boys are shown rattles and movement.