MEDIA ON GENDER ROLES

• INFLUENCE OF MEDIA ON GENDER ROLES?

  • books, TV, films, video games
  • observation of behaviours
  • followed by vicarious reinforcement (and further reinforcement by school)
  • children identify and imitate role models in media
• WHO STUDIED THE INFLUENCE OF MEDIA ON GENDER ROLES?

  • McGhee and Frueh
  • Williams
• MCGHEE AND FRUEH?

  • 40 boys and 40 girls
  • measured TV viewing time and gave IT scale
  • IT score increased the more stereotyped a toy was for the child's own gender
  • increased TV viewing time lead to increased IT score
  • boys scored higher on IT scale than girls
  • amounts of TV correlated with stronger traditional sex development
  • however it was constant for boys and girls, increasing with age
• WHAT IS AN IT SCALE?

  choosing what object a stick person would prefer
• WILLIAMS?

  • studied effects of TV exposure on gender
  • notel, unitel, multitel
  • compared based on behaviours/ attitudes of children to stereotypes
  • notel and unitel had weaker sex-typed views than multitel
  • 2 years later, TV introduced into notel and they gained more stereotypical views
  • exposure to TV/ media at a young age increases the strength of sex-typed views in children