Discourse and Sex as Correlates of Adults' Judgments of Children

Abstract

This study explored the influence of a child's sex and discourse behavior on the way he is judged by adults. Nine adults listened to 29 5-min. samples of the speech of children, aged 102 to 129 mo., conversing with an adult. They rated each child on 12 7-point bipolar adjective scales (e.g., bad/good, superior/inferior). The associations between the ratings on each scale and the child's sex and discourse behavior were then estimated. The aspects of discourse examined were amount of conversational participation, topic maintenance, and use of three types of speech acts (responses, acknowledgments, and assertions). Children who produced higher proportions of responses were judged as more timid and “bad.” Children who participated more in the conversation and who could maintain a topic for a longer series of turns were judged as more intelligent, above average, and superior. Sex was also associated with the judgments on seven scales.