Boys and girls, men and women: Do children take stimulus age into account when expressing gender stereotypes?

Abstract

Gender and age are salient social categories from early in development. However, whether children's beliefs about gender and age intersect, such that gender stereotypes might be expressed differently when asked about children (compared to adults) has not been investigated. Here, in a preregistered study (N = 297), we examined if young children (3.0-6.9-year-olds, M age = 5.03 years, n = 145) and adults (n = 152) across Massachusetts were more likely to express gender stereotypes when presented with child or adult stimuli. Participants were presented with 20 questions about gender stereotyped behavioral and psychological properties and selected their response (male or female) for each question by selecting between four child faces (two White boys, two White girls) or four adult faces (two White men, two White women) across two separate blocks. Overall, both children and adults expressed gender stereotypes above chance, and, in children, expression of stereotypes increased across the age range. Although neither children nor adults applied gender stereotypes differently to child versus adult visual stimuli, all participants were more likely to apply gender stereotypes when that stereotype was child-centric (e.g., about doing childish activities). Our results suggest that children could be vulnerable to stereotype content from an early age; however, future research should explore whether children show this same age-invariant pattern when both gender and age are made salient and directly contrasted (e.g., by presenting men, women, boys, and girls simultaneously). Public Significance StatementThis study suggests that children as young as 3 years old apply gender stereotypes equally to child and adult stimuli. Thus, even young children might be susceptible to the harm that comes from awareness or internalization of gender stereotypes.

Gender brilliance stereotype emerges early and predicts children’s motivation in South Korea

“…An analysis using only the story or the guessing task revealed similar patterns (see Table S3). An additional analysis using a linear mixed model including the age of target (adult versus child) revealed no significant main effect or interactions involving target age, ps > .136, confirming previous findings that children hold similar gender stereotypes when judging adults and children (Alto & Mandalaywala, 2023;Bian et al, 2017).…”

Gender brilliance stereotype emerges early and predicts children's motivation in South Korea

“…An analysis using only the story or the guessing task revealed similar patterns (Table S3). An additional analysis using a linear mixed model including the age of target (adult vs. child) revealed no significant main effect or interactions involving target age, ps > .136, confirming previous findings that children hold similar gender stereotypes when judging adults and children (Alto & Mandalaywala, 2023;Bian et al, 2017).…”

Gender stereotypes regarding power and niceness in Japanese children

“…Past studies have found that when high status is not framed in terms of power but in terms of leadership, Western children do not necessarily link it to gender [ 89 ]. Moreover, when asking adults about children's gendered traits [ 90 , 91 ], ‘leader’ does not emerge as a stereotype of boys, whereas ‘dominant’ (e.g. aggressive) does.…”