Poster #186 - Children’s Friendship Preference at the Intersection of Race, Gender Identity, and Gender-Typed Behavior

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Sex, Gender

Integrative Statement

Introduction.
Children prefer to play with others who are similar to themselves concerning characteristics such as race, gender, and food preference (Bar-Haim, Ziv, Lamy, & Hodes, 2006). Out of these characteristics, race and gender are typically among the first social identity categories that children develop an understanding of and incorporate them into their self-concept (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; Martin & Ruble, 2010). Children, from a young age, showed same-race and same-gender friendship preference (Baron & Banaji, 2006). When pitted against one another, gender has been shown to override race in guiding children’s friendship preferences (Weisman, Johnson, & Shutts, 2015). Same age children also prefer playmates who display same-gender-typed behaviors, such that girls choose to play with girls and boys who display feminine, girl-typed behaviors (Alexander & Hines, 1994). When gender identity is inconsistent with their gender-typed behaviors, which often referred to as gender non-conformity (Rieger, Linsenmeier, Gygax, & Bailey, 2008), children expressed negative attitudes against it (Kowalski, 2007; Wallien, Veenstra, Kreukels, & Cohen-Kettenis, 2010).
Although the literature indicates that gender often takes precedence over race in guiding children’s friendship preference, it remains unknown how varying gender-typed behavior presented might affect the rule of “gender trumps race”. It is also unknown whether children if seeing others displaying gender-nonconforming behaviors (e.g., boys play with Barbie dolls or girls play with cars), would be more tolerant of in-group peers, i.e., same-race or same-gender peer, due to mere in-group preference, or less tolerant due to violations of the in-group norm. We addressed these gaps by examining the relative importance of race, gender label, gender-typed behaviors in guiding children’s friendship preference.
Participants.
We recruited 123 Chinese preschool-aged children from two eastern cities in mainland China (64 females), Mage = 5.17, SD = .41.
Methods and Procedure.
The Implicit Gender Stereotype Test (IGST) was administered first to measure child participants’ implicit gender stereotypes. After the IGST, participants completed the vignette task, which assessed children’s social preference for hypothetical peers. In the vignette task, participants were read 8 different vignettes describing hypothetical peers who varied in race (i.e., Caucasian and Asian, or Black and Asian, with corresponding difference in skin color), gender (i.e., boy vs. girl) and gender-typed behavior (i.e., boy-type toys, which were miniature race cars and trucks, vs. girl-typed toys, which were a Barbie doll and dollhouse). The vignettes were accompanied by questions and tasks that gauged social preference for the hypothetical peers.
Results.
We found that Chinese children preferred to be friends with gender-conforming peers whose identity was consistent with gender-typed behaviors to those gender-nonconforming peers. Moreover, gender non-conforming boys who displayed feminine behaviors were the least preferred. We also showed that stronger endorsement of gender stereotypes was associated with negative appraisal of gender nonconforming behaviors.
Implications.
Our findings shed light on the relative importance of race, gender identity, and gender-typed behavior in the early development of social preference. The deep understanding of the mechanisms supporting the emergence of social group preferences could help us design strategies to reduce bias early in the childhood.

Authors

• Miao Qian, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author

• Yang Wang, Central China Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Wang Ivy Wong, University of Hong Kong
  Non-Presenting Author

• Genyue Fu, Hangzhou Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bin Zuo, Central China Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Douglas VanderLaan, university of Toronto Missisauge
  Non-Presenting Author