Poster #120 - Children's and Adults' Evaluations of STEM-Related Inequality

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

The distribution of resources is a moral issue concerning matters of fairness, equality, and equity. Previous research has demonstrated an age-related shift in children’s evaluations of resource inequalities, from a focus on strict equality to a preference for equity. Recent research also demonstrates that, with age, children take disadvantaged status in to account and negatively evaluate inequalities of resources between racial groups (Elenbaas & Killen, 2016). Building on these findings, the current study explores children’s and adults’ evaluations of resource inequalities in three novel ways. First, the current study explores the degree to which children allocate resources differently between groups of boys and groups of girls, thus focusing on gender group membership. Second, the current study manipulates the level of effort that each gender group puts forth with the resources at hand. Lastly, given that previous research indicates that children and adults display biases and stereotypes surrounding boys’ and girls’ science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) interests and abilities (Cveneck, Meltzoff, & Greenwald, 2011; Miller, Eagly, & Linn, 2014), the current study explored an inequality of STEM resources, thus investigating potential gender stereotypes and biases regarding the permissibility of a STEM resource inequality.
Participants (N = 100, sample goal = 144) were divided into three age groups: 5-to-6-year-olds (n = 41, M = 5.91 years, SD = 0.63 years), 10-to-11-year-olds (n = 20, M = 10.85, SD = 0.61 years), and adults (n = 39, M = 20.07 years, SD = 1.12 years). Participants viewed two vignettes that depicted a resource inequality based on gender in which one group received six boxes of science supplies and another group received one box of science supplies, with one group displaying high amounts of effort and the other group displaying low amounts of effort regarding science projects. Participants were asked to evaluate how okay or not okay it was that one group had more boxes of science supplies than the other group (from 1 = really not okay to 6 = really okay). Thus, a lower score reflected evaluating the inequality negatively, while a higher score indicated evaluating the inequality positively.
As shown in Figure 1, when the girls’ group demonstrated high amounts of effort but was disadvantaged, 10-to-11 year-olds and adults evaluated the inequality more negatively than did 5-to-6 year-olds (p’s < .05). In contrast, when the boys’ group demonstrated high amounts of effort but was disadvantaged, adults evaluated the inequality more negatively than 10-to-11 year-olds (p < .05). Further, when the high effort girls’ group was disadvantaged compared to advantaged, both 10-to-11 year-olds and adults evaluated the resource inequality more negatively (p’s < .01), while 5-to-6 year-olds made no distinction. In contrast, when the high effort boys’ group was disadvantaged compared to advantaged, 5-to-6 year-olds and 10-to-11 year-olds evaluated the resource inequality more negatively (p’s < .05), while adults made no distinction. These findings will be discussed in terms of how children and adults evaluate inequality when weighing factors such as gender group membership, effort, and disadvantaged status.

Authors

• Riley N. Sims, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author

• Amanda R. Burkholder, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author

• Eva Freites, University of Maryland, College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Yee, University of Maryland, College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melanie Killen, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author