Read the following statements and choose the correct option : Assertion (A) :…
2023
Read the following statements and choose the correct option :
Assertion (A) : At a very early age, girls in most cultures across the world choose dolls as toys while boys prefer to play with cars.
Reason (R) : Children organize information about what is considered appropriate for a boy or a girl on the basis of what a particular culture expects and behave accordingly.
- A.
Both (A) and (R) are false.
- B.
Both (A) and (R) are true and (R) is the correct explanation of (A).
- C.
Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A).
- D.
(A) is true, but (R) is false.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Developmental psychologists explain early gender-typed behaviour through gender-schema formation: from infancy, children absorb cues from family, media, and peers about which objects, activities, and behaviours their culture marks as "appropriate" for a boy or a girl, and they build these cues into a mental framework (a gender schema) that they then use to guide their own choices and to judge others' behaviour.
The toy-preference difference described in Assertion (A) - girls choosing dolls, boys choosing cars, across most cultures and from a very early age - is exactly the kind of pattern this schema-formation process produces: once a child has organised information about "boy toys" and "girl toys" from the surrounding culture, the child's own play choices fall in line with that classification. Reason (R) states this organising-and-conforming mechanism directly, so it is not merely a true statement running alongside (A); it is the specific process that generates the pattern in (A), making it the correct explanation of (A).
"Both (A) and (R) are false" fails because the early, cross-cultural toy-preference pattern in (A) and the culture-driven schema-building process in (R) are both well-supported by developmental research - neither is a false claim.
"Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A)" wrongly treats the two statements as independently true but unconnected, when the schema-based sorting process in (R) is precisely what produces the toy-choice pattern in (A).
"(A) is true, but (R) is false" accepts the observed toy-preference pattern while denying that culture shapes it, contradicting the well-documented role of cultural expectations in guiding children's gendered behaviour.