Gender and relational differences in sensitivity to internal and external cues at 12 months

Gender differences favoring women in relation to awareness of the subjective (internal) world are well demonstrated but their origins are poorly understood. We trained 173 12-month-olds to visually fixate a video image in response to an internal cue (opening own mouth), external cue (seeing a face open its mouth), or both cues. Female infants showed significantly greater sensitivity than males to the internal cues suggesting that prioritization of internally accessible experience is already evident at one year of age.