Poster #184 - Gendered Color Preference in Infants' Everyday Interactions with Objects

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Sex, Gender

Integrative Statement

Colors are gendered. By two years of age, girls typically prefer pink objects and boys typically prefer blue ones (LoBue & DeLoache, 2011), and color preferences strengthen over time (Wong & Hines, 2015). However, gender stereotypes change: Pink used to be a color for boys, not girls (Frassanito & Pettorini, 2008) and girls/women are more likely to cross gender-stereotype boundaries than boys/men (Carli et al., 2016). Moreover, the dominant test paradigms for gendered color preferences involve laboratory experiments in which researchers pre-select objects and their colors (e.g. Lobue & DeLoache, 2011; Wong & Hines, 2015). These paradigms fail to describe how infants spontaneously interact with objects of different colors in the home environment, where they presumably learn color stereotypes.
We asked whether infants display gendered color preferences during their everyday activities at home. Our preliminary data include one-hour home videos of 15 18-month-olds (8 boys) and 11 24-month-olds (10 boys); the final sample size will include 24 infants of each age (half boys). In an initial pass, we identified each infant interaction with objects designed for use by children (e.g., toys, children’s books, sippy cup, child’s shoe) and objects designed for use by adults (e.g., spatula, coaster, parent’s shoe). From these interactions, we created a list of each unique object. Then, we categorized each object into a color category: pink, purple, blue, green, orange, brown, black, red, gold, white/beige/light gray, and multi-colored.
Overall, infants interacted with M = 56 unique objects. Most interactions involved objects that were designed for use by children (M = 69.2%). Across babies, the most common target of their interactions were books (M = 9.2%). Out of all objects M = 4.5% of objects were pink and M = 10.1% were blue. Most objects designed for children were multicolored (M = 48.5%), blue (M = 14.8%), or green (M = 14.8%). Most objects that were designed for adults were neutral (M = 43.5%), black (M = 17.9%), or multicolored (M = 16.3%). Despite the variety of color choices in objects designed for children, girls interacted more with pink objects (M = 14.9%) than did boys (M = 1.7%), p < .05. Girls transitioned among 37 unique pink objects, ranging from 0 to 14. Our preliminary data showed no evidence of gender differences for other colors for objects designed for children or for objects designed for adults.
Currently, we are coding the presence of pink and blue in multicolored objects. From video tours of infants’ homes, we are coding the availability of differently colored objects designed for children to determine, for example, whether girls’ preference for pink reflects the availability of toys, books, and objects in their homes. As further evidence of gendered preferences, we are also coding whether children self-selected the objects or mothers offered the objects. Moreover, we will validate our color codes by asking naïve observers to categorize square swatches of color from each object. These data will provide an objective index of gendered color preferences in toddlers—an important source of gender stereotyping.

Authors

• Christopher A DeCamp, NYU
  Presenting Author

• Orit Herzberg, NYU
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katelyn Fletcher, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jacob Lev Schatz, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jake McCallum, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karen E Adolph, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author