Responses to "neutral" pronoun presentations and the development of sex-biased responding.

Investigated whether 36 kindergarten and 36 1st-grade children, like college students, would give male-biased responses to a "he" presentation and examined how Ss would respond to the use of "they" and "he or she" pronoun presentations. The effects of pronoun use on memory were also investigated, as were possible sex differences in responding. Each S was assigned to 1 of 3 pronoun presentation groups, each of which contained an equal number of girls and boys. Ss in the different groups listened to the exact same story except that Group I Ss heard the pronoun "they" used throughout the story, Group 2 Ss heard "she" or "he" used throughout the story, and Group 3 Ss heard the pronoun "he" throughout the story. Ss were then asked to retell the story and were shown pictures of a boy and a girl and asked to indicate which one the story was about. Results support the pronomial dominance theory of pronoun functioning for young children. Results also support the hypothesis that boys initially use a self-imaging response to neutral presentations. The time of transition away from this response was identified as the 1st-grade level. There was no indication that kindergarten or 1st-grade girls use the self-imagining approach. The "they" presentation appeared to be the most neutral. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)