Trivia Time - Part 1

Filling the Internet with useless trivia since 1647.

I've been studying more psychology, and I've hit a veritable gold mine of things to discuss or just blurt out in conversation to appear clever and intelligent. Though I prefer the former, I don't mind the latter, and these issues definitely interest me.

The real issue I was going to discuss is actually an interesting cultural difference between the US and Sweden; I read an American study about the influence of daycare on pre-school children. A while back, this was a hot topic in Swedish politics - I dunno, it might still be. The interesting thing is that in Sweden, the focus was on how being reared in a "social environment", as in a "dagis", would help a child's development. The American study, au contraire, discussed how being raised in a daycare center may harm a child's development.

The study reached the conclusion that exposure to daycare centres is more or less harmless for a child, with a notable effect saying that there is a slightly larger risk to develop anxiety if there's no regular teacher to bond to - that is, public daycare causes anxiety if and only if the teachers are replaced "often" - I didn't find the operational definition of how often this would be, unfortunately.

What's interesting isn't the study in itself, but the cultural backdrop against which the questions occur. Swedes presume that daycare is good, the question is only how good it is. The American point of view was diametrically opposed, asking how bad it is. The American study found no beneficial effects of daycare - though of course, they weren't looking for it. Swedish studies might find something.

I'm not saying psychology is inherently flawed - but it's interesting to see how large a factor culture can be.

Which leads me to my second bit of trivia - research on gender identity. Now, children learn things in pretty odd ways, so this is in no way conclusive evidence that gender is "fluid" - but it turns out that many children are incapable of grasping the idea that gender is constant until the age of about 6. While they very quickly understand the difference between boys and girls, many believe it can change - boys want to grow up to become mothers, and can't understand why this is impossible. This study is pretty interesting; there are huge biological differences between men and women, but it is possible that it's hard for a "blank slate" individual to instinctively associate these differences with what's between your legs. Interesting evidence that gender roles may, in fact, be a social construct (though remember, children learn things in peculiar ways). Some children never fully adopt gender constancy - these are likely to keep viewing gender as relatively fluid all the way into adulthood.