Effects of neutral toys on sex-typed play in children with gender identity disorder

Abstract

This study assessed the relative influences of approach and avoidance behaviors toward same-sex and cross-sex toys in the play of children with gender identity disorder and in normal boys, normal girls, and psychiatric controls. Three forced-choice situations with toys and three forced-choice situations with dress-up apparel were presented that paired same-sex and cross-sex stimuli, same-sex and neutral stimuli, and cross-sex and neutral stimuli. In the same-sex/cross-sex situation, the gender-disordered group played a significantly shorter time with the same-sex stimuli and a significantly longer time with the cross-sex stimuli than the normal boys and the psychiatric controls, whereas the play patterns of the normal girls fell in between that of the gender-disordered group and the two control groups. Within-groups analyses showed that the normal boys and the psychiatric controls preferred the same-sex toys, whereas the gender-disordered group and the normal girls showed no preference. When the neutral toys were the alternative, avoidance of cross-sex toys appeared to be stronger than the attraction to same-sex toys in the normal boys and in the psychiatric controls. The relative influence of approach-avoidance tendencies was more equivocal in the gender-disordered group, though they appeared to have a weaker attraction to same-sex toys and less avoidance of cross-sex toys in comparison with the normal boys and the psychiatric controls. The approach-avoidance patterns of the normal girls fell in between that of the gender-disordered group and the other two control groups.