Self-regulation skills better in American girls than boys

A new study has shown that there is a gender gap when it comes to behavior and self-control in American young children - one that does not appear to exist in children in Asia.

In the United States, girls had higher levels of self-regulation than boys.

Self-regulation is defined as children's ability to control their behavior and impulses, follow directions, and persist on a task.

It has been linked to academic performance and college completion, in past studies by Oregon State University researchers.

In three Asian countries (Taiwan, South Korea and China), the gender gap in the United States was not found when researchers directly assessed the self-regulation of 3-6 year olds.

"These findings suggest that although we often expect girls to be more self-regulated than boys, this may not be the case for Asian children," Shannon Wanless, lead author of the study, said.

Wanless began conducting the research during her doctoral studies at Oregon State University under Megan McClelland, an associate professor in OSU's Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families. Wanless is now on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh.

One interesting part of the researcher's findings: Although there were no gender differences in self-regulation when the children were directly assessed using a variety of school-readiness tasks, teachers in Asia perceived girls as performing better on self-regulation even when they actually performed equally to boys.

"Teachers are rating children's behavior in the classroom environment, which has a lot of distractions and is very stimulating," Wanless said.

"It is possible that boys in the Asian countries were able to self-regulate as well as girls when they were in a quiet space (the direct assessment), but were not able to regulate themselves as well in a bustling classroom environment (teacher ratings)," the researcher said.

In addition, McClelland said cultural expectations of girls' behavior versus that of their male peers may be influencing teachers' assessments.

"In general, there is more tolerance for active play in boys than in girls," McClelland said.

"Girls are expected to be quiet and not make a fuss. This expectation may be coloring some teachers' perceptions," she said.

The researchers conducted assessments with 814 children in the United States, Taiwan, South Korea and China.

Their study showed that US girls had significantly higher self-regulation than boys, but there were no significant gender differences in any Asian societies.

In addition, for both genders, directly assessed and teacher-rated self-regulation were related to many aspects of school readiness in all societies for girls and boys.

The findings are published in the journal Early Childhood Research Quarterly.