After watching videos of adults cradling and striking balloons, male
but not female 6-to-9-month-olds began to hit balloons more often. This
suggests that males have an innate fascination with "propulsive
movement," researchers say.
After getting acquainted with a toy
balloon, 45 children—too young to label themselves by gender—watched
split-screen video clips: On one side, a man or woman cradled a balloon;
on the other, the same man or woman hit the balloon.
Boys tended to watch the people
striking balloons more than girls did. After watching, they batted their
own balloons more than before, while girls didn't change behavior.
There were no sex differences in how
children handled the balloons before the videos started and no evidence
that the parents of boys had promoted this play style.
If an innate fascination with
propulsive motion exists, it may explain why boys gravitate to toys that
move, such as trucks, without parental encouragement, researchers said.
"Male More Than Female Infants Imitate Propulsive
Motion," Joyce F. Benenson, Robert Tennyson and Richard W. Wrangham,
Cognition (November)
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