The role of sex and femininity in preferences for unfamiliar infants among Chinese adults.

ABSTRACT: Guided by parental investment theory and social role theory, this study aimed to understand current contradictory results regarding sex differences in response to infant faces by considering the effect of gender role orientation. We recruited 300 adults in China and asked them to complete an Interest in Infants questionnaire and a Bem Sex Role Inventory and then administered a behavioral assessment that used unfamiliar infant faces with varying expressions (laughing, neutral, and crying) as stimuli to gauge three components of motivation towards infants (i.e., liking, representational responding, and evoked responding). The results demonstrated that sex differences emerged only in self-reported interest in infants, but no difference was found between the sexes in terms of their hedonic rea

SUBMITTER: Ding F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7660579 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature