Sex differences: A study of the eye of the beholder

differences in infancy, 204 male and female subjects rated the same infent's emotional responses to 4 different arousing stimuli: half of the subjects were told they were observing a "boy " and the other half, a "girl " The same infant in a particular situation was seen as displaying different emotions and significantly different levels of emotional arousal depending on the sex attributed to the infant, the sex of the rater, and the rater's experience with young children. The results suggest a healthy caution be exercised in interpret-ing studies of sex differences obtained by observers who know the sex of the child being rated. The fact that we often see that which we ex-pect to see is sufficiently well known and accepted to be accorded the status of a cliche. But follow the logic one step further: we usually act on what we think we see, and when those actions are directed toward another person, they affect the other per-son in a variety of ways. When our actions are directed toward children, the picture is compli-cated even more. Children often search for an an