Sex Roles, Vol. 37, Nos. 9/10, 1997

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers of Sons and Daughters: Implications for Children's Gender Role Development I

Eric W. Lindsey, 2 Jacquelyn Mize, and Gregory S. Pettit Auburn University

The extent of mothers' and fathers' involvement in children's play and stylistic variations in that play were examined among 35 preschool children (17 boys) in separate laboratory sessions. The sample included 28 European-American families, 3 African-American families, and 4 families of other ethnic origin. Boys were more likely to play physically than girls, whereas girls were more likely to engage in pretense play than boys. Both boys and girls were more likely to engage in pretense play in the presence of mothers than in the presence of fathers. Moreover, parents of girls were more likely to be involved in pretense play than parents of boys. Fathers of boys were more likely to be involved in physical play than fathers of girls or mothers of boys or girls. Sequential analysis revealed that parents of girls were somewhat more likely to comply with their children's play leads than were parents of boys. In addition, mothers were more likely to comply with children's play directives than were fathers. The data suggest that parents may contribute to children's gender-specific styles of play and influence by modeling particular play behaviors and~or providing differential patterns of reinforcement to sons and daughters.

Parents have long been seen as important contributors to the gender role development of their children (Block, 1983; Johnson, 1963; Fagot & Lein-

1This investigation was supported by grants to the second and third authors from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH49869) and the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station (10-004). The authors would like to thank Mellisa Clawson, Deborah Moffett, Glyn E. Brown, and Liesl Reiners for their help in various phases of data collection and coding. We are grateful to the children, parents, and teachers of the Auburn University Child Study Center for their time and participation.

2To whom correspondence should be addressed at Family Research Center, UNCG, 536 High- land Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170.

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0360-0025/97/1100-0643512.50/0 �9 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation

644 Lindsey et aL

bach, 1987). One way parents are thought to reinforce children's gender- typed behavior is through differential patterns of interaction with sons and daughters. However, in recent years parents' role in the socialization of differences in boys' and girls' behavior has come into question (Lytton & Romney, 1991). Empirical research on gender-differentiated interaction be- tween parents and children is rife with contradictions. Whereas some stud- ies report sex differences in parent-child interaction (Bronstein, 1994; Gjerde, 1988), others have shown that parents treat sons and daughters very similarly (Belsky, 1979; Roopnarine, 1986). Even studies examining similar domains of parent-child interaction report conflicting findings. For example, Fagot (1978) observed parents' nurturing behavior toward sons and daughters, and found that parents were more accepting of girls' prox- imity and comfort-seeking behavior than they were of similar behavior in boys. Goshen-Gottstein (1981) also observed parental nurturing behavior, but found that mothers encouraged dependency and provided nurturance more for young boys than for young girls. Such disparate findings are com- mon among studies of parent socialization and indicate that additional re- search is needed to understand the intricacies of sex differences in parent-child interaction.

One of the major limitations of research concerning parents' influence on children's gender role development to date has been the focus on broad dimensions of parent-child interactional style and reliance on aggregated frequencies or rates of parent and child behavior. Such an approach is lim- ited in that it offers no information about the unfolding process of parents' interaction with boys and girls, overlooking the underlying contingencies between parent-child interactional exchanges (Dumas, LaFreniere, & Serketich, 1995). That is, an examination of frequencies and rates of be- havior fails to inform about the pattern of interaction created between part- ners. Parents' choice of when to use certain behaviors may be just as important as how often they engage in particular behaviors with children. The sequence of parent--child behavior may be particularly informative in the study of parents' influence on children's gender role development. Par- ents may respond differently to daughters and sons depending on children's behavior as well as children's gender. Few studies have examined gender differences in the sequence of behavior between parent and child; there- fore, a goal of the present study was to examine sequential patterns of behavior between parent and child that might be related to children's de- velopment of gender-typed behavior.

Lytton and Romney (1994) suggest that when examining the effects of parents' differential socialization patterns on the behavior of sons and daughters one should begin with domains in which gender differences have been demonstrated. Following their recommendation, we turned to the lit-

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers 645

erature on child-peer interaction in order to find patterns of behavior in which differences have been observed between boys and girls. In recent reviews of the literature on gender differences, Maccoby (1988, 1990) has pointed out two areas in which preschool boys and girls demonstrate con- sistent differences in their interactions with peers and that she suggests accounts for the pronounced gender segregation found in children's social groups. The first area of difference involves children's preference for par- ticular play forms. Maccoby (1990) identifies rough-and-tumble (physical) play as a key feature distinguishing the interaction of boys from the inter- action of girls. Evidence to support her claim comes from a study by DiPietro (1981), in which preschool boys were observed to engage in more rough-and-tumble play than did preschool girls. Although Maccoby (1990) focused only on the rough-and-tumble play of boys in her discussion of gender differences, it seems reasonable to expect that girls have their own preferred play form that distinguishes their interaction from that of boys. Evidence suggests that preschool girls engage in greater amounts and more sophisticated levels of pretense play than do preschool boys (Howes, Unger, & Matheson, 1991). Whereas physical play may be more characteristic of interactions among preschool boys, pretense play seems to be more char- acteristic of interactions among preschool girls.

The second distinguishing feature of boys' and girls' peer interaction, as identified by Maccoby (1990), centers on the strategies children use to influence peers' play behavior. In summarizing the different peer influence strategies used by boys and girls, Maccoby cites the work of Serbin and colleagues (Serbin, Sprafkin, Elman, & Doyle, 1984), who found that be- tween the ages of 31/2 and 51/2, boys increased their use of direct commands to influence play partners, whereas girls increased their use of polite sug- gestions to influence peers. Additional support for this difference between girls and boys comes from a study by Leaper (1991) who found that among 5- and 7-year-olds, verbal exchanges between girls take the form of "col- laborative speech acts," whereas among boys, speech acts are more con- trolling. Boys' interactions seem to be characterized by more controlling and directive behavior, whereas girls' interaction may be characterized by more polite and accommodating behavior.

To explain such differences in boys' and girls' behavior, observational learning theories and cognitive theories of gender role development focus on children's differential attention to and imitation of same-sexed vs. op- posite-sexed parents (e.g., Hetherington, 1967; Kohlberg, 1966). An alter- native explanation is that parents may actively reinforce gender-typed behaviors in their children by differentially responding to certain behaviors and not others. To the extent that fathers and mothers demonstrate differ- ent levels of involvement in certain types of play and use different influence

646 Lindsey et aL

strategies with their children, one might expect them to influence gender- typed differences in their children through the processes of imitation or direct reinforcement. Evidence suggests that the differences Maccoby iden- tified in boys' and girls' peer interactions may be similar to differences in mothers' and fathers' interaction with sons and daughters. Namely, there is some evidence to indicate that parents may engage in different types of play with their children. For example, fathers have been found to engage in more physical play with sons than with daughters (Jacklin, DiPietro, & Maccoby, 1984; MacDonald & Parke, 1986), and from infancy to middle childhood, father-child play is more physical and active than mother-child play (Clarke- Stewart, 1978; Russell & Russell, 1987). Mothers, on the other hand, engage in more pretense play with children than do fathers (Langlois & Downs, 1980) and encourage girls' pretense play more than boys (Tamis- LeMonda & Bornstein, 1991). However, not all studies have found differ- ences in mothers' and fathers' play with sons and daughters, and some evidence directly contradicts that of the studies cited above. For example, Bright and Stockdale (1984) found no difference in the amount of time mothers and fathers spent playing with physical, intellectual, or social toys. Similarly, Stevenson and her colleagues (Stevenson, Leavitt, Thompson, & Roach, 1988) found no significant difference between mothers' and fathers' engagement in physical play with infant or preschool children, although these authors suggested that the low frequencies of physical play by both parents might have been due to evening observation sessions that sup- pressed differences between mothers and fathers. Further research is needed to explore possible differences in the types of play between mothers and fathers and sons and daughters.

There is also evidence to suggest that parents may affect the strategies boys and girls use to influence the behavior of peers. According to Block (1983), parents are more likely to encourage self-assertive behavior in boys and relationship enhancing behavior in girls. Consistent with this proposal, evidence suggests that parents engage in behaviors that emphasize compli- ance and relationality with daughters, whereas they interact in ways that encourage independence and self-assertive behavior in boys (Dunn, Bre- therton, & Munn, 1987). Both fathers and mothers use more directive state- ments with sons than with daughters (Cherry & Lewis, 1976; Frankel & Rollins, 1983), and fathers issue more directives to children than do moth- ers (MacDonald & Parke, 1984; MacDonald, 1987). Power and colleagues (Power, McGrath, Hughes, & Manire, 1994) suggest, based on the finding of their study, that mothers present a model to their children that is less direct, more cooperative, and more responsive to the needs of others, whereas fathers present a model of directiveness and self-assertion. To the extent that children are more likely to identify with and imitate the behav-

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers 647

ior of their same-sex parent, mothers and fathers may reinforce children's use of gender-typed strategies to influence others' behavior.

The present study was designed to examine mothers' and fathers' gen- der-typed play with their preschool children in order to further explore the ways parents may contribute to stylistic differences in boys' and girls' be- havior. We focused on parent-child physical and pretense play, as well as the strategies parents and their children use to influence one another's play behavior and responses to influence attempts. Based on the studies cited above, it was predicted that fathers would engage in more physical play with children than would mothers and that physical play would be most characteristic of father-son play. Conversely, it was predicted that mothers would engage in more pretense play with children and that pretense play would be most characteristic of mother-daughter dyads. Furthermore, par- ents of sons and daughters were expected to use different strategies to in- fluence their children's play behavior. It was predicted that both mothers and fathers would use more directives to influence the behavior of sons and more suggestions (play leads) to influence the behavior of daughters.

We also hoped to obtain a more complete view of gender differences in parent-child interaction by moving beyond analysis of differences in fre- quencies and base rates of behavior to consider the behavior of both part- ners and their influence upon one another. In order to do this, we examined characteristics of parent and child play behavior using sequential analysis. By examining the pattern of interaction between parent and child, we hoped to determine if parents might reinforce different types of behavior with sons and daughters. It was predicted that parents would reinforce chil- dren's use of gender-typed strategies by (a) being more involved in boys' physical play and in girls' pretense play, and (b) complying more often to sons' play directives and complying more often to girls' play leads.

METHOD

Participants

As part of a larger investigation of parenting practices and children's social competence (Mize & Pettit, 1997), parents of 62 children (58 in two- parent families) from a university-sponsored preschool program were asked to take part in laboratory observations of parent-child interaction. Permis- sion was obtained for 58 children to participate in the larger study. The subjects for this study were the 35 families in which both mother and father participated, 18 with girls and 17 with boys. Children's age ranged from 45 to 76 months (M = 60.77). The sample included 28 European-American families, 3 African-American families, and 4 families of other ethnic origin.

648 Lindsey et al.

The families were primarily middle and upper middle class, with 83% of fathers being employed in professional occupations (based on Entwisle & Astone, 1994, Total-based Socioeconomic Index).

PROCEDURE

Parent-Child Interaction

Mothers and fathers were invited to come to the laboratory with their child to participate in a three-part, one-hour interaction session. This report focuses on parent-child interaction during the first 10-min session (par- ent-child play session). Parents' appointments were scheduled on separate occasions (in counter balanced order), typically separated by a two- to three-week interval. Parent-child interaction was videotaped from behind a one-way mirror located in a comfortably furnished room (containing a sofa, tables, a set of large cardboard blocks, and magazines). Upon arrival, parent-child pairs were asked to make themselves comfortable in the room and were told that the researcher would soon bring additional toys. After 3 min elapsed, the researcher reentered the room with a set of toys de- signed to elicit a variety of play forms (i.e., people figures, dinosaur figures, Nerf bat and ball, puppets, and a kush ball) and told the parents that the investigators were interested in seeing how parents and children play to- gether. Parents were asked to "play with your child as you would if you and your child had some time together at home." The experimenter reen- tered the room to end the first session once 7 rain had elapsed. Mothers were asked to complete short demographic questionnaires following their laboratory observation session, from which were obtained information con- cerning parents' age, marital status, mother and father education, employ- ment status and occupation.

Form of Play. In each 10-sec segment of parent-child interaction, chil- dren's behavior was coded for the type of play in which they were engaged based on definitions adapted from Stevenson et al. (1988). The six play categories used in this study were as follows: functional play, intentional manipulation of objects to elicit their properties (e.g., shaking, rolling); physical play, any playful contact or gross motor activity between partners (e.g., tickling, running, playing with bat and ball); instructive play, naming or requesting naming of objects, colors, or numbers; pretense play, using play objects to represent other objects, and/or assuming play roles including verbal relabeling of objects or role transformations; construction, building, stacking, arranging of objects or arranging objects within or on a construc- tion made of blocks; and other play, any play activity not fitting into one of the above categories (e.g., singing, drawing). In addition, there were two

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers 649

nonplay categories: other interaction, engagement in any interaction that does not involve play (e.g., discussing events of the day or the location of another family member); and nonplay/noninteraction, any activity that does not involve play and that does not involve partner (e.g., reading magazine alone, looking out the window alone).

Coders also identified parents' level of engagement in their children's activity in each 10-sec interval based on the following scale: 1 = parent is not involved in the same activity as his or her child (i.e., parent is engaged in some other form of play, but not with child, or does not interact with the child for the entire 10-sec segment); 2 = parent is watching and attending to child's activity but does not actively participate or talk to the child during the 10-sec segment; 3 = parent talks about the child's activity but does not ac- tively participate in the activity at any time during the 10-sec segment; 4 = parent is actively engaged in the same activity as the child at least once during the 10-sec segment (e.g., parent has puppet/dinosaur/doll in hand or talks in different voice during pretend play, parent knocks down blocks or plays ball with child rather than simply watching child do activity during physical play).

Mother-child and father-child videotapes were coded separately by two assistants, with the first author serving as reliability check on 6 tapes (17%) for both mothers and fathers. The overall interrater reliability (kappa) for play form was .83 and .80 (for fathers and mothers, respec- tively) and for parent involvement .45 (90% agreement) and .53 (96% agreement; for fathers and mothers, respectively). The kappa for parent involvement was low because most intervals were recorded as Level 4.

For the purposes of this study, only pretense and physical play vari- ables were examined. Child play variables were computed based on the proportion of intervals in which the child was engaged in pretense or physi- cal play out of the entire number of intervals in the play session with mother or father, resulting in four variables for each child (i.e., child pre- tense with mother, child physical with mother, child pretense with father, and child physical with father). The measures of parents' involvement in their children's play were the number of 10-sec intervals parents received a rating of 4 (i.e., actual engagement with the child in the child's activity) for pre- tense and physical play, divided by the total number of 10-sec intervals in which child was coded as being engaged in physical or pretense play. Thus, two measures of parent involvement in play were created for both mothers and fathers (i.e., mother involvement in pretense, mother involvement in physi- cal, father involvement in pretense, and father involvement in physical).

Coding of Parent-Child Play Style. An event-level coding scheme was used by separate independent coders to record the occurrence of parent and child initiations, and partner's responses to these events. Following Hazen and Black's (1989) procedures, initiations were defined as verbali-

650 Lindsey et aL

zations or behaviors intended to initiate interaction or alter ongoing inter- action. Coders made verbatim records of each statement, question, or other behavior intended to initiate interaction or to influence ongoing interaction, as well as noting the exact time the initiation was made, and who made the initiation. A verbatim description of play partner's response and the exact timing of the response also were recorded.

Twenty-five percent of the videotapes were viewed by a second inde- pendent coder for reliability. Coders were judged to have agreed on the event-based coding scheme when an event was coded identically by both observers and the recorded time differed by no more than 10-sec. For 90% of the events coders recorded times differed by no more than 5-sec. De- tailed descriptions of the initiation and response codes follow.

Initiations were identified as one of four types: play leads, an initiation related to play that allows the partner to choose whether to comply or not comply (e.g., "Let's build a zoo"); nonplay leads, an initiation not related to play that allows the partner to choose whether to comply or not comply (e.g., "Want to look out the window?"); play directives, an initiation related to play that allows the partner no choice but to comply (e.g., "Put the bat down"); or nonplay directives, an initiation for activities other than play that allows the partner no choice but to comply (e.g., "Don't open the door"). Analyses focus only on partners' play initiations and responses to those initiations due to our interest in parents' and children's play behavior. In- terrater agreement (kappa) for the initiation codes was .95.

Coders also recorded the responses parent and child made to each in- itiation they received (Hazen & Black, 1989). Responses were coded as one of the following: comply, partner carries out or complies with lead/directive (e.g., parent says, "Let's build a zoo"; child replies, "Yeah," and begins to arrange blocks); comply with turn-about, partner carries out or complies with lead/directive and at the same time elaborates upon the play theme by offer- ing an alternative initiation (e.g., parent says, "Want to play with the dino- saurs?" child replies, "Yes, you be the meat eaters and I'll be the plant eaters"); reject, partner refuses to comply with initiation (e.g., parent says, "Let's play baseball"; child replies, "No"); reject with turn-about, partner re- fuses to comply with initiation, but offers an alternative initiation (e.g., parent says, "Why don't we have a puppet show?"; child replies, "No, let's play soc- cer"); or ignore, partner gives no response or a response not related to initia- tion (e.g., child says, "Get that bat"; parent picks up a puppet instead). Intcrrater agreement (kappa) for the response codes was .89.

An event within an interaction sequence could be coded twice, once as an initiation and also as a response (see Hazen & Black, 1989). For in- stance, in the sequence "Let's play Star Trek," "OK, will you be Captain Picard? .... No, I'll be Data," the phrase, "OK, will you be Captain Picard?"

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers 651

was coded as a response (comply with turn-about) to the initiation "Let's play Star Trek," and as an initiation (play lead). The dual coding of these events was intended to capture meaningful attempts to influence partners' behavior that would otherwise have been missed.

Two play initiation scores were computed for each partner by dividing the frequency of each type of play initiation (i.e., play lead and play direc- tives) by the number of minutes in the observation session. The resulting score represents the rate at which partners issued each type of play initiation (i.e., rate of play leads, rate of play directives). In addition, two play response scores were computed for each partner by summing comply and comply-turn about responses to each type of play initiation and dividing by the number of the corresponding play initiations. The resulting score represents the pro- portion of play initiations to which the partner complied (i.e., compliance to play leads, compliance to play directives). Using the same method, two negative play response variables were created for each partner by summing reject, re- ject turn-about and ignore responses (i.e., negative response to play leads, nega- tive response to play directives). Each partner's negative play response scores are therefore redundant with his/her corresponding compliance score (1--compliance) and will not be considered in this report.

Sequential Analysis Indices. A series of sequential analyses were per- formed to generate Yules' Q scores reflecting contingencies in certain par- ent-child behavioral exchanges (Bakeman, 1991). The data were examined for a number of event sequences or cooccurrences of interest: child physical play in which parent was involved, child pretense play in which parent was involved, parent play lead followed by child comply, parent play directive fol- lowed by child comply, child play lead followed by parent comply, child play directive followed by parent comply. The resulting Yule's Q scores reflect the probability that a particular event or sequence occurred in relation to other events that might occur. Yule's Q is an odds-likelihood ratio based on a 2 x 2 table that compares the probability of a particular sequence occurring (an- tecedent A followed by consequent B) in relationship to the other events that might occur (e.g., A and not B). Figure 1 illustrates the way in which Yule's Q was calculated for the sequence mother play lead-child comply. A positive Q score indicates that the event sequence of interest (A followed by B) was more likely to occur than other sequences. A negative Q score indicates that the event sequence was less likely to occur.

RESULTS

Prcliminary analyses were conducted to determinc if parent and child behaviors varied as a function of child age or demographic variables. Re-

652

Antecedent MPL

not MPL

Consequent

CC not CC

a b

c d

Lindsey et al.

Q = ad - be

ad+be

Fig. 1. Calculation of Yule's Q for the sequence mother play lead (MPL) and child comply (CC).

sults indicated no significant associations between child play form or parent involvement in children's play and child age. Likewise, there were no as- sociations between parent and child rate of play initiation or compliance to play initiations and child age. However, child physical play in the pres- ence of fathers was negatively associated with paternal occupational status (r = -.37, p < .05), indicating that children from families in which fathers held a lower status job demonstrated high levels of physical play in the presence of their father. Fathers' occupational status was negatively asso- ciated with mothers' rate of play leads (r = -.53, p < .01) and negatively associated with fathers' rate of play directives (r = -.46, p < .01). This suggests that mothers from families in which the father held a lower status job were more active in making play suggestions to their children, whereas fathers from such families were more active in directing children's play.

Table I presents descriptive data for the variables used in this study. For ease of interpretation, all means presented in the tables and text are the raw, untransformed proportions. However, in subsequent analyses, all proportion scores are subject to arcsine transformation (Myers, 1966).

As can be seen in Table I, physical and pretense play together account for about half of children's activity during the parent-child play session (50% for father-child dyads and 53% for mother-child dyads). Moreover, both parents were highly involved in children's physical play, with fathers involved in 79% of children's physical play intervals and mothers involved in 76% of intervals children engaged in physical play. Both parents were somewhat less involved in children's pretense play (40% of pretense play intervals for fathers and 54% for mothers).

There was a wide range in the rate of different types of play initiations across individuals, though in general partners gave more play directives than play leads. The high rate of play directives may reflect the fact that play di-

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers 653

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654 Lindsey et al.

rectives were the most successful form of initiation, with partners complying more often to play directives than to play leads, although compliance was the most frequent response to both forms of play initiations overall. The t test comparisons revealed a significant difference in the rates of initiations be- tween parents and children, with fathers giving more play directives (t = 2.31, p < .02) and both fathers and mothers giving more play leads (t = 3.49, p < .02 and t = 7.74, p < .02, for fathers and mothers, respectively) than did their children. The t test comparisons revealed no significant differences between parents' and children's proportion of compliance.

Correlations Among Parent and Child Behavior

Correlations among partner's behavior were computed. Children's physical play with father and mother was positively correlated (r = .65, p < .001), indicating that children who engaged in high levels of physical play with fathers also engaged in comparatively high levels of physical play with mothers. Children's physical play was negatively correlated with pre- tense play, with both father and mother (r = -.41, p < .01, and r = -.70, p < .001, for father and mother, respectively), as would be expected based on coding criteria. Fathers' involvement in physical play was positively as- sociated with their involvement in pretense play (r = .29, p < .05), indi- cating that fathers' who were relatively more involved in pretense play also were relatively more involved in physical play. However, mothers involve- ment in physical play was negatively associated with their involvement in pretense play (r = -.55, p < .001), suggesting that mothers who were highly involved in their children's physical play showed lower levels of involvement in their children's pretense play.

Correlations Between Parent and Child Behavior

It was of interest to determine whether family members' behaviors were similar. Fathers' involvement in children's physical play was positively correlated with mothers' involvement in children's physical play (r = .55, p < .001), suggesting that children whose fathers were highly involved in physical play also had mothers who were highly involved in physical play. There was a significant correlation between children's physical play and parent involvement in physical play (r --- .97, p < .001 and r = .90, p < .001, for father and mother, respectively), and children's pretense play and parent involvement in pretense play (r = .87, p < .001 and r = .95, p < .001, for father and mother, respectively), which seems to reflect the fact that parents were highly involved with their children during the play session.

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers 655

As a result, only the variables of mother and father involvement in chil- dren's pretense and physical play, not the amount of children's physical and pretense play, will be used in subsequent correlations.

It also was of interest to determine whether aspects of parent-child play form and parent-child initiation/response strategies were associated. Correlations revealed a positive association between parents' directiveness and involvement in physical play (r = .33, p < .01 and r = .46, p < .01, for father and mother, respectively). For fathers, rate of directives was negatively correlated with involvement in children's pretense play (r = -.41, p < .05). Children's rate of play directives to father, on the other hand, was negatively correlated with father involvement in physical play (r = -.32, p < .05). Children's rate of play leads to mother was negatively associated with mother's involvement in physical play (r = -.37, p < .05). No other correlat ions between mother -ch i ld ini t iat ion/response variables and mother-child play form variables were significant. The pattern of these cor- relations indicate that parents' use of directives is closely associated with their involvement in children's physical play. In contrast, children who used more play directives had fathers who were less involved in their physical play, whereas children who used more play leads had mothers who were less involved in their physical play.

Sex Differences in Parent-Child Interaction

Two separate 2 x 2 (Sex of Child x Sex of Parent) analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted for children's pretense play and physical play with parent. For pretense play, the main effect of sex of child was significant F(2, 69) = 5.90, p = .02, as was the main effect of sex of parent F(2, 69) = 5.27, p = .03. However, the interaction of sex of child and sex of parent was not significant. Girls (M = .19) were more likely to engage in pretense play than boys (M = .10), and pretense play was more likely to occur in the pres- ence of mothers (M = .34) than in the presence of fathers (M = .10). In the ANOVA for physical play, the main effect of sex of child was significant F(2, 69) = 3.57, p < .05. Neither the main effect for sex of parent nor the inter- action between sex of child and sex of parent was significant. Boys (M = .74) engaged in more physical play than girls (M = .31).

Two additional 2 x 2 (Sex of Child x Sex of Parent) ANOVAs were conducted for parents' involvement in children's pretense play and physical play. In the ANOVA for parental involvement in pretense play, there were trends for the main effect of sex of child F(2, 69) = 2.38, p = .13, as well as for the main effect of sex of parent F(2, 69) = 2.29, p ~- .14. The in- teraction of sex of child and sex of parent was not significant. Parents of girls (M = .70) were more likely to engage in pretense play than were

656 Lindsey et al.

parents of boys (M = .31), and mothers (M = .54) were more likely to be involved in children's pretense play than were fathers (M = .40). In the ANOVA for parental involvement in children's physical play, neither the main effect of sex of child nor the main effect of sex of parent was sig- nificant. The interaction between sex of child and sex of parent almost achieved significance F(2, 69) = 2.35, p < .13. An inspection of the means revealed that fathers of boys (M = .87) were somewhat more likely to be involved in physical play than fathers of girls (M = .72), or mothers of boys (M = .74) or girls (M = .79).

A series of 2.. 2 (Sex of Child.. Sex of Parent) ANOVAs were preformed with parent and child play initiations and responses as the dependent vari- ables. No significant effect for parent play leads were found. In the ANOVA for child play leads, there was a significant main effect of sex of parent F(2, 69) = 22.07, p < .001. Neither the main effect for sex of parent nor the in- teraction between sex of child and sex of parent was significant. Children is- sued more play leads to fathers (M = .22) than to mothers (M = .03). In the ANOVA for parent play directives, there was a near-significant main effect of sex of parent F(2, 69) = 2.88, p = .09. Neither the main effect for sex of child nor the interaction between sex of child and sex of parent was significant. Fa- thers (M = .80) were more likely to issue play directives to children than moth- ers (M = .56). No significant effects were found in the ANOVAs for parent and child compliance to play leads and play directives.

Sequential Analyses

Table II summarizes the mean Q scores for the various sequences of interest used as dependent variables in 2 x 2 ANOVAs with child gender and parents gender. Although no significant effects were found in any of the ANOVAs, the means for the sequence parent compliance to children's play leads were in the expected direction. Specifically, the means suggest that parents were more likely to comply to girls' play leads than to boys' play leads F(2, 69) = 2.33, p = .13. The means for the sequence of parent compliance to child play directives indicated that mothers were more likely to comply to children's play directives than were fathers F(1, 69) = 2.47, p = .12.

DISCUSSION

The results of this study support previous research demonstrating dif- ferences in mothers' and fathers' interaction with sons and daughters. That is, differences in parent-child interaction were observed as a function of

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers

Table II. Descriptive Statistics of Q Scores

657

Fathers Mothers

Mean (SD) Range Mean (SD) Range

Boys Parent involvement in physical play Parent involvement in pretense play Parent play lead --Child comply Child play lead-Parent comply Parent play direct--Child comply Child play direct--Parent comply

Girls Parent involvement in physical play Parent involvement in pretense play Parent play lead --Child comply Child play lead-Parent comply Parent play direct--Child comply Child play direct--Parent comply

.38 (.64) -1.00-1.00 .29 (.57) -.71-1,00

.10 (.55) -.95-1.00 .19 (,56) -1,00--1.00

.36 (.25) -1.00-1.00 .42 (.64) -.78-1.00 ,69 (,42) -1.00-.0 .53 (,67) -1.00-1.00 .86 ( . 25 ) .0-1.00 .83 (.34) -.11-1.00 .97 ( .06) .78-1.00 .87 ( . 2 6 ) .0-1.00

.28 (.64) -1.00-1.00 .46 ( .49) .00--I.00

.10 (.60) -1.00-1.00 .25 (.58) -1,00-1.00

.53 (.69) -1.00-1.00 .15 (.81) -1.00--1.00

.73 ( . 40 ) .0-1.00 .83 (38) .0-l.00

.68 ( . 4 0 ) .0-1.00 .85 ( . 3 3 ) .0-1.00

.92 ( .12) .66-t.00 .78 (.52) -1.00-1.00

sex of child and sex of parent. Thus, the results are consistent with other studies that suggest that parents treat boys and girls differently. The focus given to behavior that previous literature suggests differentiates between the interactions of boys and girls may account for observations of differ- ences in parent-child interaction where others have failed to find such dif- ferences (Bright & Stockale, 1984; Stevenson et al., 1988). It may be that by examining parents' involvement in children's play as a function of type of play and the influence strategies used by parents with their children, we tapped patterns of interaction that are particularly sensitive to sex differ- ences between parents and children. Due to the fact that many of our find- ings failed to reach conventional levels of significance, our results should be interpreted with caution and are in need of replication. However, be- cause most results are in the direction expected based on previous research, our findings suggest the utility of focusing on behaviors found to differen- tiate boys' and girls' interactions when examining socialization of gender- typed behavior.

As predicted, sex differences were observed in boys and girls play pref- erences. Specifically, girls were found to engage in more pretense play than boys, and boys were found to engage in more physical play than girls. This finding parallels evidence on child-peer interaction suggesting that pretense play is the domain of females and physical play is the domain of males. Our prediction that pretense play would characterize mother-daughter in- teraction also received support in that both boys and girls were more likely to engage in pretense play in the presence of mothers than in the presence of fathers. That boys also engaged in more pretense play with mothers than with fathers suggests that children may differentiate their behavior based on the sex of the parent with whom they are interacting, at least in regard

658 Lindsey~ aL

to pretense play. Contrary to expectations, there was no difference in chil- dren's amount of physical play in the presence of mothers and fathers.

Not only did boys and girls engage in different amounts of pretense play in the presence of mothers and fathers, but mothers and fathers be- came involved at different levels in pretense play as a function of sex of child. Evidence suggests that parents of girls had a tendency to be more involved in their children's pretense play than parents of boys. In addition, mothers were more likely to be involved in children's pretense play than were fathers. Differences also were observed in parents' involvement in physical play. Specifically, fathers of sons were somewhat more likely to be involved in physical play than any other parent-child dyad. Initially, it might be assumed that parents are simply responding to girls' preference for pre- tense play and boys' preference for physical play. However, parental in- volvement was computed based on the proportion of time parents were involved with their child while the child was engaged in a particular play form. Thus, for example, a father's involvement in physical play represents the percentage of time he was involved with his child out of the time his child was engaged in physical play. This suggests that fathers of boys prefer to be involved in physical play more than do fathers' of girls. Similarly, both mothers and fathers of girls preferred to be involved in their child's pretense play than mothers and fathers of boys. Overall, mothers seemed to prefer to be involved in children's pretense play more than did fathers.

One implication of these findings is that parents may be differentially responsive to boys' and girls' engagement in different play forms. To the extent that parental involvement serves as an incentive for children to en- gage in play, parents may influence their children's preference for a par- ticular play form. Moreover, the degree to which parents actively differentiate their involvement in children's play based on the form of play in which child is engaged may reflect a subtle form of reinforcement for the child's behavior to conform to parents' gender role expectations. Al- ternatively, parents may simply be responding to the existing play prefer- ences of their children. That is, because girls prefer pretense play (Tamis-LeMonda & Bornstein, 1991) mothers of daughters may be more involved in pretense play. Because boys prefer to play physically (DiPietro, 1981), fathers of sons may be more involved in boy's physical play. Addi- tional research is needed to better understand the possible directions of effect in parents' and children's preference for particular play forms. More- over, it would be worthwhile to consider the influence of other socializing agents, such a peers, on children's play form preferences.

Additional support for parents' influence on children's gender-typed behavior was found by examining the influence strategies parents and chil- dren use during play. As predicted, fathers issued more play directives than

Differential Play Patterns of Mothers and Fathers 659

mothers or children. This finding is consistent with previous research indi- cating that fathers are more directive than mothers (MacDonald & Parke, 1984) and supports Power et al.'s (1994) suggestion that fathers present a model of self-assertive behavior to children. Contrary to expectations, no significant differences were observed in mothers' and fathers' use of play directives or play leads based on sex of child. However, examination of the sequence of parent-child behavior revealed patterns to suggest the exist- ence of such differences. Specifically, as predicted, parents were somewhat more likely to comply following girls' play leads than following boys' play leads. This pattern of findings is consistent with a theory of socialization that suggests parents are more likely to encourage relationship enhancing behavior in girls (Block, 1983). That is, by contingently complying to daugh- ters' play leads, parents may have reinforced girls' use of a polite and egali- tarian forms of social initiation strategy over more assertive forms of initiation. Contrary to expectations, a pattern of parents' socializing self- assertive behavior in boys was not observed, in that parents were not more likely to comply to boys' play directives than to girls's play directives.

It is important to note that associations were found among the pro- posed gender-typed behaviors. Specifically, both fathers' and mothers' use of directives was correlated with children's physical play. This finding is consistent with that of MacDonald and Parke (1984), who also found as- sociations between parental directiveness and parent-child physical play. Moreover, the finding is consistent with evidence that directiveness and physical play are both patterns characteristic of boys' interaction with peers. Additional research is needed to separate the effects of directiveness and physical play as possible gender-typed behavior. One possibility would be to observe parent-child pairs playing with pretense and physical toys in different sessions. In this way variations in play form and influence strate- gies could be assessed independently of each other.

It also should be noted that child physical play was negatively associ- ated with fathers' occupational status. That is, children from families in which the father held a high-status job engaged in less physical play in the presence of their father. In addition, mothers' rate of play leads and fathers' rate of play directives were negatively associated with fathers' occupational status, suggesting that mothers were less active in making play suggestions to their children and fathers were less active in directing children's play in families in which the father held a high-status job. It may be that these findings reflect a tendency for parents from families in which the father has a high-status job to be somewhat older and thus less active when play- ing with their children. This premise is consistent with previous evidence that age of parent and parent-child engagement in physical play are nega- tively associated (MacDonald & Parke, 1986). Although there was no sig-

660 Lindsey et al.

nificant association between parent age and behavioral measures of parent child interaction in the present study, there was a trend for fathers' occu- pational status to be positively associated with fathers' age.

Interestingly, the data also suggest that children may vary their own behavior based on the sex of the parent with whom they are interacting. Specifically, both boys and girls engaged in more pretense play with their mothers than with their fathers. This suggests that children may recognize that parents have preferences for certain types of play and encourage their parents to become involved with them by engaging in a play form appro- priate to their parents' gender. Alternatively, children may adjust their own play behavior based on the sex of the parent with whom they are playing in ways to reflect their own gender biases. That is, to the extent that chil- dren see pretense play as more appropriate for females and physical play as more appropriate for males, they may be more likely to engage in pre- tense play with mothers than with fathers. However, the fact that fathers were less likely to be involved in pretense play than were mothers suggests that parents' play form preferences may be influencing children's behavior. Multimethod research designs examining children's gender schemas in re- gard to appropriate play for males and females, as well as conducting ob- servations of parent--child play interaction would allow assessment of how children's gender biases may influence their play interaction with mothers and fathers.

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