But you know what did change their children's toy preference? The amount of trucks or dolls they have at home.
"The toys that they played with in the home (like the toys that they had been exposed to for some time) predicted their preferences," explained Woods. "Since parents choose the toys in the home, parents may be able to influence infants' toy preferences over time through simple exposure to toys."
This means that parents may be affecting what their children play with simply by what they bring into the home.
"Right from the time a parent finds out the sex of their infant, they begin treating the child differently depending on the sex," said Woods. "Because playing with dolls promotes nurturing behaviours, I wanted to know if females' preferences for dolls and males' preference for other toys is driven primarily by biological predispositions or by parents."