Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Intelligence, creativity and sex-role preference among preschool-aged children

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/sj139433b

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  • This study explored the relationship between sex, age, intelligence, creativity and sex-role preference among preschool-aged children. Thirty-nine Caucasian children, 18 boys and 21 girls, ranging in ages from three years-five months to five years-two months acted as subjects for this study, All subjects came from intact families, predominantly of the middle- and upper-socioeconomic classes as determined by Hollingshead's Two Factor Index of Social Position. The instruments used to collect the data for this study included: Brown's It Scale for Children to assess the subjects' sex-role preferences; Dunn's Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test to estimate the subjects' intelligence; and Ward's Alternative Uses and Pattern Meanings Tests to assess the subjects' creativity, Four null hypotheses were generated and the analysis of variance approach was used to test these hypotheses, F-values were generated for tests of the main effects of sex, age, intelligence and creativity and their interaction effects. The 01 level of significance was used as the criterion for statistical significance. Findings obtained are summarized below. There was a significant difference between the sex-role preference scores of boys and girls (F = 11. 7457, p < 0. 01) with boys having significantly higher own sex-role preference scores than girls. This finding was in support of theoretical positions that point to the cultural deterininants of sex-role learning. A study of the mean values associated with the sex interaction effect comparisons, while not statistically significant, revealed tendencies in the data which further substantiated the above finding. There was no significant difference between the sex-role preference scores of older and younger subjects. However, a study of the mean values associated with the main effect of age and its interactions, although not statistically significant, indicated a tendency for older subjects to have higher own sex-role preference scores than younger subjects. This finding is in support of the social learning theory of sex-role development. There was no significant difference between the sex-role preference scores of very-high and average-high intelligence subjects. A study of the mean values associated with the main effect of intelligence and its interaction effects, however, provided information which tended to support the cognitive- developmental theory of sex role learning that there will be a differential relationship between intelligence and sex-role learning among boys and girls. Boys of very-high intelligence tended to have higher own sex-role preference scores than boys of average-high intelligence at both the younger and older age groupings. Such a difference, however, tended to be greater among boys in the older age grouping thanin the younger age grouping. Among girls, findings indicated a tendency for girls of very-high intelligence to have slightly higher though minimally, own sex-role preference scores than girls of average-high intelligence at the younger age grouping while at the older age grouping girls of veryhigh intelligence had lower own sex-role preference scores than girls of average-high intelligence. Furthermore, while older girls of average-high intelligence tended to have much higher own sex-role preference scores than younger girls of average-high intelligence, the difference in sex-role preference scores of very-Thigh intelligence older and younger girls was. minimal. There was no significant difference between the sex-role preference scores of creative and less creative subjects. A study of the mean values associated with the main effect of creativity and its interaction effects tended to be inconsistent with or contradict findings that would be expected on the basis of previous theory and research, Previous theoretical positions have indicated that creativity would be positively related to opposite-sex role learning among individuals. In this study, creative and less creative subjects as determined by the Alt e r nate Uses Test showed no apparent differences in their own sex-role preferences. Furthermore, creative and less creative subjects, as determined by the Pattern Meanings Test, revealed creative subjects to have slightly higher own sex-role preference scores than less creative subjects. In addition, both creative boys and girls, as determined by the Alternate Uses Test, had slightly higher, own sex-role preference scores than less creative boys and girls. When the creativity of subjects was determined by the Pattern Meanings Test, however, creative boys tended to have higher own sex-role preference scores than less creative boys, while creative girls had slightly lower own sex-role preference scores than less creative girls. This difference among girls, however, was minimal. Finally, further analysis of the data regarding socioeconomic class differences among subjects in the present study indicated that subjects in the highest socioeconomic class (Class I) and lower socioeconomic classes (Classes III and IV) tended to have higher own sexrole preference scores than subjects between these classes (Class II). It should be emphasized that due to the statistical non-significance of many of these findings and the variety of limitations encountered in this study, extreme caution must be exercised in accepting these results.
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