Summarise the study by identifying the research design used, details of the variables being studied including levels of variables where relevant, and giving the study’s main results. Provide a critical commentary about the strengths and weaknesses of the research study. For each strength indicate why it is a positive element of the study. For each weakness clearly indicate why it is a weakness and what you would recommend to address it. The introduction and literature review have deliberately been omitted.The study below is adapted from J. Meltzoff (2008) and has been modified.
The Effect of Race of Examiner on IQ Scores of Native Americans
Bossiness in Firstborn Girls
Method
Participants
A total of 36 girls and 40 boys, ages 6 to 7 years, participated in this research. All of them were firstborn children and had at least one younger sibling. The children were recruited from five affluent private preschools. Parents of these children were approached through Parent-Teacher-Association meetings and those who agreed gave consent for their children (both the older and the younger ones) to participate in the study.
Protagonists for the study were the 3- to 4-year-old younger siblings of the study participants. They were not placed to interact with their own siblings in order to see whether behaviour patterns generalised outside of the family.
Procedure
Settings and Play Sessions
Playrooms located in the school were used for study purposes. Two strategically placed video recorders unobtrusively recorded the interactions within the room. All participant children gave their assent before participating.
Each firstborn child was paired with a protagonist, that is, a younger child unrelated to them. The two were introduced to each other and were left to play for 15 minutes. Half (n=18) of the firstborn girls were paired with younger girls, and the other half were paired with younger boys. Similarly, half of the firstborn boys (n=20) were paired with younger boys, and half were paired with younger girls.
Ratings and Raters
Ratings of bossiness were made from the videotapes. This was determined by the instances noted on the Checklist of Bossy Behaviours which was constructed for this study. The Checklist included behaviours such as (a) tells other what to do, (b) tells other what not to do, (c) tells other how to do something, (d) insists on having own way, (e) claims possession of toy or game, (f) makes demands on other, (g) verbally intimidates other. Specific examples were given for each of these bossy behaviours.
One male and one female psychology graduate student served as raters. Each rater watched the videotapes separately and independently. They had access to stop-start replay apparatus so that they could back up to take another look at a scene if they needed to make sure of what had transpired.
The tapes (all of which were 15 minutes in length) were divided by markers into 20-second segments. There were thus 45 segments in each tape. The interval recording method was used with each segment assessed to indicate if the older child (previously identified to the raters) initiated at least 1 bossy behaviour in the segment. If there were more than one incident per segment, it was counted as only one. An incident that had continued from the preceding segment was not counted again. Total scores could range from 0 (no bossy behaviour) to 45 (bossy behaviour initiated in all segments).
Results
As predicted, higher bossiness scores were obtained by girls playing with younger children as compared to the boys playing with younger children.
Discussion
The aim of this research was to test the hypothesis that firstborn girls, as a group, have a character trait of bossiness. When contrasted to firstborn boys, this seems to be the case. These data support the researchers' theory that birth order has a differential effect on boys and girls.
