MODELING INFLUENCES ON THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF LATENCY-AGED BOYS AND GIRLS (ROLE-MODELING)

Abstract

This study examined the influence of male and female role models on the expectancies, subjective performances and decision-making with respect to a repetitive choice task in latency-aged children. A factorial design varied the sex of the subject (male, female), the sex of the role model (male, female), and choices offered by the models for either returning to a completed or incompleted novel task performed under a fixed-time or autonomy condition, i.e. subjects were told or were not told there were fixed time limits during a repetition choice phase. Two hundred and ninety-one fifth grade boys and girls of the New York Public School System in lower middle socioeconomic areas served as subjects for this study. They were randomly divided into 16 treatment groups who viewed videotapes offering similar and dissimilar sexed role models constructing puzzles. The non-treatment groups received no special attention, i.e. no videotape. Overall, the results did not support the hypotheses in that latency aged boys and girls did not follow the behavior of same-sex peer models, while general developmental factors appeared to be quite salient. However, an unpredicted finding was that girls are significantly inclined to follow choice behavior of opposite vs. same sex models. There were also unpredicted but significant effects for subjects' expectancies for success as functions of models' sex and fixed time vs. autonomy, and a significant interaction between sex of subjects and the modeling of a completed or incompleted task repetition. The results then were discussed in terms of the methodological and operational deficiencies of the experimental procedure, and future implications for research were examined.