The textbook describes a study where researchers asked adults to watch a video of two children (whose gender they could not identify). Adults were then asked to rate the children’s level of aggression. The adults who believed that _____ rated the children as least aggressive.

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The question describes a study in which adults rated children’s aggression after viewing a video of two children whose gender could not be identified. The key prompt is: the adults who believed that _____ rated the children as least aggressive.
Option 1: 'the children were both girls' — This is the correct option according to the provided answer. The reasoning behind it is that gender stereotypes often influence perceptions of aggression; if adults implicitly associate girls with being less aggressive than boys, they may rate two girls as less aggressive than two boys or mixed-gender pairs when gender is uncertain or unspecified. By believing both children were girls, participants can rely on the stereotype that girls are gentler, leading to lower aggression ratings.
Option 2: 'the children were both boys' — If adults believed both children were boys, they might rely on the opposite stereotype, which often associates boys with higher aggression. This would likely lead to higher, not lower, aggression ratings, so this choice would not explain a reduction in perceived aggression.
Option 3: 'they could not determine the sex of the children' — If participants could not determine sex, their ratings would likely be influenced less by gender stereotypes and more by observed behavior in the video, which could produce a wider range of ratings or averages that do not systematically minimize aggression. This option does not provide a gender-based explanation for least aggression ratings.
Option 4: 'one child was a boy and one was a girl' — A mixed-gender pairing might evoke a different set of stereotype-driven expectations, but there is no clear, consistent rationale that this would lead to the lowest aggression ratings across observers. The outcome would depend on individual biases, making it less likely to produce a uniform effect of least aggression.
Option 5: 'playing video games is permissible' — This option introduces an irrelevant variable that has nothing to do with gender-based perceptions of aggression in the video. Since the prompt centers on beliefs about the children’s gender and its influence on aggression ratings, this choice fails to address the core question and introduces a non sequitur.
In summary, the reasoning aligns with the idea that gender stereotypes (specifically, the belief that both children are girls) would bias adults to rate aggression as lower, whereas other options either invoke different stereotypes, remove gender cues, or introduce unrelated concepts that do not consistently produce the least aggressive ratings.

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The textbook describes a study where researchers asked adults to watch a video of two children (whose gender they could not identify). Adults were then asked to rate the children’s level of aggression. The adults who believed that _____ rated the children as least aggressive.

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