Children in India Use Social Category Information to Guide Leadership Choices

• In Event: Gender Stereotypes about Leadership: Development and Consequences

Abstract

Globally, women and racial minorities are underrepresented in leadership (Holman & Schneider, 2018; World Economic Forum, 2020), and cultural messages often portray leadership as masculine and White (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Gündemir et al., 2014). Little is known about whether young children’s leadership attitudes reflect considerations of gender and/or race (see Patterson et al., 2019), and no research has tested these questions in non-WEIRD samples. We examined the development of 5–10-year-old children’s conceptualizations of leadership in India, the world’s largest democracy, and a noteworthy context regarding gender and race: women remain underrepresented in Indian government (World Economic Forum, 2020), and colorism (i.e., the privileging of lighter-skinned people) manifests across many facets of society (Nadeem, 2013).

In Experiment 1, children from Southern India (Chennai) completed an Election Task and a Drawing Task. In the Election Task, children viewed a yearbook photo depicting 20 target faces varying in gender and race/skin tone (lighter-skinned South Asian [Light-SA], darker-skinned South Asian [Dark-SA], White, Black). Children predicted which target the class would choose as President, Treasurer, Welcomer, and Notetaker. Last, we asked children which position they would want to be. For “President,” children chose Light-SA and White boy targets above chance, and chose Dark-SA and Black targets below chance (Figure 1). Moreover, whereas younger children showed an own-gender bias for President, older girls (but not boys) showed a decrease in choosing their gender-ingroup. Children’s tendency to choose White and Light-SA boy targets was specific to President; they were less systematic in their choices for the other positions. Interestingly, boys and girls were equally likely to want to be President. In the Drawing Task, children were asked to draw a “leader” (“someone who is really good at leading other people”). Not a single boy drew a girl, and girls’ drawings were mixed (52% drew girl leaders).

In Experiment 2, to explore whether children’s tendency to draw men as leaders was specific to male-stereotyped positions, we asked a new sample of children from Chennai, India to draw a “leader,” a “helper,” and a “scientist.” Replicating the findings from Experiment 1, children again drew men more than women as “leaders” and “scientists,” but not as “helpers” (Figure 2). Further, boys were more likely than girls to draw someone from their gender-ingroup as a “leader” and a “scientist.” In contrast, boys and girls were equally likely to draw someone from their gender-ingroup as a “helper.” Thus, children evaluated each position through a lens sensitive to patterns of representation in the world.

These findings highlight how social category information (race/skin tone and gender) influences developing attitudes about leadership. Children conferred leadership positions to lighter-skinned South Asian boys and White boys, and were more likely to draw boys than girls as leaders. By testing a non-WEIRD sample, the present findings also extend the corpus of research on race by highlighting colorism as an important aspect of children’s early social cognition. Identifying the roots of leadership attitudes can contribute to an understanding of the mechanisms that shape leadership beliefs into adulthood.

Authors

• Radhika Santhanagopalan, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Isobel A Heck, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katherine D. Kinzler, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author