PBS presents the most positive role models for children. Girls and boys are almost equally well represented on television. In contrast to the ethnic breakdown of child characters, this study shows that entertainment television does a good job of representing both boy and girl characters. There are important differences in the ways girls and boys are portrayed. The study also analyzed the behaviors of child characters on entertainment television, and revealed several differences in how boys and girls are portrayed.
Girls are twice as likely as boys to show affection.
As noted earlier, when the study examined whether a child character's behavior was seen as effective in meeting the child's goal, it was revealed that physical aggression was effective most of the time. In a positive development, children on television are relatively equally divided between boys and girls, although the behaviors for the different sexes are shown to vary in ways that could reinforce gender stereotypes, because girls are portrayed as more affectionate and boys as more physically aggressive. The absence of minority characters could leave children from these groups without significant role models, and could lead children of all ethnic groups to form a skewed vision of their community and their place in it. The study also revealed that few role models are presented on television to help teach children how to handle the many important social and family problems they face in real life, with surprisingly few shows offering examples of children coping with such problems. With regard to whether television is showing positive or negative role models to children, we found mixed results.