g more cross-cultural studies involving cultures different from our own. Preschoolers play with toys also contains sex differences (Turner, et al., 1993). These sex differences seem to originate form the child learning stereotypes from society. Children simply learn to like certain "sex- appropriate" toys, because they are exposed to them and encouraged to play with them more often. According to one study (Idle, et al., 1993), children accepted most toys presented to them by their parents regardless if they were "sex- appropriate" or not. Preschoolers also show sex differences in their behaviour during play. Black (1989), found that boys preferred more creative topics than girls pretend play and girls used more conversation for planning than boys. One possible explanation for this is if males found pretend play to be easy, they did not converse with each other to understand what was going on. Future studies examine this more closely to try to determine why these sex differences occur. In a cross-cultural study, it was found that children preferred to play with members of their own sex. (Turner, et al., 1993). The presence of adults may reduce this pressure to associate with own's own sex. This may occur because the adults may pressure the child to associate with the opposite sex, to the child has learned that adults find it acceptable to interact with members of the same sex. It seems that the largest factor why children prefer members of the same sex is because their behaviour is similar. Alexander and Hines (1994), discovered that boys chose female targets with stereotypical masculine play styles over male targets with feminine play styles, and girls chose male targets with feminine play styles. This probably occurs because if one child's play style is similar to another's, that child will be more interested and will want to interact with that child much greater than if their play styles differ. It seems that in many cases sex differe...
