Baby Boys Prefer Playing with Dolls, Researchers Say

Researchers have found that baby boys prefer playing with human-face objects rather than with toy cars or trucks.

The study, conducted by researchers at University of Western Sydney, challenges the idea that boys have an innate liking for toy cars and trucks.

The study included 24 girls and 24 boys along with 48 young adults. Participants were shown images of males and females along with dolls and toy cars. Researchers tracked each participant's eye gaze using state-of-the-art eye-tracker, Medical Daily reported.

The research team assessed toy preference of a participant based on how long or how frequently the person looked at a particular toy.

Study results showed that gender-specific preference for toys wasn't prevalent until five months of age. 

"As surprising as it may sound, although the thing to do is to buy dolls for girls and cars for boys, the science suggests boys actually prefer dolls," says the leader of the study Dr Paola Escudero, from the UWS MARCS Institute.

"Everyone loves buying dolls for baby girls and cars and trucks for baby boys, it's simply what we do," Escudero said in a news release. "This common knowledge is supported by previous studies finding that 3-year-old boys prefer to play with transportation and construction toys whereas girls prefer to play with dolls".

The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Previous research on monkeys had shown that exposure to hormones in womb leads to toy preferences later in life. In the study, male monkeys preferred objects with wheels while female monkeys chose dolls.