In Western cultures, girls consistently prefer pink, boys prefer blue. Which academic camp lays claim to this difference?
Past research has made a case, in terms of the evolutionary advantage of finding fruit, for why females might be biologically predisposed to prefer pink and other bright colours. But a new study purports to show that girls only acquire their preference for pink, and boys their aversion to it, at around the age of two to three, just
as they’re beginning to talk about and become aware of gender.
Vannessa LoBue and
Judy DeLoache say their finding undermines the notion of innate sex differences in colour preference. “If females have a biological predisposition to favour colours such as pink, this preference should be evident regardless of experience of the acquisition of gender concepts,” they said.
