SELF-REGULATION OF GENDER-ROLE BEHAVIORS - CASE-STUDY Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Behavioral observation of a four-year-old boy with "gender identity confusion" found predominantly feminine gender-typed play in both clinic and pre-school settings. In the clinic, differential social reinforcement contingencies mediated by the mother resulted in a marked increase in masculine play, but this effect was stimulus-specific. Following the social reinforcement intervention, self-monitoring procedures in the clinic produced (1) high and stable rates of masculine gender-typed play and (2) treatment generalization to similar toys. In the pre-school setting, moderately high base rate frequencies of cross-dress-up play, feminine role play, and play with girls were recorded. Self-monitoring for cross-dress-up play resulted in an initial reactive effect which decreased over four sessions. When a "self-reinforcement" procedure was superimposed upon the self-monitoring of cross-dress-up play, cross-dressing substantially decreased, and response generalization resulted in feminine role play, but not in play with girls. A one-year psychodiagnostic follow-up evaluation is reported. 1977.

published proceedings

  • JOURNAL OF BEHAVIOR THERAPY AND EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHIATRY

author list (cited authors)

  • REKERS, G. A., & VARNI, J. W.

citation count

  • 11

complete list of authors

  • REKERS, GA||VARNI, JW

publication date

  • December 1977