From Dolls to Trucks: Factors Associated With Adults' Gender‐Typing of Children's Toys

Children's gender socialisation begins from a young age and one socialisation context used to provide gender-based information is toy play. Adults play a key role in prescribing children's toys; however, the factors that motivate adults to consider toys as gender-typed for boys or girls require further investigation. We investigated predictors of gender-typing of children's toys by women and men, both parents and non-parents. In this study, 1200 adult participants (562 parents, 638 non-parents, 603 women, 597 men) reported their gender-typing of children's toys, gender essentialist beliefs, social role attitudes and retrospective experiences with toys as a child. Results revealed that parental experience, gender essentialist beliefs, gender role attitudes and retrospective toy experiences demonstrated reliable associations with both women's and men's tendency to gender-type children's toys.