‘It's not that we hate you’: Understanding children's gender attitudes and expectancies about peer relationships

Abstract

Widespread gender segregation, evident throughout elementary school, seems to imply that girls and boys have negative feelings and thoughts about one another, and classic theories of inter-group processes support this idea. However, research has generally overlooked children's feelings and perceptions about gender-related interpersonal interactions. This paper investigates the nature of children's attitudes about same- and other-gender peers, and explores how those attitudes relate to the expectancies and beliefs children hold about same- and other-gender peer interactions. Children (N= 98 fifth graders) completed questionnaires assessing their global liking of own- and other-gender peers (Yee & Brown, 1994), positive and negative attitudes about own- and other-gender peers, and outcome expectancies related to interacting with own- and other-gender peers. Results indicated that rather than being characterized by out-group negativity, children's inter-group gender attitudes are best characterized by an in-group positivity bias. Children's positive and negative affective attitudes were also significantly associated with outcome expectancies. In contrast, global liking of own- and other-gender peers was less predictive of outcome expectancies. Thus, the greater specificity of the affective attitude measures appeared to be a more predictive and potentially fruitful gauge of children's feelings about own- and other-gender peers. Results are discussed in terms of the need for finer grained and more extensive studies of children's gender-related feelings and cognitions about own- and other-gender peers.

“The Cooties Effect”: Amygdala Reactivity to Opposite- versus Same-sex Faces Declines from Childhood to Adolescence

“…With development, this bias favoring the ingroup dissipated, such that older youth rated same-sex and opposite-sex peers as having equal levels of negative and positive attributes. Our finding of a peak in sex-related stereotypes in early childhood followed by a developmental decline in favoring the ingroup over outgroup is consistent with prior research, showing that rigid sex-related behaviors wane across development (Zosuls et al, 2011; Serbin et al, 1993; Trautner, 1992). We also found that accuracy during the emotion-matching tasks changed across development only for opposite-sex faces, such that accuracy was low early in development and became equal to same-sex performance later in development.…”

Experienced and Expected Similarity to Same-Gender Peers: Moving Toward a Comprehensive Model of Gender Segregation

“…In particular, it would be useful to continue development of measures concerning the attitudes and the beliefs children hold about same-and other-gender peers (Zosuls et al 2011). For instance, children who expect to feel comfortable with same-gender peers should be more likely to interact with same-gender peers than other-gender peers.…”

Gender Development Research in Sex Roles: Historical Trends and Future Directions

“…Few studies focused on assessing cognitions or beliefs about relationships. There is a need for theory to better understand the dynamics and development of male-female (and same-gender) relationships over time (Zosuls et al 2011). Such knowledge would help us to better understand children’s interpersonal dynamics in friendship, school, and home contexts and how to promote more positive relationships into adulthood.…”

“…One reason for the dearth of research directly measuring children’s intergroup gender attitudes might be that such bias is inferred from children’s greater liking for peers of their own gender. Whereas such evidence certainly indicates more positive attitudes about one’s own group, it does not constitute a direct measure of attitudes and is a poor gauge of the exact nature of children’s feelings about their own and the other gender group (Martin and Ruble 2010; Zosuls et al 2011). Once again, however, it could be the case that studies focused on Intergroup Processes appear in journals that more specifically address these topics (e.g., social psychology journals).…”