The sample was made up of twenty-four families (12 with a boy and 12 with a girl). Each family had only one child between 20 and 24 months.  Both parents lived at home and both parents were between 20 and 30 years old. All the families were white. Five families lived in university housing and six in apartments. The rest lived in private homes. The sample varied in income; some parents were still students.

Observers used an observation checklist of 46 child behaviors and 19 reactions by parents. There were five 60-minute observations completed for each family over five weeks.  The observer used time sampling, making note of the child's behavior every 60 seconds and then noting the parents’ response. Two observers were used to establish inter-coder reliability. The agreement between the two observers on the child’s behavior was 0.93 and for the parents’ reaction 0.83.

After the observations were finished, each parent was asked to rate the 46 behaviors as more appropriate for girls, for boys, or neutral.  Each parent also filled out a questionnaire on the socialization of sex roles.

The findings of the observations include:

• Boys were more likely to be left alone by their parents than girls.
• Parents gave boys more positive responses when they played with blocks than they did girls.
• Parents gave girls more negative responses when they manipulated an object than they did boys.
• Parents gave more positive responses to girls than boys for playing with dolls and more negative responses to boys.
• Parents criticized girls more when they participated in large motor activities – e.g. running and jumping.
• Parents gave more positive responses to girls than boys when they asked for help and a more negative response to boys.
• Fathers were more concerned with appropriate sex-typing than mothers and both parents found more behaviors appropriate for girls only than for boys only.

Parents reacted significantly more favorably to the child when the child was engaged in same-sex preferred behavior; children were more likely to receive negative responses to cross-sex-preferred behaviors. Parents gave girls more positive responses when they engaged in adult-oriented, dependent behavior.

On the questionnaire, parents did not see asking for help as a sex-preferred behavior; however, they were more likely to act positively toward a girl than a boy asking for help. This suggests that the parents were not fully aware of the methods they use to socialize their children.