Gender Attitudes in Early Childhood: Behavioral Consequences and Cognitive Antecedents

Halim, May Ling; Ruble, Diane N.; Tamis-LeMonda, Catherine S.; Shrout, Patrick E.; Amodio, David M.

doi:10.1111/cdev.12642

Cited by 58 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 92 publications

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“…Recently, Bian et al (2017) investigated the acquisition of the genderbrilliance stereotype by assessing the extent to which 5-to 7-year-olds associate being "really, really smart" (a child-friendly way of describing brilliance) with one gender over the other. In line with evidence that young children show strong ingroup favoritism (e.g., Halim, Ruble, Tamis-LeMonda, Shrout, & Amodio, 2017;Powlishta, 1995;Shutts, Roben, & Spelke, 2013;Yee & Brown, 1994;Zosuls, Martin, & Hill, 2011), 5-year-old girls and boys generally selected people of their own gender as smart. In contrast, 6-and 7-year-old girls selected women and girls as being "really, really smart" less often than 6-and 7-year-old boys selected men and boys, and also significantly less often than 5-year-old girls did.…”

Section: Prior Evidence On the Early Acquisition Of The Gender-brillisupporting

confidence: 71%

The Acquisition of Gender Stereotypes about Intellectual Ability: Intersections with Race

Jaxon

Lei

Shachnai

et al. 2019

Journal of Social Issues

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The common stereotype that brilliance is a male trait is an obstacle to women's success in many prestigious careers. This gender‐brilliance stereotype is powerful in part because it seems to be acquired early in life and might thus shape girls’ career aspirations. To date, however, research on this stereotype has not considered how its acquisition might intersect with (1) the other social identities that men and women are perceived to hold, and (2) the social identities that children themselves hold. The present study examined these open questions. First, we compared 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children's (N = 203) assumptions about the intellectual abilities of White men and women with their assumptions about the intellectual abilities of Black men and women. Second, we compared White children's assumptions about the intellectual abilities of men and women with those of children of color (primarily Latinx, Black, and Asian). The results suggested two main conclusions: First, children learn to associate White men (vs. women), but not Black men (vs. women), with brilliance. In fact, children generally see Black men as less brilliant than Black women. Second, the results suggested that the stereotype associating White men with brilliance is shared by children regardless of their own race. These results add considerable nuance to the literature on the development of gender stereotypes about intellectual ability and have implications for policies that might be implemented to prevent the negative effects of these stereotypes.

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Section: Prior Evidence On the Early Acquisition Of The Gender-brillisupporting

confidence: 71%

The Acquisition of Gender Stereotypes about Intellectual Ability: Intersections with Race

Jaxon

Lei

Shachnai

et al. 2019

Journal of Social Issues

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“…As one Mexican‐American 5‐year‐old boy explained, boys are “ cien veces, mil veces buenos ” or “a hundred times, a thousand times great” (, p. 120). Children also tend to allocate more rewards to same‐gender children than to other‐gender children . In our studies, distributions of gender typing among young children (interindividual differences) are often skewed.…”

Section: Early and Ubiquitous Gender Rigiditymentioning

confidence: 73%

“…Moreover, children tend to segregate by gender : At around age 4, children spend about three times as much time with peers of the same gender as they do with peers of the other gender (effect sizes are large, d > 2.5; ). In terms of attitudes, children display zeal for their own gender group, insisting that their own gender is superior to the other gender . As one Mexican‐American 5‐year‐old boy explained, boys are “ cien veces, mil veces buenos ” or “a hundred times, a thousand times great” (, p. 120).…”

Section: Early and Ubiquitous Gender Rigiditymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In our studies, distributions of gender typing among young children (interindividual differences) are often skewed. For example, half to two‐thirds of the children pick the highest response possible to indicate how much they like their own gender group or how happy they are to be a girl or boy . Thus, gender rigidity is prevalent in early childhood and is evident across multiple domains.…”

Section: Early and Ubiquitous Gender Rigiditymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Princesses and Superheroes: Social‐Cognitive Influences on Early Gender Rigidity

Halim

2016

Child Dev Perspectives

Self Cite

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In this article, I review evidence showing that early childhood is a normative time for gender rigidity across many domains, including appearance, play, peer preferences, and intergroup gender attitudes. Gender rigidity can be seen in children's adherence to what society deems appropriate, or avoidance of what society deems inappropriate, for their gender. Many aspects of gender typing show an intriguing curvilinear pattern of increasing rigidity followed by flexibility. I offer an explanation for this pattern, focusing on children's growing awareness, knowledge, and understanding of gender. These developing cognitions are theorized to motivate children to engage in active self-socialization as they strive to adhere to gender norms. I suggest how we can understand variation in early gender rigidity and whether gender rigidity has implications for well-being and achievement in life.

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“…This sex difference is consistent with these drawings partly reflecting children's own gender identities and in‐group preferences. Most children have positive attitudes toward their own sex (Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, ; Halim, Ruble, Tamis‐LeMonda, Shrout, & Amodio, ) and therefore may draw their own sex as an expression of these attitudes. For instance, when asked to draw a generic person, usually 70% or more of both boys and girls draw their own sex (Arteche et al., ; Picard, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Development of Children's Gender‐Science Stereotypes: A Meta‐analysis of 5 Decades of U.S. Draw‐A‐Scientist Studies

Miller¹,

Nolla²,

Eagly³

et al. 2018

Child Development

363

236

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This meta-analysis, spanning 5 decades of Draw-A-Scientist studies, examined U.S. children's gender-science stereotypes linking science with men. These stereotypes should have weakened over time because women's representation in science has risen substantially in the United States, and mass media increasingly depict female scientists. Based on 78 studies (N = 20,860; grades K-12), children's drawings of scientists depicted female scientists more often in later decades, but less often among older children. Children's depictions of scientists therefore have become more gender diverse over time, but children still associate science with men as they grow older. These results may reflect that children observe more male than female scientists in their environments, even though women's representation in science has increased over time.

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Gender Attitudes in Early Childhood: Behavioral Consequences and Cognitive Antecedents

Cited by 58 publications

References 92 publications

The Acquisition of Gender Stereotypes about Intellectual Ability: Intersections with Race

The Acquisition of Gender Stereotypes about Intellectual Ability: Intersections with Race

Princesses and Superheroes: Social‐Cognitive Influences on Early Gender Rigidity

The Development of Children's Gender‐Science Stereotypes: A Meta‐analysis of 5 Decades of U.S. Draw‐A‐Scientist Studies

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